‘Don’t Worry, God’s Throne Is Covered with Hostage Posters’

A Dream Collected from the Hostage Sticker Campaign

“Don’t Worry, God’s Throne is Covered in Hostage Posters,” Credit: Naftali Ash, 2024.

1 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple 2 Above Him stood the seraphim; each one had six wings: with twain he covered his face and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly… 8 And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said: ‘Here am I; send me.’ 9 And He said: ‘Go, and tell this people: hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.

Isaiah 6:1-2, 8-9.

“I went up from level to level until I entered the Palace of the Messiah…

When will you come, master?” And he [the Messiah] replied, “By this you shall know: it will be a time when your teachings become publicized and revealed to the world, and your well-springs have overflowed to the outside. [It will be when] that which I have taught you-and that which you have perceived of your own efforts-become known, so that others, too, will be able to perform mystical unifications and ascents of the soul like you. Then all the evil klippos will be destroyed, and it will be a time of grace and salvation.”

The Baal Shem Tov’s Letter to his Brother-in-Law, Rebbe Gershon of Kitov.

Day 333 since October 7th, 2023. 

A woman responsible for putting up nearly all the posters and stickers for the hostages in a certain section of Central Park West Avenue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan came up to me after a vigil for the six murdered hostages. She told me about her dream visit to the realm of the angels:

“I dreamt that I was moving through the heavens–one layer to another– and saw all the prayers of the Jews delivered upward.”

Intrigued, I immediately heard echoes of a venerable Jewish practice of reporting back from God’s realm. Here was a Yoredet Merkavah.

In enchanted Jewish ages past–and, as we shall see, the present–Jews visited the heavens to ask God’s messengers to help with troubling events on Earth. In Babylon, Ezekiel saw the vision of the Chariot. The sages of old induced visions through ascetic fasting and bodily contortions–they traveled down through the realms of the angels and beheld–and most importantly wrote down visions of God’s Throne. Yordei Merkavah they were called; descenders of the Chariot.  In recent centuries, Kabbalists and Hasidim rise up and report back conversations had in God’s realm.

In our catastrophe-ridden post-October 7th era, it makes sense to me that an activist so close to the faces of the hostages saw them in her dream of the Jewish divine palace.

After all, the heavens always reflect the Jewish people as they are in their time. The Midrash explains that when the Jewish people put on tefillin –so does God.

This woman and I are part of a Jewish activist circle that makes and puts up hostage stickers. We’ve continued doing so religiously in the months since October 7th. Thousands of them. The faces of the hostages and their stories are stuck to us.

So when it was announced that six hostages were murdered by Hamas, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Alex Lubanov, Carmel Gat and Eden Alexander, we were destroyed.

As a community, we had never thought these specific hostages would be killed…Hersh in particular; his parents fought so hard for his release. He was an icon. Protected.

“Mourning the 6 Murdered Hostages,” Credit: Elisha Fine, 09.02.2024.

Each of us had put up that young man’s face onto poles around New York City hundreds of times. We did it together for safety and comradery.

Putting up his face, it turned out, could not save Hersh’s life. As miraculous as seeing his face in the streets of New York was, magic stickers proved insufficient against Hamas’ bullets.

Heartbroken, the few of us who could make it on short notice sat crammed on a picnic bench in Central Park on a late summer’s evening to mourn the six dead hostages. We were a group of four women, two men, and two dogs who sat stone-faced through the vigil. We lit candles floating in a square vase filled with water. We struggled with getting the candles lit and had to use a blinding flashlight intended for self-defense to find the water level of the floating candles. We took turns telling stories of the lives of each hostage, such as we could gather quickly. We tried, too soon, to find lessons in their lives.

Then we said the prayer for the uplifting of souls of the recently dead: Kel Maleh Rahamim. We brought stickers with the faces of each of the hostages to project their lost presence and placed them gently and ceremoniously beside each other in a line on the picnic table.

All of us felt as if we knew these people on our hostage stickers–they had become our stolen family. Praying for them together was a comfort.

When the vigil ended, we walked out of the park and let the dogs run free in a field. One of the women, Jewish, Orthodox, and responsible for putting up half the Hostage posters on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, wanted to tell me something;

“I had a dream in June–I was going to call you, but you would have thought I was crazy.

I want to tell you now: It was like something out of the Zohar:”

I nodded eagerly:

“I dreamt that I was moving through the heavens–one layer to another– and saw all the prayers of the Jews delivered upward.

“Don’t Worry, God’s Throne is Covered in Hostage Posters,” Credit: Naftali Ash, 2024

Content that I was not judging her and seeing me listen with rapt attention, she continued:

“These bundles were delivered carefully. The prayers were bundles of light surrounded by the deep darkness that was all around, each one gently wrapped like a precious gift and delivered directly to the source.”

“Ahh,” I thought, “like babies…” like baby Kfir.

Kidnapped Sticker- Kfir Bibas, 76th and Amsterdam, 09.23.2024, Credit: Elisha Fine

“The heavenly messengers were very busy delivering these fragile prayers upward,” she continued.

At the same time, there were messages from evil places zipping upward trying to break into heaven. Another group of heavenly messengers was reaching out and snatching the prayers of the dark side, ripping them up, and tossing the shreds back down into the darkness.

“Don’t Worry, God’s Throne is Covered in Hostage Posters,” Credit: Naftali Ash, 2024.

I saw an angel. I thought maybe it would have the answers.

So I asked it:

“Where are the souls of babies killed in the Shoah? Aren’t they supposed to protect us? Doesn’t He have to listen to them?”

“Don’t Worry, God’s Throne is Covered in Hostage Posters,” Credit: Naftali Ash, 2024.

“They go every single day, all of them, and plead for you. They’ve been busy every single day since October 7. We’ve all been very busy here,” it answered. “Even as God’s face is hidden.”

I asked:  “Who will win this?”

He answered, “They are still counting the votes; you must keep praying.”

Then an angel came up to me and said:

Don’t worry. He is covered in Hostage posters.” And then I saw God’s Throne. It was shining red, white, and black. Covered entirely in stickers and posters. Covered in the pain of His people, holding them close.

Then I woke up.

“Don’t Worry, God’s Throne is Covered in Hostage Posters,” Credit: Naftali Ash, 2024.

I thanked her for her story and I’ve been haunted by the image of the throne covered with hostage posters and stickers ever since.

Reflecting now, I know that dreams and visions help bring forward what is hidden to the open. Hostage posters were always prayers. The secular and religious alike do not always know the power of those prayers to shape and reflect our lives.

Our circle of hostage sticker and poster people has become mournful as the days pass into a year since October 7th and as the high holidays approach.  We pray for miracles in our dreams and with our hands, putting up endless stickers.

And still, we put them up.

May God hear our paper prayers and return the remaining 101 hostages safely and whole. We need them home.  G’mar Chatima Tova. This year may we be written into the good book.

About the Artist

Naftali Ash is a Jerusalem-born, Miami-raised illustrator specializing in Judaica. His love for Jewish themes developed early, growing up in a traditional household and studying in a yeshiva for his formative years. Being surrounded by the beauty of holidays, the dizzying jurisprudence of Talmudic exchange, and the mystic lore of Kabbalistic concepts provided endless sources of creativity.