Unbearable joy: The magnitude of hostages coming home

Sometimes, joy cuts you at the knees and fells you, because something changed and the world is other, and the light shines differently, shines more, shines better.

Suddenly, your heart overturns and a better tomorrow is a real possibility, and all of it is too much, too much to contain and remain standing, too much to take in without falling. Too much, too much,  and yet, just right.

This year, I was felled by joy five times, and each time, as my knees crashed to the floor and tears filled my eyes and laughter filled my mouth, I thought…

This moment, it’s worth living a whole life just for the privilege of experiencing this moment. If all I have to recall at the end of my days is this moment, it will have been a life worth living.

I thought…

This must be what our ancestors felt when they saw God’s hand by the sea.

I thought…

Just as there were no words that could contain our horror and our sorrow on Simchat Torah, so there are no words to hold the meaning of this moment, of this joy.

I felt this way when soldier Ori Megidish, one of the kidnapped tatzpitaniot (soldier observers) was rescued by the IDF on October 30, 2023. I had to pull my car over when I heard the news. I had to let my body shake.

October 7th was still a never-ending present moment in my mind then, a wordless scream that lay within me as I walked and talked and slept. Yet suddenly, within a moment, I learned that Israel was still the place I’ve always known and loved, that our army was still the same army that would go to any length to save our people, that maybe there could be a future after the endless scream.

Like dreamers, I thought, and cried and laughed into my hands by the side of the road. Like dreamers, who face ugly reality, but know it’s changeable, because they tasted other possibilities within their dreams.

I felt this way in November, as we all watched Savta Yaffa and the other 105 hostages who were released in the temporary ceasefire embraced firmly in their loved ones’ arms. The joy was mixed with other feelings then, tempered by caution. I knew that our enemies would try to use this world-altering joy against us, try to weaponize it to make us lose our spine in favor of our heart.

Yet the joy itself was simple, as simple as a “hallelujah.” Thank you, God, I thought then. Thank you, God.

I felt this way in February, when I awoke to news of the IDF’s bold rescue of two hostages. And even more so on that incredible Shabbat, on June 8th, when my parents yelled to me from the end of the street, too happy to wait until I walked down the block to reach them, too eager to tell me right then and there that four hostages had been rescued, that Noa Argamani was free, free, free! I carried it with me that all afternoon, or maybe it carried me — wherever I walked, I felt like I was flying, and everyone I met was with me, in this joy and in this moment. “Did you hear,” we asked each other, friends and strangers alike. And in each other’s eyes, we saw bright light.

And I felt this way again yesterday, when my husband burst into the room, and said, “Did you hear? Did you hear?” And I didn’t know who had been released, I didn’t know it was Farhan al-Qadi, whose reunion with his family would later move me once again to tears. All I knew was that my body couldn’t hold the magnitude of the moment, that a better future was suddenly possible. I was felled as surely as I was those other times, crying and laughing and holding onto dreams.

Thank you Hashem for Your hand before me.

Thank you, everyone who helped bring about this miracle.