A Year We Will Never Forget

For most of my life, I have approached the ימים נוראים with weary anticipation and dread. Earnestly taking stock of my life, marking the conclusion of another annual cycle, and creating a vision for the year to come is not a pleasant experience for me. Have I accomplished and grown as much as I should have? Have I been charitable enough, or guarded my tongue sufficiently from לשון הרע? Have I mothered each of my children in the unique way they need, managed my time wisely, and prayed with כַּוָּנָה? Have I protected my נְשָׁמָה from both outside influences and that awful inner critic that cast shadows on its original brilliance? At this time of year, I also usually entertain a healthy dose of self-pity and disappointment over the things I have yearned and prayed for, for so long, that G-d surely owes me, but again did not manifest this past year. Ahem . . .

As the year 5784 draws to a close, I look ahead to my first Rosh Hashana as an Olah and behind at my life and the lives of my fellow Israelis during one of the most difficult years in our country’s history. There were many shocking aberrations this year, themes that have become sadly familiar, but will never dull in our collective psyche. We will also not let them change our nation’s values or destroy our eternal optimism:

this multi-front war for survival that has lasted so much longer than any of us anticipated,
losing way too many of our finest, idealistic young men and women,

parents burying their children,
children left without parents,
whole families buried together,
civilians stolen barefoot from their beds into captivity,
Two sweet red-headed babies swallowed deep into the earth and their mom, whose petrified eyes and grimace will haunt me forever,
whole communities turned homeless refugees in their own country, and
normal every day parents flipped overnight into ‘sophisticated medical teams’ living with their child at Tel Hashomer Hospital, their days formerly filled with careers, family trips, and חגים with friends, now a revolving door of evaluations, diagnoses, therapies, and fast-track education on severe brain injury, amputation, systemic infection or quadriplegia.

And this year has also been perhaps one of the hardest for diaspora Jews, who have endured:

rabid antisemitism rising in unprecedented volume,
protests in all major cities in support of Hamas and Hezbollah, still ongoing undeterred one year later,
global gaslighting campaigns accusing Israel of genocide, even in the name of international courts and organizations,
the most elite universities in the West serving — by design — as coordinated mouthpieces of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood, the forceful hatching of a plan 20 years in the making,
formerly thought impossible, government leaders in Europe and the U.S. spewing unabashed Jew and Israel hatred and recycling old familiar antisemitic tropes,
wearing a כיפה or מגן דוד, a license to be punched or kicked, called ‘dirty Jew’ or met with an angry, righteous ‘Go back to the gas ovens’,
and a complex ‘inversion of history’ crusade denying Jewish ties to אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל. Even though more than 3000 years ago, Hashem took us out of Egypt and made us a people named בני ישראל, עם ישראל, or sometimes simply ישראל ! The irony (and coinciding ignorance) is lost on most.

5784 also had many blessings to acknowledge:

how עם ישראל came together in such a beautiful way, supporting and caring for one another,
the heroic rescues of Ori, Fernando, Louis, Noa, Almog, Andrei, Shlomi, and Farhan,
the return of some much-needed IDF badassery with pagers blowing up one day, walkie-talkies the next, and the elimination of hundreds of ministers of evil,
the iron dome and other anti-missile and rocket technology,
Douglas Murray, a prince among men, an uber-mensch, the most articulate and fearless supporter of Israel, the Jews, and the unvarnished truth (please listen to as many of his speeches on YouTube as you can),
our fearless, now certainly tired, soldiers, who sacrifice the ultimate for all of us, many of them still in their teens. For all our (gentle) mocking of the Gen Z generation, their level of maturity, commitment, and bravery has surpassed our wildest imagination,
Kai Wegner, Mayor of Berlin, who hangs an Israeli flag outside his office amidst harsh condemnation, and advocates for Israel, right behind the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders and Argentina’s Javier Milei,
an unprecedented rise in G-d consciousness and respect for tradition with חיילים across the spectrum — religious and non-religious — wearing ציצית and תפילין,
for those of us living here in Israel, the comfort of knowing that our footsteps, even סתם to the מַכּוֹלֶת to buy tomatoes for tomorrow’s salad, overlay the footsteps of many generations of ancestors, their sacrifices, struggles, and triumphs that make our lives here — in an independent Jewish state — possible,
and most recently, the return of the sweet Jerusalem evening breeze after what has been a long scorching summer.

For all of us, but particularly those families who took the greatest hits, where does the solace come from, or the energy to continue forward? How do we find restructured purpose and meaning, building those new pathways like wild ivy climbing around the yawning hole in our hearts. Perhaps like the Boston Ivy that grew in my backyard in NY, changing color with the seasons, from deep green to yellow, orange, red, and finally deep maroon in autumn, each survivor, each witness, finds their own unique way to cope and strive in any given day or season.

As I review my own personal life over the past year, I see שֶׁפַע, frustration, joy, friendships, disappointments, love, spiritual growth, and longing for my family in the U.S. It’s hard to ignore how tender my heart feels currently since the end of a relationship with a man whose son was murdered at Nova. Which prompts me at times to want to take the 517 bus to הר הצופים, find the highest point, and scream at the top of my lungs perhaps somewhat arrogantly in the direction of Beit Shemesh: “Love is not incongruous with death and savagery and mourning, it’s the antidote”. But what do I know . . .

Indeed, 5784 was a year where it was hard to feel or see Hashem’s presence. In פרשת נצבים which we read this past שבת — the last שבת of the year — Moshe relays a farewell message to עם ישראל which is meant to echo through the generations:

11 For this commandment which I command you this day, is not concealed from you, nor is it far away.		יא כִּ֚י הַמִּצְוָ֣ה הַזֹּ֔את אֲשֶׁ֛ר אָֽנֹכִ֥י מְצַוְּךָ֖ הַיּ֑וֹם לֹֽא־נִפְלֵ֥את הִוא֙ מִמְּךָ֔ וְלֹֽא־רְחֹקָ֖ה הִֽוא:
12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?”		יב לֹ֥א בַשָּׁמַ֖יִם הִ֑וא לֵאמֹ֗ר מִ֣י יַֽעֲלֶה־לָּ֤נוּ הַשָּׁמַ֨יְמָה֙ וְיִקָּחֶ֣הָ לָּ֔נוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵ֥נוּ אֹתָ֖הּ וְנַֽעֲשֶֽׂנָּה:
13 Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?”		יג וְלֹֽא־מֵעֵ֥בֶר לַיָּ֖ם הִ֑וא לֵאמֹ֗ר מִ֣י יַֽעֲבָר־לָ֜נוּ אֶל־עֵ֤בֶר הַיָּם֙ וְיִקָּחֶ֣הָ לָּ֔נוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵ֥נוּ אֹתָ֖הּ וְנַֽעֲשֶֽׂנָּה:

In this passage, we learn that one does not need to climb to the heavens or travel beyond the sea to encounter Hashem. Moshe’s message to future generations is that while our ancestors trembled witnessing G-d at הר סיני, hardly able to survive the intensity, Hashem has created new, less overwhelming ways for us to know him. He is right beside us in our successes and failures, in our joy and during our deepest despair. If you cannot see Him or feel Him, turn around and he will be there. Open your hearts to the שכינה, for He is the שָׁכֵן — the neighbor — right next door.

And then Moshe concludes:

14 Rather, [this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.

יד כִּֽי־קָר֥וֹב אֵלֶ֛יךָ הַדָּבָ֖ר מְאֹ֑ד בְּפִ֥יךָ וּבִלְבָֽבְךָ֖ לַֽעֲשׂתֽוֹ:

One of the ways we can connect to G-d is to fulfill Torah and mitzvot with all three “garments” of the soul — thought, speech and action. “In your mouth” refers to speech, “in your heart”, to thought, and “that you can fulfill it”, to action. In a deeper sense, even, “your heart” represents the seat of the emotions. It is within the reach of every Jew to feel the love of G-d and fulfill his מצוות. Let our thoughts, speech and actions create higher and higher עליות for the beautiful נשמות whose bodies were taken from us this year. And, let us lean into Him at the end of this very difficult 5784 and pray for better days ahead.

May Hashem bless all of כלל ישראל with a new year of peace, healing, comfort, and meaning. May the memories of those holy murdered and fallen be a blessing for us always. May we bring our hostages home alive, have no more war, and bask once again in the glory of our beautiful nation united, with the coming of משיח במהירה בימינו !

לעילוי נשמת מלכה בת חנוך

לעילוי נשמת יהודה בן יצחק

לעילוי נשמת רחל בת חנוך

לעילוי נשמת מרים בת חנוך

לעילוי נשמת אתיה שרה בת גולדה לאה