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Q: I am a Jewish immigrant who came to America from Holland in 1948. My parents were in the Resistance during the Nazi occupation. During the war years my parents had a dog, Tyno, who quietly alerted them time and again when the Germans came close. When we came to America, they were unable to bring Tyno with them due to the quarantine requirements which, at that time, was one year.

In America we lived with so many dogs, cats, horses, donkeys, chickens, guinea pigs, etc. My parents took in all manner of injured animals, strays or any animals in need, got them to the veterinarian, got them healthy and then found good homes for them. I have loved and shared my life with many dogs. One that was extra special passed away about 20 or so years ago. It broke my heart. I grieved for a very, very long time until I had an incredibly vibrant, brilliantly colored dream about him. In my dream, I was in a beautiful clearing with lush trees all around. The sun and a breeze were wonderfully warm – I was in heaven and there running to me across the clearing was my beloved dog. He was a Bouvier, so large, black and “wooly”, and when I hugged him, I felt his sun-warmed coat and I felt that I was “home” again.

From the time of that dream all my memories of him have been with love rather than sadness, and to this day I can still feel the warmth of his coat when I hugged him. To add to this dream “experience”, our son loved animals very, very much, to the point that he would not kill a spider trying to escape the bathroom sink but would catch it and let it go outside. He was very aptly named Noah. He loved all of wildlife and nature. He was probably the most brilliant person I’ve ever known.

Brilliant, gentle, kind, vulnerable – too kind for this unkind world. His nose was always in a book. He took his life at 34. My mental image is of him, sitting cross-legged on the ground in that same vibrant, sunny clearing, with a book in his lap. As he reads from the book he is surrounded by all the animals (not just pets) who have died. They are crowded around him, atop his shoulders, everywhere – just to be near him and to listen to him reading whatever fascinating fairy tale he was reading. So, “yes, Virginia, there IS heaven for animals”.

Thank you, Rabbi, for listening to me. Yours very truly, Noah’s mom (forever grieving the loss of my son) – (From anonymous)

A: Thank you for opening your heart to me and to God’s creatures. I open my heart to you. My grandfather, Leo Gellman, was a zookeeper at the Milwaukee Zoo. He was killed by a drunk driver in 1958 as he was crossing the street to mail a letter to the zoo director to hire his friend who would have been the first Black zookeeper.

Grandpa would take me to the zoo almost every weekend to see him feed Samson the gorilla and Tony and Cleo the hippopotamuses. He would sometimes let me walk out onto monkey island with my pockets stuffed with mandelbread my grandma Sara had baked. The monkeys would swarm me and pick the cookies out of my pockets.

In honor of Grandpa our home was always filled with animals, but I had no luck convincing the zoo to allow me to raise a hippopotamus. Many of my pets were puppies in training for the Guide Dog Foundation in Smithtown, NY (a wonderful place deserving of your charitable contributions).

One of our puppies named Lucky graduated from Guide Dog school where I met his new blind partner. His family name was al-Fassi. I asked him if he was related to Rabbi Isaac al Fassi, the 12th-century scholar who had written the first code of Jewish law. He said that Rabbi al Fassi was his ancestor. I told him that his ancestor had helped me to see Judaism more clearly and now I was proud to be able to return the favor after 900 years by enabling his descendent to see Queens Boulevard more clearly. A dog who can do that must be allowed into Heaven.

One of the hints that animals are let into Heaven, despite the fact that they do not have human souls, is that Heaven in Hebrew is called the place where our souls are sheltered under God’s wings. I must believe that God’s are not the only wings in Heaven.

May God comfort you on the death of your pets and for the death of your son. May all their souls be gathered under God’s protecting wings.

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman. Also, the new God Squad podcast is now available.)

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