I know there is bad in the world but I look for the good…”

A lot of people could have said this. But the one who did not only knew there was bad in the world but suffered directly from it in the most horrific and tragic of ways.

She is also one who not only found the good but created good—beautiful, powerful, everlasting good in this world.

This woman is Alice Herz-Sommer. She passed away February 23^rd, 2014 at 110, making her the oldest surviving Holocaust survivor.

Alice miraculously survived and spent the majority of the War in the ghetto-labor camp of Theresienstadt along with her five-year-old son. She was sent to Theresienstadt following the gassing of her mother and her husband in the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz.

She survived by being able to use her incredible musical talent to forcibly perform and entertain the Nazis with her piano playing. While I cannot fathom how people with no regard, respect or empathy for human life could appreciate the beauty of music, their lack of humanity never was able to impact or effect Alice’s inherit love of humanity. Their evil couldn’t taint her goodness. Their horror couldn’t overshadow her beauty. As she herself said, “Hatred eats the soul of the hater, not the hated.”

If there was anyone who had a reason to be bitter—an excuse to be bitter—Alice was in that category. Had she spent her life suffering from depression, anxiety or anger, no one would have blamed her.

But she refused to.

She saw beauty in the world around her. In the people around her. Because she wanted to. Because it was there. Sometimes hidden, sometimes revealed, but present when she searched for it. While it seems almost unfathomable, she was known to repeatedly say, “Every day in life is beautiful. Every day.”

In the Talmud there is a lesson regarding the process of looking and finding. And the teaching is that if we seek hard enough, we will find what we are looking for. It reads: “If one says he has looked and has not found, don’t believe him. If one says he hasn’t looked and he has found, don’t believe him. Only the one who says he has looked and he has found, believe him,” (Megillah 6B).

Throughout her long life, Alice sought and found beauty in everything around her. And she continued to play music all her days. She continued to bring joy and inspiration to all those who knew her and all those who knew of her. She was known for her love of life and her laughter.

I find it no coincidence that Alice passed away in the Hebrew month of Adar. The Hebrew word ‘adar’ is etymologically related to the word ‘adir’ which means ‘strength.’ Alice was unquestionably a woman of strength—in mind, in body and in spirit. But it is during the month of Adar that we are told we are to be ‘marbin b’simcha’ to increase in our joy. Furthermore, according to Kabbalah, each month in the Hebrew calendar is represented by a different sense. The sense of the month of Adar is that of laughter.

The reason for increased joy and the connection to laughter is that during Adar the holiday of Purim is celebrated. Purim remembers and recognizes our triumph over evil and our miraculous survival of the attempt to annihilate the Jewish people. We survived then, we survived in Nazi Germany, and we continue to survive. And it is during Purim that we read the text of Megillat Esther. The scroll is named after Queen Esther as she is the heroine of the Purim story.

One woman’s strength, determination and focus on the positive transformed her personal life and the lives of all those around her. It says that Megillat Esther has eternal value for it is teaches the true purpose and focus that we all should to have. Chassidic philosophy explains that the name of Megillat Esther should be read as ‘megaleh ha’hester’ ‘to reveal what is concealed.’

And while there is plenty of terror and horror and negativity that we could easily focus on, we can and must choose to celebrate the strength, the joy and the laughter.

Alice didn’t intend to become a hero. She didn’t intend to become a role model. But that is who she will always be. Her life is a reminder to each and every one of us that we have the power and ability to think about and focus on what we want, regardless of what is happening all around us. And when we choose to look for beauty and goodness, it won’t only be what we find, but it will become all we allow ourselves to see, and what those who look at us will see as well. In the words of Alice: “When you are optimistic, when you are not complaining, when you look at the good side of your life, everybody loves you.”

In admiration and memory of Alice Herz-Sommer. May her life always bring inspiration, strength and joy to all who learn about her. 

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