Impossible

I too

dreamed,

hoped,

went through self denial,

assumed,

the Bibas family must be alive.

Who kills children and their mother in cold blood?

It is impossible.

I grew up a religious Zionist and now am Hareidi, always very Jewish.

I lived through the 2nd intifada,

I lived through 9/11 outside of DC,

still impossible to understand,

literally impossible.

A few weeks ago I witnessed a girl with a Muslim name who said she would pray for a Jewish girl next to me and meant it because she was going through unspeakable difficulties.

I turned to her and said “I know you are not Jewish and are Muslim, this is such a beautiful moment to me” and all 3 of us cried.

and it was and is beautiful,

and not everyone is evil,

but it is impossible to know who is who when such evil is possible.

A few weeks ago I went into a bomb shelter together with a few Muslim workers at a hospital

I was in when the Houtis decided to fire on our country.

One girl decided to make comments about how it is “these people’s fault” (the workers) we are being fired on.

2 of the workers rolled their eyes, they were being fired on also.

Impossible,

the conundrum of how to process and address evil.

When not everyone in any group is evil

but for such evil to exist

and for 4 buses to have almost blown up etc etc etc

means we still have to be wary.

As a woman who is very Jewish

I am saying it publicly

I hope we never forget that each human is a human.

I hope we never fall to that level of dehumanization that allowed the Bibas children and mother to be murdered in cold unfathomably cruel blood.

Impossible to understand.

But as a Jew it is also impossible to not constantly work to see each Jew, each Muslim, each Druze, each Christian as a human,

lest we become the enemy.

light in the darkness

But also, hashem yakum damam.