In this terrible week, with grief in our hearts, despite the feelings of futility that frustrate us and the hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets of Israel in pain and protest, – despite all this, we must stay resolute in our faith and deeds.
We must continue to believe that our prayers, actions and intercessions will be heard, somewhere; that the remaining hostages will come home alive; that there will be an end to this terrible killing and destruction; that evil will be brought to account; that a better future is possible; that life, every life, is of value, that dignity, justice and compassion are possible; that Hativkah, hope, has meaning, for Israel, for the Jewish People, for all humanity, for the world… May there be an end to this war and the hatreds it has sprung from and engendered, an end to the destruction, hunger, killings, suffering, grief.
‘Lecha amar libbi – On Your part my heart speaks:’ these words from Psalm 27, which accompanies us from now until the end of the High Holydays, capture my feelings. I’m not full of hope just now, but You, God, are telling me to remain resolute and hold hope in my heart.
The horrible news of the murder of six of the hostages has possessed many of us this week.
My soul goes out to the families of all the other hostages. What can they be thinking? We have a special connection with Naama Levy. At the protests in Beersheva, her grandfather Shaul said: The situation makes the hostages’ families feel hopeless. “When Netanyahu says he wants to destroy Hamas, it won’t happen. What is really happening is that he’s destroying us,” he said.
‘Protesters turn on Netanyahu,’ was Monday’s headline in a major British newspaper. That’s true. But it must not be forgotten that it was Hamas who took the hostages and Hamas who murdered them.
The words of Hersch Goldberg-Polin’s parents go round in my heart: ‘We tried so very hard, so deeply and desperately…Finally, you are free…’ But it’s not the freedom they did everything possible to obtain for their only son. As Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, said:
There is no door in the world on which your beloved family did not knock for you, for your rescue and well-being. There is no stone they left unturned, no prayer or plea they did not cry out – from one end of the world to the other – in the ears of God and man.
We’re preoccupied with how these hostages died. But what can we learn from how they lived? Alex Labanov’s friends knew him as “the guy who worries about everyone else.” He was a carer for his parents, who have physical disabilities.
Eden Yerushalmi was very close to her sisters, on the phone to them while trying to hide at the Nova festival, until she cried out ‘They got me.’ Or Danino escaped in his car, rescuing others, then went back to try to save more. Carmel Gat did yoga, in captivity, with children. Almog Sarusi was a guitar player, captured helping his girlfriend, who was murdered.
I take comfort that you were together with such people when you were killed, Hersch’s mother said.
Such people: they were carers, loved their families, were ready to lose their lives saving others, managed to do yoga with children even there, in the tunnels. Let them be remembered not just for how they died, but for how they lived.
As I recited the memorial prayer at the special service we held on Sunday, I was conscious that we know their names, and, tragically, the names of hundreds more. But what of those who have perished in this terrible year whose names we do not know, Jewish, Muslim, Druze, Christian, visitors from distant lands trapped in Israel or Gaza? Did they, too, not deserve life, have families, bear God’s image, hope for a future?
May the powers in heaven above, and the powerful on earth below, bring an end to these horrors.
Shabbat Shalom
Jonathan Wittenberg