‘What are you feeling right now in Israel?’
In Israel, national events are personal.
On Saturday night we drove from our home to Jerusalem to spend time with family who were visiting from America. At the end of a lovely dinner, we asked everyone at the table to share in one word how they were feeling at the moment.
My children thought for a moment and answered: “Uncertain.” “Pained.” “Hopeful.” “Tense.”
Though we were out enjoying ourselves in Mamilla on a clear, crisp night and the question was deliberately ambiguous, it was immediately clear that they were preoccupied with the upcoming hostage deal. All of them.
In Israel, if it’s going on in the country, it’s affecting you.
All Shabbat long we had debated and discussed the different components of the deal. Emotions ran high. It all felt personal.
Over the last 15 months, we have met so many of the hostages’ siblings and parents, heard their stories, shared their pain, joined them at Hostage Square, visited their communities and prayed on their behalf. Each of their faces flashed through my head and my heart as I wondered what they must be thinking and feeling now.
I thought about Yarden Gonen and Ilay David, who crisscrossed the country together speaking about their siblings – now knowing that Romi was slated to come back while Evyatar was not on the list of the 33.
I thought about Neta Yehud, whose brother, Dolev, was thought to be a hostage but was later discovered to have been murdered on October 7th – now wondering in what condition he will find his sister Arbel.
And I thought about Itai Dekel-Chen, who has made tremendous efforts to bring together different communities and segments of Israeli society around awareness for the hostages, including his brother Sagui – now anxious to see him finally reunited with his wife and daughters.
I thought about Sigalit Cohen, who has been holding on to her son’s Eliya’s tefillin for over a year – now anticipating him donning them again.
I thought about Ditza Or, who has not hesitated to speak openly and honestly and raise tough questions throughout – now contending with the fact that her son Avinatan is not coming home in the first phase.
And I thought about about Iris Chaim, and Jon and Rachel Goldberg Polin – now considered “hostage adjacent families” – who bravely face each day with the pain of dashed hopes and unanswered prayers.
In Israel, there is never more than a few degrees of separation between you and the “people in the news.”
Sometimes our bodies respond before our minds have the opportunity to fully understand and process all the different pieces of what we are feeling.
As we watched the hours-long coverage of the first three hostages from this deal coming home, I thought back to our Saturday night outing and realized that the depths of an emotional experience can’t really be captured in words. No single word could fully describe the range of visceral reactions we were experiencing. The tears in our eyes, the shaking of our bodies, the difficulty in breathing, the racing of our hearts, the immense joy and relief and the total, absolute fear.
In the middle of watching these young women hug their mothers, my daughter turned to me with a sudden terrified look and said, “But Ema, didn’t they say the terrorists being released are going to Yehuda and Shomron? That’s where we live. That is so scary.”
The Mishna in Sukka 5:1 tells us: “Anyone who didn’t see the happiness of the Simchat Beit Hashoeva (the celebration that took place at the Beit Hamikdash on holiday of Sukkot) didn’t ever truly experience real happiness.” The Mishna doesn’t even try to capture the feeling for us. There is an awareness that you had to be there to really understand. There is an appreciation that sometimes an emotion can be so strong that we are not equipped to be able to fully transmit the experience of it to others. If you weren’t there, you can’t quite feel it.
We are living through times that could just as readily qualify for their own statements in the Mishna.
When a terribly wounded soldier returned to our community after weeks of hospitalization, he was greeted by such a spontaneous, powerful outpouring of feeling that I felt privileged to merit the unique mix of relief, happiness, gratitude and pride that was felt in the room during those few minutes.
No one denies the complexity, and yet there is still opportunity to bask in the glorious and uplifting moments.
On the flipside, significant and meaningful moments in Israel are also charged and loaded.
At a recent wedding, the chuppah opened with the following statement: “Before we begin the ceremony, we wanted to thank the people in whose merit we are celebrating tonight.” Anticipating the name of the woman who had introduced them, I was caught off guard when, instead, the MC read a list of close friends of the groom who had been killed in terror attacks and at war in Gaza and in Lebanon. He concluded by again recognizing their role in facilitating the rest of us to continue living life to its fullest.
I imagine I am not the only Israeli to be asked by friends and family abroad how I am feeling right now.
This week, Israelis – some more directly connected to the events unfolding, many, like me, less so – are working hard to embrace the huge range of emotions that we are forced to hold at one time. To deny any of them would be to deny the complexity of our situation, of this moment in history and, ultimately, of our own humanity.
Who isn’t overjoyed to see these women in the embrace of their families? Who isn’t horrified to see terrorists who were held behind bars now released into nearby streets? Who isn’t pained for the families of those who loved ones were murdered, who again feel the betrayal of injustice? Who isn’t anxious about how events will unfold from here, for the rest of the hostages and for the rest of us? Who isn’t humbled by the magnitude of the decisions that await us? Who isn’t aware of our enormous need for Divine assistance?
Who thinks they have all the answers?
“Anyone who lived through the hostage deal of early 2025 truly experienced the human capacity to hold contradictory, powerful and overwhelming emotions.”
There are moments when how we are feeling cannot be articulated in a word.