To my people plunged into mourning: Do not despair

September 1st is a day that in Israel is usually marked as a day of joy and anticipation, as the school year begins and great hope for the year ahead springs eternal. Parents take and send along to grandparents the ceremonial pictures of their children out the door, excited to rejoin their friends and find themselves in a framework that will seek to bring out the very best in each one of them, full of hope in the limitless potential that the future offers.

However, instead, on this September 1^st, we are a nation in grief, a family in mourning for six of our children for whom there will be no hope, no future.

Carmel Gat, z’l
Eden Yerushalmi, z’l
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, z’l
Alexander Lobanov, z’l
Almog Sarusi, z’l
Master Sgt. Ori Danino, z’l

Hostages held in captivity these past eleven months, these six young men and women had managed to survive their grim captivity against the odds, only to be maliciously murdered by their captors, just hours before being discovered by Israel soldiers 20 meters under the ground in a Hamas tunnel. Their families and all of Israel have been plunged into a day of great sadness – there are no words to describe the despair felt here today. In addition, three police officers were shot to death this morning, in their car on the way to work.

There are just not enough tears to express the abundance of sorrow this September 1^st has brought our way today.

I reflect now on all the prayers, all the mitzvot, all the acts of loving-kindness that people world-wide have performed with the hope that their actions would have an impact, would serve to protect the hostages and bring them home, I fear that in the hours and days ahead many will begin question why they bothered? What does it help? Why continue to pour out our hearts and take upon ourselves new commitments of all sorts – for what? It seems, frankly, useless.

Allow me to offer another perspective – a third story.

Although the context of turning outward in asking Jews worldwide to pray more, learn more Torah, give more tzedakah and do more mitzvot is expressed in terms of having an impact, of protecting, of saving and securing those in captivity, I would suggest that there is actually another meta-purpose to this Jewish behavior – one that is just as important or maybe even more important as it relates to survival. Not specifically survival of the captives, but rather, survival of a nation.

Think about antibodies. When the body is threatened with a foreign invasion of a virus, it calls upon the entire body to arise and go to battle – white blood cells, dendritic cells, T-cells, B-cells and ultimately antibodies fight to protect the body from the enemy invaders. What is to me most incredible is that once this battle is fought, the biological warriors disperse and dissolve, with the exception of a significant representation of the newly created antibodies that live on in the body forever, ever-present to give the body immunity to that invader in the future. This is how immunizations and vaccinations work.

As I see it, dark times for the Jewish people have always been accompanied by a dual response, whose nuances are apt to be misunderstood. When there is danger to an individual or a community, tradition teaches us to pray and recommit ourselves to Jewish observances and Jewish learning. Ostensibly, this booster shot of prayer and ritual is meant to have an impact upon the heavens, to perhaps change the plan, to bring salvation. Unfortunately, far too often we are disappointed, because it does not seems to be working.

There will be those who suggest the opposite, that actually it does work, and that as grim as the situation seems, it is meant for the best, just that it is beyond our ability to understand that. “Gam zu letovah” – “it is for the best“- they will tell us.

I prefer to see the “booster shot” Jewish phenomena of stepping up our prayers and rituals as something else. I do not only see these actions as categorically aimed at bringing about physical salvation  – as much as we might believe that this is their main purpose – but rather, they are acts of national defiance for the purpose of reinforcing our Jewish spiritual relevance in the face of the forces of evil that surround us. In other words, like antibodies, in the face of threatening death or destruction, the Jewish people –  a living, breathing entity  – reconnects and recommits to our mission, reinforces our raison d’etre, creating spiritual anti-bodies that seek to defy the enemy’s current intentions, and most importantly, make us even stronger in our faith and determination to achieve our mission on earth, despite the physical losses endured. Rather than allow ourselves to be completely absorbed in the here and now, we strengthen our faith and our practice, so as to be in a better place when the imposing threat is behind us.

May we who have committed or recommitted to prayer or ritual or learning over the past year not allow the despair of this day to derail our undertakings; this war will end, and when we are on the other side of it, it will be our heightened commitment and reinforced faith that will be there to take us forward toward better days and a brighter future.