I’m hoping to share these thoughts with other bereaved parents, particularly those of the Jewish faith, though I welcome all readers.
On the Friday night after Sholom was buried I dreamed that I was teaching the twenty-second chapter of the book of Kings, but in the dream it was clear that I didn’t tell the students whether it was the first book of Kings or the second. The dream was quite vivid. The students in the class were faceless, as was the principal who walked in at the beginning of the lesson. I saw the building from outside and my landlord, Yisroel Meir Shapiro, was the owner of the school building, too. When I woke up a few minutes later, I checked both books - Kings I and Kings II. Chapter 22 in Kings I is about Acha’av and the false prophets, which didn’t “say” much to me. Chapter twenty-two in Kings II said quite a lot.
First, the chapter starts with the words, “ben-sh’moneh – at the age of eight,” and the initial Hebrew consonants of those two words are also the initial consonants of SHalom B’nayahu’s name.
Second, the chapter continues to say that King Josiah did was upright in the eyes of G-d and that he did turned neither right nor left from the ways of David, his father. However, David was not his father, but rather an ancestor. Sholom B’nayahu’s grandfather was also a David.
Third, the chapter states, “And it was in the eighteen year of King Josiah. The passage has a tipchah (a cantillation mark) under the Hebrew word that means, “of the king,” indicating a minor pause at that word. If you stop at the word ”of the king” as indicated by the cantillation mark, you could read the passage to mean, “In the eighteenth year to the king,” indicating that in his eighteenth year he went to the king. Sholom B’nayahu returned to his King in his eighteenth year.
Fourth, the chapter states that during the process of bedek haBayis - the refurbishing of the First Temple – no records were kept (by the construction workers) since “b’emunah heim osim – they worked in good faith.” Our Sholom B’nayahu had a reputation for honesty, particularly in financial matters.
Fifth, later in the chapter there is a reference to k’rias b’gadim – the rending of garments, something we do at the outset of mourning in Jewish law.
Sixth, the end of the chapter states that the king “will return to his fathers in peace – again, a reference to our beloved son, whose name, Sholom, means peace.
Seventh, and perhaps most significant, is that the gematriya (numerical value of the Hebrew letters of the first two words in the chapter, ben-shmoneh, is 447. Allowing for gematriya kollel (the rules of evaluating Hebrew words numerically), 1 is added for each word, bringing the total to 449. That is the exact gematriya for the name of our beloved son, בניהו שלום.
