A Refuge in the Storm

Rabbi David Wolpe had a “sudden flash” as he prepared to deliver a speech on antisemitism. He said, “I imagine myself in conversation with my great-great-grandfather. And I say to him, “You know, there is some anti-semitism at Harvard”, and he responds to me in shock.  “There are Jews at Harvard?” and I say, “Yes, but some of them hate Israel” and he says, again in utter surprise, “There’s an Israel?” 

Rabbi Wolpe’s imagined conversation with his great-great-grandfather reminds us as we  commemorate Tisha B’Av that as a people we have the capacity to endure, overcome and ultimately thrive.   

Since October 7th during this horrendous year, I too have had flashes of people who are gone. When the world frightens me, I wish I could speak with my father, a reassuring voice who was a World War II veteran and whose confidence in the United States was virtually religious. There were times though when his identity as a Jew burst forth. Among those events was the hijacking of an Air France airline in June 1976. Of the passengers 148 non-Israeli and non-Jews were released, the remaining 94 hostages and crew remained captive. They were rescued in a daring mission on July 3rd by Israel. I came home after an evening out the night we learned of the successful rescue. My father opened the door.  He was beaming; so happy his feet virtually left the ground when he spoke. “Oh my God, Audrey, can you believe it? Can you believe it?”  What that moment captured was the elation of no longer being helpless victims. 

I think of my father-in-law, a refugee to this country by way of Russia, to Czechoslovakia to England and finally to the United States where he built a successful life as an architect. He devoted himself to studying the great philosophers and deeply loved Israel. His parents were murdered in Latvia during the Holocaust.  He believed the establishment of Israel to be a miracle. When I met my father-in-law, he spent hours with me in his library, pulling out book after book about Israel’s history and his family’s connection with the country.

Nick’s mother also lost her parents, siblings and extended family. Nick spent his life without the aunts, uncles and cousins he should have known, many who died in the Shoah and others unreachable in the Soviet Union. Unlike me, he was not shocked by the antisemitism that presented itself after October 7th.

For those of us whose lived experience has been framed by the openness and comfort of American pluralism, being condemned, jeered, and bullied on college campuses and city streets has forced us out of a world of inclusivity and back into the dangerous terrain of Jewish history. During this time Jewish communal life has been a safe haven. 

I found refuge in observance and community. Each week led to Shabbat, I lit candles on Friday night and attended synagogue. On Saturday afternoons I read and studied Hebrew. This past year I attended a class with fifteen co-congregants, studying for the Bat Mitzvah I never had. I spent Tuesday afternoons with friends, sat in the synagogue library surrounded by ancient and contemporary Jewish-themed books. The musty smell of books was comforting as were my classmates as we commiserated, laughed, fumed, and practiced Hebrew. 

One cold and damp Sunday morning I arrived for our monthly study group, my mood dark. 

We were studying metaphors for God. Someone reads aloud from Rabbi Toba Spitzer essay, Where is this Trying to Take Me? 

She wrote, “Instead of asking, “Do I believe this? We can ask for a prayer, ‘Where is this trying to take me?’ She continues, “Metaphors like King and Creator of the Universe are intended to help us feel our own relative smallness in relations to the cosmos, to invoke a sense of humility and service, while at the same time suggesting that there is Something in the vastness that both cares about us and holds us accountable.” 

My mood lifts. I raise my hand and declare myself to be “elevated”, drawing warm, I hope, laughs from my classmates. I feel lighter as I connect with a higher plane of existence through conversation, company, and learning. The words reach past the present moment and I asked “where is this trying to take me”.

The teaching connects me to the vast richness of Jewish history.

It has been a blessing to have a world of observance, community and learning since October 7th. I think about the past, about my father, my father-in-law and my husband’s family. We are here. As a people, we have endured. Like Rabbi Wolpe, we can draw strength and perspective from the people who came before us. During these traumatic times, we owe them our courage and faith that better days are ahead.