Lost in Last Respects: Reflections on Yitzchak Rabin z”l
Yitzchak Rabin – 30 years since that traumatic day
As if it were yesterday…
The words that follow were written after a visit to Jerusalem, less than a month after his assassination.
Has anything changed?
Lost In Last Respects
Israel, December 1995
I went to pay my last respects
to light candles
to mourn a member of
my extended family
Yitzchak
First to Kikar Rabin
where it happened
and then to Har Herzl
where he rests
The Kotel at the square
is an open sore
filled with pain and anger and anguish and grief
a raw wound
publicly exposed for all to see
A Kotel that wails family tears
On the cold wet slab of concrete
where his dying breath is engraved
as I lit a candle and stood dumbstruck
I saw my father on his deathbed
and I cried
I saw Cain slaughter Abel
and I trembled
I saw a son murder his father
and I screamed
I saw beating hearts
throbbing and pulsating
torn out
his mine
yours ours
gorged with blood
and I broke down
At the Kever
in Jerusalem
at dusk
teenagers sit quietly
staring at the flickering flames
writing with dripping hot wax
Abba
We long for you.
The Kikar Kotel
how different from the Jerusalem Kotel
with organized minyanim
and prescribed prayers for
past sorrows
present promises
and
future glories in the world to come
and crumpled notes stuffed into narrow spaces –
private, personal silent and closed
Let’s suppose we could join these two walls
Humor me for a moment
Even if you tell me that
cursive
+
script
=
gibberish
Let’s lift up these walls and place them side by side
to form a square or rectangle
How then do we fill the spaces in between?
And even if we could
how do we pierce the walls that surround the heart?
How do we gently lower the drawbridge
across the moat?
One doesn’t need a doctor to tell us that
if we push too hard we kill the patient
These walls can’t fit!
Can the cool clear and shimmering sweet waters
huggingly caress
the heat baked bloody clay?
Does the taste of soil
quench a hungry appetite?
Can it sustain a life support system?
How about a different strategy?
Let’s place the walls on top of each other
maybe if we build upwards…
Sound familiar?
So, do we start all over again?
Is this how it all ends?
Dust to dust?
And still they come
And still they write
And still they light candles
And still they stand in silence
and still they place stones
And still the mourn
for Yitzchak
for themselves
for us
Will it ever end?
Only if
people who speak different languages
people who tell different stories
people who live different histories
people who sing different songs
and people who pray different prayers
say out loud
and with conviction
You are my brother, and I love you