Mourning, Dancing, the Labyrinth, and the Stars

I walk the labyrinth barefoot, leaving my footprints on the ground where, thousands of years ago, my ancestors walked on their journey to the Promised Land. That land that is now my first home. That land that is fighting for its survival.

It is the eve of the holiday of Shemini Atzeret, the time of our joy. In Israel, it is also Simchat Torah, when we dance with the Torah and celebrate an annual cycle centuries old. We read the end of the Torah and then its beginning, and we dance with it. We dance, and dance, sometimes for an entire day.

This holiday is always bittersweet because, although it is a time of joy, it is the end of three weeks of holidays, a period in which reality is suspended in a magical sort of limbo, and Simchat Torah marks the end of that enchanted time. And yet, this year, it is more bitter than usual. Though we will celebrate the holiday, and we will dance, this is the first anniversary on the Jewish calendar of the death of over 1,200 people slaughtered in the most brutal way, one year since the kidnapping if some 250 people, 101 of whom still remain in captivity. A year since the beginning of this horrible war, in which so many have died or been injured physically and/or psychologically. This war that brought with it a massive rise in antisemitism throughout the world.

I walk heel, toe, heel, toe. A year ago we were in synagogue, hearing rumors of what had happened, watching missile interceptions and members of our beloved community donning uniforms and heading to the front.

During Sukkot, which this holiday ends, we read Kohellet, Ecclesiastes, telling us that there is a time for everything, a separate time to dance and a separate time to mourn, and yet, this year, they come together.

I am fascinated with labyrinths. I seek them out. Sometimes I dance through them, sometimes I walk meditatively, like now, subdued. In a labyrinth you follow a defined path that doubles back on itself in an age-old pattern, finally reaching the center. And then we follow the path back out. We contract and then expand. Subdued or dancing. Mourning or grieving. But there is no model for doing both simultaneously. Maybe I need to crash across the labyrinth, kicking aside the shells and rocks that form the predetermined route, creating a new path that will somehow integrate both, that will contain violence and grief and love and joy.

The sun sinks behind the mountains to the west, and I look at the sea in its beautiful, pre-sunset, iridescent shades, and think of the bitter bitter sweet day approaching. Perhaps I will go to a holiday dinner with other Israelis who are here in the Sinai, perhaps I will spend it solitarily, in meditation, trying to make some sense of how to mark this insane time.

Heel, toes. heel, toes. The desert wind blows dry and strong, parching lips, cracking heels and fingertips. I light two memorial candles, one for my father, and one for the over 1,200 murdered, whose yahrzeit is being marked for the first time.

At night, I lie on my back and look up at the endless sparkling stars, the longer you gaze, the more stars you see. The Milky Way a cloudy band across the sky. I see a shooting star and immediately wish for the hostages to be released. Another — may this war end already. And another — may the IDF soldiers be protected and the injured be healed.

We are meant to be like the stars. Countless. Each shining our light, some brightly, some faintly, each of us a star shimmering in the dark sky of history.

Like we will never forget the Holocaust, we will never forget October 7th, 2023, Simchat Torah 5784. But we can hope that, as the years go by, we will be able to dance more wholeheartedly on this day, embracing the scroll that contains God’s promise to Abraham. The promise that his descendants would be like the stars.

23-24 October, 2024

Sorry it’s late, needed to get home to a computer to post.