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Hara Person

Navigating Grief and Anger This Yom Kippur

As we reach the end of these Days of Awe, I remain overwhelmed by the unrelenting grief of the past year. October 7th marked its beginning, a day that left me, like many, full of grief. Then the war on Gaza brought more grief. This year, Yom Kippur falls just four days after the one-year anniversary of the attack, compounding the grief that already underlies the high holiday. 

My grief has also been accompanied by anger. Anger at Hamas and Hezbollah. Anger at leaders in the region who could, but won’t, work toward a solution. Anger at the international forces who fund and encourage violence against Jews for their own purposes. Anger at the Israeli government that was entirely unprepared for October 7th and whose delayed response resulted in the deaths of too many innocents. Anger at the right-wing forces in Israel for using this moment to foment violence, hatred, and division rather than peace. Anger that there is still no hostage deal. 

So how can I, how can we, make sense of this grief and anger? How can we use these emotions to lead more meaningful, thoughtful lives and repair the world in which we live, as Yom Kippur asks of us? Jewish liturgy, history, and community have provided me with some answers. I’ve learned this year that grief can either harden angry hearts or deepen empathy. In order to create a viable way forward, we must choose to deepen our empathy. If we don’t, we’ll lose all hope for a better tomorrow.

I’ve found it particularly challenging this year to remain hopeful about the hostages still captive in Gaza. Two centuries-old Jewish prayers that pertain to freeing hostages, Matir Asurim and Acheinu, now carry new weight. But they have helped me transform my grief into empathy.

Matir Asurim, which translates literally to “freeing the captives”, is part of the Gevurot prayer, the second blessing in the Amidah central to every worship service. Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we add a line that translates to English as, “Merciful God, who compares with You? With tender compassion, You remember all creatures for life.”

This ancient reference to freeing captives originates from Psalm 146:7 and dates back to at least the 3rd century. It’s interpreted in many ways. For some, it’s about imprisonment in one’s own physical body or spiritual imprisonment from distress. But the literal meaning reflects a reality of Jewish life in which pirates, emperors, monarchs, dictators, and military regimes have taken members of our communities captive over centuries.

In Acheinu, rather than praising God for freeing us from captivity, we plead with God to free all who remain captive. Before the attack on October 7th, Jewish worshipers recited Acheinu, a prayer going back to at least the 11th century, on weekdays as the Torah was put away. Since October 7th, many congregations now sing the widely popular modern version of Acheinu at every service. Many will sing this rallying cry to free captives on Yom Kippur this year. 

Freeing captives is embedded in our religious texts and Jewish law. It is transhistorical. Talmudic sages have interpreted captivity as worse than war or even death. Every year on Yom Kippur, we come together as a community—one full of differences in opinion, perspective, and belief—to remind ourselves of our shared responsibility to bring those in distress into comfort, from darkness into light. 

Over the past year, I’ve been wearing a Chai, which means life, around my neck. It reminds me to value both Jewish lives and the lives of innocent Palestinians, Gazans and people across the region. I never want to become numb to all human suffering or justify the pain of others because I myself am in pain. It has not always been easy.  

But we do hard things on Yom Kippur. We atone for our wrongdoings and commit to doing better. We mourn the dead. We reflect on our ethical behavior by denying ourselves food, drink, hygiene, and pleasure with a goal for the next year of sharing bread with the hungry, freeing the oppressed, and removing the shackles of injustice. 

Now more than ever, we must remember that grief can bring resilience, rebirth, and empathy. Hope, tikvah, for all humankind arises through suffering. As Rabbi Shai Held writes

“To be tasked with being God’s partner… is, at least some of the time, to be confronted by horrible loss—by confusion about the past and uncertainty about the future, by the temptation to succumb to despair and fatigue—and to somehow manage to choose life instead.”

Held cites the literary critic Terry Eagleton’s explanation of hope as “a movement toward the good…” We are tasked this Yom Kippur—through our grief and anger, while so many innocent Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and non-Jews, remain captive—with moving toward the good.

About the Author
Rabbi Hara Person is the chief executive for the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the publisher of CCAR Press.
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