Day 294

“I will raise my eyes to the mountain from whence come my help.” Psalm 121

But Gd, the maker of heaven and earth, did not come.

He did not come on October 7, and he did not come on this day.

To a soccer field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams killing 12 innocent children at play.

On a sunny, Saturday afternoon, an Iranian made rocket leaving the dead in its wake and parents the agony of burying them.

And the questions remain the same.

The questions we grappled with for a recent week at the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Where rabbis, scholars, communal leaders, engaged us in study.

And challenged us to delve into Jewish text, into Torah and Talmud, to confront divine power and human might.

To probe the absence of divine intervention and the power of human agency.

As individuals, and as a collective.

To take responsibility.

To preserve Israel as our homeland, and a home for others.

As a democracy that affords rights and liberties to all.

Founded as a Jewish refuge, but with a calling from on high to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

To be responsible not only for ourselves, but for others.

To seek good, not evil, to make peace, not war.

And to know that what we do matters.

To fight this just war, even as we grieve human suffering.

To confront its moral challenges and engage in moral conversation.

To find a way ahead.

Even as we bear witness to the barbarity of Hamas and Hezbollah, even as we go to Gaza and see the havoc wrecked on that fateful day.

Even as we walk through a now deserted kibbutz, picking our way through walls blackened with smoke, tip toeing through shattered glass, children’s toys strewn on the grass, a laundry basket, upended, its contents now spewed on the ground.

The silence is deafening, save the scrawny cats mewling. Who is there to feed them now?

Yet the birds still sing, even as we can hear faint gun fire in the distance.

So it is that the imperative is to find a way, to return to the foundational values of Torah – charity, mercy, righteousness, justice — and find a path forward.

Israelis and Americans.

To be knowledgeable, to speak out, to engage others in conversation.

Israel needs us, and we need Israel.

For me, it has been the missing piece.

It clicked into place from my first visit to the land and remains my abiding connection.

To the Jewish people, to our story, to what came before, and to what is now, and what will come after.

To me as a Jew.

And while it may not fit neatly into the puzzle of my identity, the cracks it leaves allow the light to come through.

The light of divine presence, the light of human endeavor, and the light of hope.

So even as a I write this on Day 296, even as the war goes on, as the hostages remain captive, as Druze children are buried, even as I attempt to process what I learned during my days at Hartman, I bring home with me a glimmer of that promise and its possibility to light the way.

May it be so.