We Will Rise, Once Again

My son was anxious all Shabbat, waiting to hear about the release of this weekend's hostages. He wanted to know who they were and what happened to them and their families.

When Shabbat ended he looked at the news and said, "Ima, six men were released."

And in my confusion, I finally caught up with the news and had to explain to him that they were in fact only three released. These were before and after pictures.

Three men who were unrecognizable now. Three men who look like pictures I've seen of concentration camp survivors, starved and tortured, barely making it out alive.

And then he began bombarding me with questions, too many for me to answer. Most of them unanswerable.

I told him I had the same questions, the same distress. My husband took over and tried to answer as soberly and patiently as he could.

I have found that since Shabbat has ended, I'm finding it difficult to string sentences together. Eli Sharabi came home to find out his wife and daughters were murdered on Oct 7. He waited to be reunited all this time. That Or Levy's wife was murdered and his 3 year old son has been living with relatives this whole time. That Ohad ben Ami was unrecognizable.

What I want to tell him, is that grownups in Israel and all around the world are also not OK.

That all I want to do is close my eyes and not look.

Curl up in bed and weep because though I don't recognize those men that came out of the darkness, I remember that haunted, emaciated look on my ancestors.

That I want to scream and retch and and rage at the evil people in this world who did this to them, to us. To the people all over the world who this this is OK, that this is good, that we deserve this.

That Jews deserve this for being Jews.

For living in our ancient homeland.

There are people that tonight, are looking at these images and approve. Glorify this. Chant for this. Celebrate this.

For us, these images are the realization of our worst nightmares.

We will never forgive this.

We will never forget this.

and we will rise, once again, to shine morality into the world.