September 6, 2024
Dear Friends,
As we enter Shabbat and reflect on the week that has passed, we carry with us the heartbreak of the murders of hostages on Sunday that shook us to the core. In some ways, it feels like we are all in shiva. And so, this letter is a kind of shiva call for all of us. One that is raw and unprotected but I hope comforting in that we can turn to each other with honesty in the saddest of moments.
In some ways, the suffering of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and his family was a window into the suffering of so many families since October 7th. Whereas it is sometimes hard to look at such suffering head on, Hersh’s story was a window that called us forth to look, to pray, to hope in compassion and finally, in heartbreak. As we looked, we learned what a sensitive and loving soul Hersh was. We learned that Hersh was celebrating his birthday at a music festival before Hamas’s brutal attack. We learned that Hersh witnessed his close friend murdered as they were hiding. And we read of his last texts that he sent to his parents as he was carried away to captivity. “I love you.” “I’m sorry.”
We had to look as we saw a video Hersh’s captors cynically made and released as he was kidnapped, showing a part of his arm blown off. We saw in the last few days another in video in which Hamas forced him to appear. We saw in his eyes the fear and suffering that go to the depths of human pain. We hurt with him and his family.
Hersh and his family had many ties to the American Jewish community. Personally, Hersh was a very close friend of the son of our dear friends in Israel. The grief of all who knew and loved Hersh is beyond immense. The web of connections, made all of us feel like Hersh could have been our child.
And we know that all the 6 hostages murdered this week could have been our child—Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Alex Lobanov and Ori Danino. Like Hersh, beautiful souls who loved and were loved.
And the grief of these six innocent souls is all the more difficult, because we are grieving even more deaths on and since October 7th, more cruelty, more uncertainty, more fear that the world as we know it is breaking.
We grieve the cruel captivity and deaths of so many Israeli Jews, as well as Bedouin and migrant workers who were attacked on October 7th. We grieve the deaths and injuries of countless Israeli soldiers. We grieve a dream of a unity and security in a Jewish homeland that is burning, divided and in trauma. Many of us also grieve a war that has taken the lives of so many Palestinian civilians in Gaza and caused suffering, whether from bombs, dislocation, lack of food or medical care.
In Jewish tradition, shiva gives us the opportunity to cry, to grieve and to express anger for lives cut short. It is also an opportunity for the living to forgive and to ask for forgiveness–of each other and of those who have died.
Forgiveness is also the theme of Elul, the Jewish month that just began on Wednesday. This is the month in which we spiritually prepare for the High Holidays and the beginning of 40 days of Teshuvah (return and repentance) ending on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is a month when we turn to each other in humility and ask for forgiveness. Why humility? There is a teaching that takes each Hebrew letter of the word “teshuvah” and offers a biblical verse that begins with that letter. The last letter of teshuvah begins a verse that says “hatzneah lechet im elohecha–walk humbly with your God.”
There is so much pain we have suffered this past year. I pray that during this month of Elul we can acknowledge our pain so that we can, in all humility, deepen our compassion—for those in our families, for those in our communities, and for those suffering around the world.
As the prophet Micah wrote, only this is what God requires of us: “to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
As we approach Rosh Hashanah, I look forward to joining together as a community in prayer, in love, and in a shared commitment to do all we can to heal our broken world. May it be a year of peace and blessing for all.
Shana Tova,
Rabbi Caryn Broitman