Happy Old Year

And so, the calendar turns in four days. We wish each other “Shanah Tovah” with a smile that tries to cover the cracks running deep inside. Another year. Another chance to write our names in the Book of Life, as if we had any control over it. But there’s a shadow hanging over this new year that won’t fade with the glow of candles or the taste of wine. There are 101 names suspended in the air. How can we celebrate life when those 101 souls are trapped between fear and oblivion?

Since October 7th of last year, they have fasted, not by choice or devotion but by force. A fast that doesn’t purify and doesn’t redeem only consumes. And while we prepare our festive tables, as cutlery clinks and prayers rise, they remain in the hands of Hamas, absent even from our conversations, as if the silence about them were a way to move on.

Our government, which once promised to leave no one behind, seems to have forgotten that vow. Wasn’t that what defined us? The certainty that, anywhere in the world, no brother or sister would be abandoned? And yet, here we are, moving on with life, celebrating another year while 101 lives are frozen in time. Perhaps it’s easier to pretend that this silence is usual, that the new year can begin without their freedom.

We fast. One day, for the sake of purification. But what is our speed compared to theirs? A fast forced by cruelty, a hunger not of the soul but of the body. They are there, waiting and fasting in the absence of their families, of their ordinary days, while we fast out of tradition. They fast in the dark of forgetfulness.

I think about the irony of it all: how can we, who swore never to leave anyone behind, ignore the emptiness left by these lives? How can we speak of renewal when we have gone 101 souls in the shadows? How can we wish for happiness when they are still there, invisible?

Life, which should be celebrated, is in suspension for them. And for us, is it not the same? We move forward as if we can erase the promise that made us a people: never abandon a brother. But how can we say we’ve kept that vow? How can we write our name in the Book of Life while 101 names remain stuck on pages torn by time?

Perhaps it’s time to admit that as long as 101 captives fast in silence, our new year is just an old year because true renewal will only happen when they, too, can sit at the table when there is no more forced fasting and silence.

Happy Old Year might be the most honest greeting. Because until those lives return, until we can look each other in the eyes and say we didn’t leave anyone behind, we are still stuck in the year that passed. And in this limbo of uncertainty and pain, we celebrate a hollow echo. A new year without freedom is just a repetition of the past.