I shared these words from the heart last Friday night. I shared them not knowing if the hostage deal would come through. It began this past Sunday and three innocent, living women did come home. Dozens of murderers were released into the West Bank to celebratory parades.
Friday night I began:
The last psalm (Psalm 93) that we read together says:
The rivers rise up, Adonai, the riverse raise up their roar, the rivers raise up their waves. Above the roar of the vast sea and the majestic breakers of the ocean, Adonai stands supreme in the heavens.
I need to feel that God is supreme right now. I’d say the last few days, or maybe the last year and a half, but I’m Jewish, so in truth it’s been my whole life. I’ve got agita. I’ve got anxieties. I’ve got neuroses. My emotions have gone from here to there and everywhere in between. The last few days I have been on the edge of a knife wondering what the news will say about the hostages. There has been a steady drum beat of news over the last few weeks about the potential, the potential of some terrible horrible, no good, very bad deal--but a deal that is the best that it could possibly be, because God-willing, that Adonai, who stands supreme in the heavens, above the roar of the vast sea, above the breakers of the oceans will bring home the children, the spouses, the lovers, the friends for the first time this weekend after more than a year, after almost 470 days.
I woke up this morning. I got dressed and was getting ready to come to shul, when I remembered that I had photographs for this weekend’s bar mitzvah. So I jumped in the shower. As I was standing there, feeling the hot water, I did not want to get out. I was terrified of what this day would bring. Would the deal that has been on again and off again and on again and off again come through?
I so desperately want to be a universalist, who believes in the wellbeing and the goodness of every human being. It is my core text that every one of us was created in the image of God, it’s a verse I hold so strongly in my heart,
the verse that I hold so strongly in my heart that we were all created in the Divine Image, as it says in Bereshit. There the verse does not speak of Jewish or Muslim or Christian or Buddhist or Shinto or anytihng else. It says “Adam”, human being.
And yet, I also hold in my heart the reminder that כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲרֵבִים זֶה בָּזֶה all Israel is responsible for one another AND ואהבת לרעך כמוך, we have to love our neighbors as ourselves--which means that we also have to love ourselves! And we are not to stand idly by the blood of our fellow (לֹ֥א תַעֲמֹ֖ד עַל־דַּ֣ם רֵעֶ֑ךָ) and the blood of our fellow has been crying out for nearly 470 days. It has been there day after day after day. And as I see this beautiful little girl in this chapel, I am thinking about the small children who we do not know if they are living or dead--the children of the Bibas family. One moment I am filled with hope that these children will return home and the next I am filled with dread that they have been dead for more than a year and we did not know. In this moment, I am trying to be hopeful, seeing the smile of this child and praying that those children will be home soon, knowing that children are so incredibly resilient, so amazing, and such wonderful creations.
But we also know the problem with children is that they grow up into adults, just like kittens unfortunately grow into cats. And that as they grow, that resilience can shift into orneriness, into hardness. I so wish that our children could grow up without that hardness, without the need for resilience.
This week’s parsha opens with the world changing in a moment, again and again. Moshe’s story begins with him in a basket floating in the Nile, then finds him in the palace of Pharaoh, then wandering in the desert on his own, then finding a nice young woman, then settling down and having a family, and then being called to go back and to take responsibility for his people--speaking adversarily to the Pharaoh that helped raise him. All of that happens in just five chapters of Exodus, hundreds of years and then half the life of Moshe in just a few pages, a few columns of the Torah.
So I want to have hope and I want all of us to have hope. We will see what happens this weekend. And even if things don’t go the way that we wish and even if things turn out to be darker than we could have imagined, we will overcome.
This Monday is the observance of MLK day. While he wasn’t the originator of the saying, he popularized it and it is often attributed to him, so I’m stealing it today, too. He said that “if you see Darkness, don't curse the darkness but light a light.” MLK was someone who tried to light the lights. Just like us, he wasn't a perfect person but in his holy imperfection he made tremendous, beautiful change in a country that did not want it. So maybe all of us can make tremendous, beautiful change in a world that doesn't
always want it--or us. We can have hope that this week will be the week
that we dreamed of. If nothing else, I did get out of the shower this morning. I'm here and I’m glad you are, too. Shabbat shalom. Let us pray the evening service. Let us welcome this Shabbat and fill it with joy and
gladness.
Posters of kidnapped Israelis, including the Bibas family, is seen in photographs taken March 5, 2024 (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM) https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-839062
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