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Sarah Tuttle-Singer
A Mermaid in Jerusalem

Waiting for forgiveness, when it feels like we’re waiting to forgive

We are all up in the days of awe, and I’m reeling: these are strange days in our lives, days suspended in a kind of cosmic limbo. The gates are open… We don’t know what’s written in that book, but we know the stakes: who will live and who will die. And we wait, hearts heavy, wondering if we’ll be sealed in for another year or left outside the margins.

This year, October 7 shifted the weight of this waiting. It’s no longer just the ancient ritual, the prayers said by rote, the idea of life and death held in abstraction. It’s real, it’s urgent, and it’s terrifying. We need safety. We crave it in a way that feels primal—no longer just words spoken on a fast day, but a tangible need for protection. For shelter from the chaos. For our children to wake up tomorrow in a world where rockets aren’t raining down and bullets aren’t shattering windows.

But in this desperate need for safety, there’s a question that gnaws at me. What about the others? The ones we’ve been taught to fear, whose faces we may never see but whose lives have also been ripped apart? We tell ourselves it’s different for them. They’re the other side. They’re the enemy. But what happens when we strip away the rhetoric, when we look past the headlines, past the maps and the borders? What happens when we see the innocent lives on their side, crushed by the same violence that shakes our bones?

Because here’s the thing: Terrorists—yes, they are my enemy. The ones who plan death, who send rockets and train snipers—those are my enemies. But what about the families who are just trying to live, like we are? What about the children who only want to play without hearing the explosions and the planes? Are they not caught in the same storm? How do we make sense of this enormous, heart-wrenching death toll? How do we close that gap, that chasm between us, when every headline, every loss, feels like another brick in the wall?

How do we make sure that the walls we build to protect ourselves don’t become cages for others?

How do we make sure that we don’t become so inhumane that we thirst for revenge?

And then – ohh GOD — we’re told to ask for forgiveness. To stand before God, bare our souls, and say, “I messed up. I’m sorry.” It’s supposed to be this deep, intimate relationship—a give-and-take with the divine. But here’s my question: Where is God in all of this? Where is the forgiveness from that side of the relationship? We ask for it, we plead for it, but in a world that’s falling apart, it’s hard not to feel like humanity has abandoned itself. Maybe we’ve failed. But maybe, too, our Creator has gone silent. Maybe the hands that are supposed to hold us have let us slip through the cracks.

Because let’s be honest: We’re waiting for forgiveness, but it feels like we’re waiting for permission to forgive. And how do we forgive when the world is burning, when we’re watching innocent people die, when our brothers and sisters are in terror tunnels, and when terror and tragedy are on repeat? Where is God in the cosmos, when the gates feel so forbidding? And how do we even begin to move forward when every day seems to bring more loss?

Maybe it starts with seeing each other. Really seeing. Not just us versus them, not just lines on a map, but people who are suffering, like we are. Maybe it starts with understanding that the safety we crave isn’t just for us, but for them too. Maybe it starts with the smallest steps—acknowledging the humanity in the other, even when it’s hard, even when it hurts.

Because at the end of these days, when the gates finally close, I don’t know what will be written in the book. I don’t know who will be sealed for life or who will be left outside. But I do know that we are all waiting, all hoping for another chance. Another breath. Another year. And maybe, just maybe, the way forward is to recognize that our safety, our lives, are tied up with theirs, with those on the other side of the wall, the map, the line.

And maybe God is waiting for us to figure that out.

About the Author
Sarah Tuttle-Singer is the author of Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered and the New Media Editor at Times of Israel. She was raised in Venice Beach, California on Yiddish lullabies and Civil Rights anthems, and she now lives in Jerusalem with her 3 kids where she climbs roofs, explores cisterns, opens secret doors, talks to strangers, and writes stories about people — especially taxi drivers. Sarah also speaks before audiences left, right, and center through the Jewish Speakers Bureau, asking them to wrestle with important questions while celebrating their willingness to do so. She loves whisky and tacos and chocolate chip cookies and old maps and foreign coins and discovering new ideas from different perspectives. Sarah is a work in progress.