Each week as Shabbat begins, we’re asking a member of the TBE community to share a photo that represents shalom to them. Eric Rosen starts our Shabbat/Shalom reflections: 

These two photos bring me shalom. The first is the two-family house that I grew up in with a large extended family in Brookline. My mother and grandmother were the key people who cared for me and brought me shalom then, and the memory brings me shalom now. 

Nevertheless, there was great loss amidst that happiness because my father was killed while serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, 6 months before I was born. The second photo is his marker at Arlington National cemetery, placed in 1986. It brings me shalom because, finally 42 years after his death, he is remembered with this monument. In a way, the funeral ceremony at Arlington Cemetery in 1986 represents our entire nation mourning my dad as did the people of Israel in this week’s Torah portion, who mourned Aaron for 30 days after his death (Numbers 20:29).