Meet Team Mandell JCC Israel Ride 2013 Team Member, Mel Simon:
Dear Friends and Family
With your help I have raised the funds I pledged in support of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. This past Saturday I cycled 70 miles and can securely declare that I am ready to take on the Negev desert beginning in just over one week.
For five months I have trained, I have raised funds, I've readied my body and my soul for a journey through Israel upon two wheels powered by one heart. To take on this challenge, I was inspired by the dignity of dear friends suffering the loss of their young son. In memory of Michael Kwartler, I will ride from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean and through the Negev to the Arava and unto Eilat. This venture was born of the tears shed in spring and a summer and life too short.
I knew that though my tears would turn to sweat, Michael's family's sorrow would remain. Now as I prepare to leave with my training near complete, I cannot forget that they remain rent, still torn by
fate.
My mission now changing from training and fund raising is to complete this ride
with dignity, to accept the pain from hills to climb and miles still to ride.
Yes to celebrate the journey's joys, but to share the tears each day that
Michael's left behind.
I pray that in some small way this tribute to Michael's memory gives his family strength to carry on, to climb the steepest hills and to walk the extra mile even with the stone they carry in their hearts. This past Sunday I visited Michael's eternal resting place and saw the stones placed as a border to his plot and was moved by the meaning those stones have given his family. To remember this as I searched the cemetery for a rock to place upon Michael's head stone I gathered two. I left one on his memorial, the other I will carry with me as I ride, to eschew the cyclist's goal of shedding pounds, I'll carry this weight, but a pebble in my pocket, as a reminder that the world is not always right or just but it is our duty to live as commanded to repair the world to perform acts of loving kindness and to give tzedakah.
To all of you who have supported this effort I am thankful of the tzedakah you pledged in my honor and in Michael's memory. Know that you have given me strength to train and raise the funds to support the Arava and know that you have shown support for Michael's family.
I pray that in some small way this tribute to Michael's memory gives his family strength to carry on, to climb the steepest hills and to walk the extra mile even with the stone they carry in their hearts. This past Sunday I visited Michael's eternal resting place and saw the stones placed as a border to his plot and was moved by the meaning those stones have given his family. To remember this as I searched the cemetery for a rock to place upon Michael's head stone I gathered two. I left one on his memorial, the other I will carry with me as I ride, to eschew the cyclist's goal of shedding pounds, I'll carry this weight, but a pebble in my pocket, as a reminder that the world is not always right or just but it is our duty to live as commanded to repair the world to perform acts of loving kindness and to give tzedakah.
To all of you who have supported this effort I am thankful of the tzedakah you pledged in my honor and in Michael's memory. Know that you have given me strength to train and raise the funds to support the Arava and know that you have shown support for Michael's family.
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