Tonight, I had the honor of attending the Woman of Valor Dinner, celebrating some of the incredible women in the Milwaukee Jewish community. It was an opportunity to recognize women who give so much of themselves, hear their stories, and be reminded of why we all do what we do.
But one of the most meaningful parts of the evening was hearing Rachel Goldberg-Polin speak.
Rachel’s son, Hersh, was taken hostage on October 7, 2023, and murdered after nearly 11 months in captivity. I cannot begin to imagine what she has experienced or what it takes to stand in front of a room full of people and share that pain.
And yet, what struck me about her wasn’t anger or hatred. It was her humanity. Her warmth. Even a certain lightness at moments that almost surprised me. Her connection to Judaism, to religious texts, and to finding meaning in the unimaginable was evident throughout her words.
She acknowledged something that really resonated with me. She isn’t the first mother to lose a child. She knows that other people have experienced terrible heartbreak, too.
Of course, that doesn’t make her pain any less devastating.
Having lost my mother just a few months ago, I understood a small part of that perspective. Losing my mom has been incredibly difficult, but I also know that I am not the first person to lose a parent, and I certainly won’t be the last. Everyone carries something. Some burdens are far heavier than others, but grief, heartbreak, and struggle are part of the human experience.
What matters is how we choose to move forward with them.
And then she shared something that I had heard before, but tonight it hit me in exactly the way I needed to hear it.
Hersh had repeated a phrase during his captivity, one that became a source of strength for others being held alongside him:
“He who has a why can bear any how.”
It’s an idea associated with Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, drawing on the words of Friedrich Nietzsche.
And tonight, hearing it through the story of Hersh and his mother, it meant something different to me.
I started thinking about my own why.
Running a business is hard. Running a food business is really hard. Running a kosher food business, with all of its additional layers of complexity, in a relatively small Jewish community, adds another level entirely.
There are the financial challenges, especially with the rising costs of food, labor, and just about everything else. There are endless rules, regulations, different levels of kosher observance, complicated logistics, staffing challenges, and the constant balancing act of making really good food while keeping the business financially viable.
And then there is the reality that you can’t make everyone happy all the time, no matter how hard you try.
I care deeply about what we produce and the experience we give people. I want things done well. I know we aren’t always going to be perfect, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.
And sometimes, quite frankly, it’s exhausting.
Add to that being a single mom.
I’ve been divorced for years, and my children have always spent the majority of their time with me. That’s not a criticism of their father. It’s simply how we parented when we were married and how we chose to continue parenting after our divorce. We are still a team when it comes to raising our children.
But being the parent managing most of the day-to-day responsibilities, while also trying to build and run a business, isn’t always easy.
When I went through my divorce, I needed to find purpose. I needed something that was mine, something I could build, something I felt passionate about.
And I found so much of that in food, hospitality, and the community around me.
I just returned from a family vacation to the Dominican Republic. It was a trip we planned long before my mom passed away, and after the past few months, it was wonderful to get away and spend time with family.
But even there, I found myself sitting with my laptop, answering emails, solving problems, and making sure things were getting done back home.
Don’t get me wrong. I had fun. I enjoyed my family. I relaxed.
But there is always something that needs attention. Some fire to put out. Some decision to make. Some detail that matters.
Because it’s my business. It’s my name. And I care.
There are absolutely days when I ask myself why I keep working so hard. Why I take on so much. Why I continue trying to make something work when the financial realities and everyday challenges can feel overwhelming.
And tonight, I was reminded that I already know why.
I love my community.
I love bringing people together.
I love celebrations, gatherings, holidays, and the connections that happen around a table.
I love helping someone celebrate a simcha and being part of a moment their family will remember for years.
I love being able to provide food to a family sitting shiva, when figuring out what to eat should be the last thing they have to worry about.
I love helping feed people who are traveling, who need a kosher meal somewhere that isn’t always easy to find one.
I love creating food that allows people with different levels of kosher observance to come together around the same table.
And yes, I even love showing people that kosher food can be really good food!
I joke sometimes that part of my job is convincing people that kosher food isn’t just that dry Shabbat cake they remember from summer camp. If their only experience with kosher food was at camp, they might not realize how much more there is to it.
But that’s part of my why, too.
I want to make kosher food accessible, welcoming, creative, and delicious. I want to serve the people who need kosher food while also showing the broader community that what we do is for everyone.
That kosher isn’t a limitation on good food.
And that a small Jewish community like ours deserves great food and great hospitality, too.
When I think about all of that, I remember why I started and why I continue.
I have my why. Now I have to figure out how to bear the how.
For me, that means continuing to work hard, but also figuring out how to work smarter. Building a business that can be financially sustainable. Finding the right people, creating better systems, learning from mistakes, and accepting that I can’t do everything myself.
It means recognizing that the how may need to change, even when the why stays the same.
Another message Rachel shared tonight was about living our lives to do the good deeds we are meant to do.
That stayed with me, too.
Because at the end of the day, what is the measure of a successful life?
Is it the number in my bank account? The size of my house? How successful my business looks from the outside?
Of course, financial security matters. I have children to raise, bills to pay, employees who depend on me, and a business that needs to survive.
But maybe the real measure of my life is something much bigger than that.
Maybe it’s the people whose lives I’ve touched.
The families I’ve helped celebrate.
The people I’ve fed during difficult times.
The community I’ve helped bring together.
The relationships I’ve built, the opportunities I’ve created, and the example I am trying to set for my children.
And hopefully, all the people I haven’t met yet whose lives I will have the opportunity to touch.
I don’t think this is the first time I’ve understood that purpose matters more than possessions or appearances. But sometimes we get so caught up in the daily grind, the stress, the financial worries, and the endless to-do lists that we lose sight of what we’re actually working toward.
Sometimes we need someone else’s words to remind us of what we already know.
Tonight, Rachel Goldberg-Polin reminded me.
Her story is one of unimaginable loss, and I would never pretend my everyday struggles are comparable to what she has endured. But there is something powerful about a person carrying that much grief who continues to seek meaning, share wisdom, and bring something good into the world.
I am grateful she shared her story tonight, and grateful for the reminder.
I have a why.
It is my children. My family. My community. My love of food, hospitality, gathering people together, and making a difference in whatever ways I can.
The how isn’t always easy. Some days it feels impossibly complicated.
But perhaps the point isn’t that having a why makes the how easy.
It’s that having a why gives us a reason to keep figuring it out.
And that’s something I need to remind myself of every single day.
