Tonight, I wish I could talk about the new academic year that started this last week for so many students in the north hemisphere. I would like to talk about the happiness of meeting friends, the anxiety about the new things, about beginning again. However, I can’t. I can’t because I am a mother, and my heart is aching with the agonizing pain of another mother. Rachel Goldberg-Polin received the dead body of her son and, since then, the ancient words of the prophet Jeremiah haunt my soul:
A cry is heard in Ramah—
Wailing, bitter weeping—
Rachel weeping for her children.
She refuses to be comforted
For her children, who are gone.
As so beautifully expressed by Rabbi Menachem Creditor: “This biblical verse resonates with Rachel the matriarch’s timeless grief as she weeps for her children, for the pain of exile and the fear of annihilation, refusing comfort until her precious ones are back in her arms. And while her fierce tears are the tears of every parent whose child is lost to the cruelty of the world, their heightened, tragic resonance today is tribal and visceral for Jews all around the world, united in anguish as Rachel weeps once more, as our hearts are shattered yet again.”
Last Saturday morning, while we were here, praying together, although our calendars marked 31st of August, it was October 7th again. However, different than last Simchat Torah, when the unbearable news arrived quickly, changing the rhythm of the chag, this last Saturday, it didn’t happen. Therefore, we woke up on Sunday morning to the news of the deaths of Alex Lubanov, Almog Sarusi, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and Ori Danino.
These deaths probably hit us harder because we had been following the strength and the pain of Hersh’s mother, Rachel. She became the symbol of the unlimited dedication of a mother to her son. She became the voice and the face of the families who were and are struggling to keep breathing while waiting for their family members, who were and are being held captives in Gaza. She is still the symbol of our pain and fear of being Jews in such a cruel world.
“Today’s parallels with ancient Jewish trauma are overwhelming. In the face of this new and even more horrifying reality, with 97 hostages still trapped in Gaza, many of whom are already dead, even the Bible falls short.” Because, although the prophet promises Rachel, our matriarch, that her children will return alive, many of the children of Israel just won’t.
Rabbi Menachem Creditor published his pain, on 1st September, in these verses:
I dreamt I was dreaming
that a crying sky was imagined
that Rachel’s cry could still be heard
that comfort would still be possible.
I woke
to my People’s shattered heart
and photos of six precious Jewish children
whose cries are no longer heard.
may their souls finally be at rest.
I walk through a haze
my mind races
my heart cries
Rachel, Rachel, crying for her child.
I cry with you.
In his eulogy, Jon Polin said that, were Hersh alive and free, he would keep on pushing for a rethinking of the region. In his own words to his son: “You would say — you have said — that we must take a chance on the path with potential to end the ongoing cycles of violence.”
The people who survived received the blessing of staying alive and living to see the Promised Land. They received the chance to begin anew. As we begin the month of Elul, sounding the shofar every day; studying, reciting or singing Psalm 27; and, especially, dedicating ourselves to the practice of cheshbon hanefesh, balance of our souls, we prepare ourselves to survive. We prepare ourselves for yet another year when we will face the emotional rollercoaster of the High Holidays, and yet, after Rosh Hashanah, Yamim Noraim, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, to be called back to life, and in Simchat Torah, to begin again.
As multitudes take the streets of Israel demanding a deal and the end of the war, we are reminded that, “as long as any Rachel weeps, our work is not done. We must continue to be her voice, her hands, her hope, building a future where the promise of return and safety is fulfilled for those still in darkness.”
To her son, Rachel said: “OK, sweet boy go now on your journey. […] Hersh, there’s one last thing I need you to do for us,” she said. “Now I need you to help us stay strong, and I need you to help us survive.”
We must fight for the right of all Avraham’s children to stay alive and reach their own promised land. We need to embrace life remembering that life itself is our greater blessing. And when time comes, we will dance again.
Shabbat Shalom.
Image: Jacob Steinhardt - Rachel Weeping for Her Children (Jeremiah 31:15), 1960s, Woodcut on paper
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