What To Scream Into the Chaos

I heard Rachel and Jon, Hersh’s (z”l) parents speak in person 3 times. The first feels so long ago, though, it was of course less than one year ago. When they came to my synagogue, Adas Israel, to share their story. The posters of all the hostages lining the seats, the silence in the room, their incredible fortitude and determination. The second time, was in Jerusalem. I had joined a group of colleagues on a mission, with the Shalom Hartman Institute, to support Israelis and volunteer about 7 weeks after 10-7 . We gathered in a small classroom Jerusalem, packed in, wrapt, listening to them plead with us to bring their story and the story of all the hostages back to our communities. And the final time in the spring of this year, on Capital Hill in Washington DC, after viewing with members of Congress of, Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary, “Screams Before Silence”. When the film was over Ms. Sandberg stood at the podium as we wiped our tears and announced that Rachel and Jon would be stopping in to speak with us. On display, as Ms. Sandberg interviewed them, their incredible strength, resilience and courage and their tireless efforts on behalf of Hersh z”l and all of the hostages. I do not, like some of you reading this, know them personally. I only know them because of this unspeakable tragedy.

Since the middle of the night Saturday night into Sunday (EST) when the horrific news was confirmed of Hersh’s murder along with 5 other hostages I keep returning to the way, Rachel Hersh’s (z”l”) mom ended each and every talk she gave. “We Love You. Stay Strong. Survive.”

I awoke that night around 2:45 am with my youngest curled up next to me whispering, “Imma I am scared I can’t fall asleep”. I gently kissed his forehead, reminded him to simply rest and not try and fall asleep and very shortly I heard his breath deepen and his body relax. As he drifted off, I hesitantly opened my phone. I have been trying to sleep without my phone in the room to work on my technology dependence but last night I went to bed with it, too lazy to return it to its’ spot on my kitchen counter. I opened a browser and saw the news immediately. Bereft, I lay there tears and panic filling my body.

On a very simple level to be a people, to be part of a people, is to feel in the most visceral way the pain of circles upon circles in that group. It isn’t your trauma and it is all at the same time. You know the pain and you don’t completely understand it. The same is true of joy but at this moment and in this year, it is the pain, grief, fear and loss that links us.

I looked at Z again and again. Watching how his curls droop on his forehead, his gangly legs stretch out and his chest rises and falls with each breath and I silently wept for all their sons and daughters the ones who would not return. The ones who they could not comfort back to sleep. Millenia of tears, of Jewish parents weeping over the death of their children and the children of their people.

These children are at once just like mine and yours, but also not at all because yours, ours are alive. This is the feeling I have had every Friday night since October 13th, the first Friday night I blessed my children after that Black Sabbath. I held my tears inside most weeks but sometimes they seeped out. I have wept each and every week and mostly as I closed by eyes to hide my tears it was Hersh’s bearded face I saw in my minds’ eye. I imagined placing my hands on his head and I prayed that somehow magically he would feel the thousands of Jewish parents I imagined were blessing him along with their own. But my children, unlike Hersh, Jon and Rachel’s beloved only son, were under my hand, I could feel their soft hair and kiss them and hold them. And for 40 something Shabbatot they could not and now they will never do so again.

Just last week the hostage families went to a border spot between Israel and Gaza with a bullhorn and a speaker system to scream to their beloveds in the hopes that maybe some of them could hear their desperately pleas and urgent calls. I was not surprised to hear Jon Hersh’s dad shout out of a bull horn into Gaza the very blessing that we offer and each and every week at our Shabbat tables. These were the words, this blessing was what he chose to scream across the border. I imagined him pleading with the universe let Hersh hear these words so he has a tiny sliver of hope.

All of this was racing in my in my mind on early Sunday morning, when I was still awake as the clock clicked close to 4 and I was still wondering if this is what those opening lines of Genesis were really all about,

וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃

—now the earth was Confusion and Chaos,
darkness over the face of the deep,
rushing-spirit of God soaring over the waters—

Confusion and chaos. Darkness over the face of everything. God at once present but absent rushing away from everything. Unfelt and unseen.

Groggily I woke up when my alarm went off an hour or two after I finally fell asleep. I did all my usual morning things – emptied the dishwasher and strainer while the water for my coffee boiled, I got the kids first breakfast and all the while I thought of Hersh and his parents. They too once made him cereal and pancakes and probably founds his morning antics annoying. And they too may have worried about his protein intake or his academic progress or any of these everyday worries we parents carry about our children. And now they, and the other parents of those 6 souls, even their worries have been stolen from them. I felt bereft of any sort of hope.

I drank my coffee and worked out with a velocity that I have hardly ever experience. And that was the moment my weeping turned to anger and despair. It was then that we began to learn that these hostages were alive just a few days ago. And I felt the burning power of rage welling up inside of me.

When Rachel came to the end of her talks, the ones I heard in person and nearly all of the hundreds of others she gave, she always did so with the same words: “Hersh we love you, stay strong, survive.” And you know what? He did. Her beloved, beautiful, adventuring, curious, laid back, peace seeking, soccer loving boy had done just as she had said. He was strong. They all were. They were strong. They survived. He survived. They survived against every odd. They were neglected. We can imagine the lack of food and water, the psychological and other abuses they likely suffered. He had his arm blown off. And they were in a darkness, literal and figurative, we people who live above ground do not know. In the deepest darkest tunnel, underneath the earth of the living, Rachel was metaphysically willing them to live. We love you. Stay strong. Survive. And over and over again no matter what they faced for 327+ days they did. Somehow, they were alive. Can you imagine the strength of these 6, and the others who please God are still alive? To keep waking up in that horror, to not give in to the despair, the physical and psychological pain?

Then if the early accounts prove accurate, their salvation was very possibly close at hand. The intelligence had hostages in the area. The units operating there were treading carefully. On the edge of possible redemption they were murdered, brutally and horrifically taken from their families even though that is so very desperately not how we wanted the story to end. Even though they had survived in the worst chaos we have known in my lifetime in the end they were violated with bullets leaving them no control over their fate. It did not matter how strong they were in that moment the violation was simply too brutal, too savage.

And we are now all of us in the chaos. Redemption was not reached, seen or heard. We crashed into an abyss, a chaos, like the earth unformed and void as described by Genesis. The sea did not split. They were in the abyss.

What are we to do? Our circles of connection so broken and bereft.

I want to say we sit in this chaos. We accept it. We dwell in this very real darkness and despair. And perhaps there are moments for this to let it wash over us, the sheer terror, grief, rage, sadness, loss, anger. It is want I want to do at every moment of the day.

But as part of a people, an organism, a living and breathing ecosystem of connection, we have to try and channel Rachel, she is our greatest teacher. We have to rise up and and give something to all of the hostage families, each of them worlds of their own and the families of the over 1200+ people savagely murdered on that Black Sabbath and those have been killed since. We have to remind them because they are part of our circles, circles connected to other circles – even though you have faced the chaos, are in the darkness, feel so much absence and face a world without sons and daughters, brothers and sister, mothers and fathers “we love you, stay strong, survive.” And to those remaining hostages we must scream across the abyss “WE LOVE YOU. STAY STRONG. SURVIVE!” And maybe also for good measure we should scream each and every Friday night to the children of our circles, upon circles,

יְבָרֶכְךָ֥ יְהוָ֖ה וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ׃

יָאֵ֨ר יְהוָ֧ה ׀ פָּנָ֛יו אֵלֶ֖יךָ וִֽיחֻנֶּֽךָּ׃

יִשָּׂ֨א יְהוָ֤ה ׀ פָּנָיו֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְיָשֵׂ֥ם לְךָ֖ שָׁלֽוֹם׃

Even though chaos swirls around you, around us, may blessing find a direct route into your body and soul

Even though darkness anchors in your port may light guide you along the journey

Even though brokenness fills up your soul may wholeness make its way through you once again