We Shall Awake As Dreamers

Before me, before us all, lay a seemingly endless number of strands—threads in a story whose page reads in a way that many thought impossible. I can’t recall how many times I’d confidently said, Hamas will never give up all the hostages. They are its lifeline, its oxygen of survival.

That twenty living hostages have been returned to the bosom of their families—to their loved ones, their children, their friends, to the Jewish Nation, Am Yisrael—should not, for a moment, be seen as a simple matter of fact.

It behooves us to see it as more than tanks and missiles, more than unimaginable intelligence feats, Presidents, or Prime Ministers. It must be seen for something deeper, more essential: a piece in an unknowable, hitherto unimaginable plan—yes, set into motion by the force of arms, by diplomacy and courage, by cunning and boundless creativity—all of it carried out by men and women, known and unknown, who by their determination caused a rupture, a great and necessary tear in the curtain of evil, and a subsequent rush of pure light into the world.

But also by a Divine spirit invested in humankind, and most evident whenever good triumphs over its opposite.

Does the freedom of twenty innocent Jews “solve” the problem? Create real and lasting peace? No. It does not.

What it has done is the work of restoration. It has caused a great and mighty entry of repair into the world of brokenness; it has caused dashed hopes to be made whole. To watch a mother enwrap her son in her arms—a son she fought with all her might to believe was not dead—is to see faith itself restored. To see, in that moment, that whatever in one’s life feels impossible is possible.

In Judaism, there is a fundamental belief—unfamiliar to most, and embraced by even fewer. It is the idea of the revival of the dead: t’chiyat hametim—the hope that the dead will once again rise up and join the living. It is not tangential; in fact, it is the very last of Maimonides’ famous Thirteen Principles of Faith, those essential beliefs that define what it means to live as a Jew.

What does the revival of the dead mean? Is it literal? Figurative? At this moment, none of that seems to matter much. We can see with our eyes what this looks like; we can hear with our ears what its sound is. It is a sight and a sound for which no words can accurately—or even remotely—convey its weight and depth.

Tomorrow and the next day are uncertain, as is the return of the bodies of the hostages not yet released. So too are the consequences of freeing those many murderers from Israeli prisons—men and women with blood on their hands—who in no way should ever be compared or conflated with the hostages Hamas was forced to release from the torturous warrens of their tunnels, their massive, ungodly, blood-lusted creation.

Today alone is certain. Today is sure.

After every meal of substance, a Jew recites a blessing that begins with a psalm. It contains these words, applicable at all times, but perhaps more so today than ever in our lifetimes:

When the Lord will return the exiles of Zion, we will have been like dreamers.
Then our mouth will be filled with laughter, and our tongue with songs of joy;
then will they say among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us; we were joyful.
Lord, return our exiles as streams to arid soil.

Why are we regarded as dreamers? Because we had been asleep to the reality that no matter how effective humankind may be in bringing about what seems miraculous, there is a Force—however named or defined—that is the prime Mover of all things.

And why are our mouths filled with laughter? Because when this realization is shown to us, we will understand how false and limited our conception of the world has been. We will laugh—not from sorrow, but from the restoration of hope long lost and defiled dreams made pure as snow.

There is much work to be done. This is not the end—not by any stretch of the imagination. But it is the beginning. A new beginning. And with it, a chance to remake the world.