When she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2007, Deborah Masel s life collapsed. Two and a half years later, her struggle to find meaning in the shadowy world of terminal disease induced her to write not only of her cancer experience, but of threads from the past that were woven into the fabric of this final curtain. In her search for comfort and meaning, Deborah found that the world of cancer was dominated by stories of physical survival, which was assumed to constitute victory. Yet her most treasured teacher, a Torah scholar who had perished in the Holocaust, had awakened her, through the text he left behind, to the meaning of spiritual victory. If he could keep his disciples focused on God while the Nazis brutalized and dehumanized them, surely she could stay focused and not panic even when the cancer threatened to devour her. Her challenge was to accept the fact of death without losing her love for this dappled world and for the glory of its passing days.

When she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2007, Deborah Masel s life collapsed. Two and a half years later, her struggle to find meaning in the shadowy world of terminal disease induced her to write not only of her cancer experience, but of threads from the past that were woven into the fabric of this final curtain. In her search for comfort and meaning, Deborah found that the world of cancer was dominated by stories of physical survival, which was assumed to constitute victory. Yet her most treasured teacher, a Torah scholar who had perished in the Holocaust, had awakened her, through the text he left behind, to the meaning of spiritual victory. If he could keep his disciples focused on God while the Nazis brutalized and dehumanized them, surely she could stay focused and not panic even when the cancer threatened to devour her. Her challenge was to accept the fact of death without losing her love for this dappled world and for the glory of its passing days.