I remember three years ago today, waking up on the morning of Simchat Torah to the vague awareness that something terrible was happening in Israel. We didn’t yet know what, or how bad it would be. I remember driving over to Northwestern Hillel, where Mishkanites were joining their minyan, and we were whispering between prayers about the horrendously high number of people we heard had been murdered in a Hamas terrorist attack. That morning we the number was 250, but we knew we didn’t yet know how gruesome and terrible the day would be by its end. 

Now we know that close to 1,200 people were brutally murdered that day — raped, burned alive in their homes, executed, hunted down — a number that included Israeli Jews and Arab Muslims and Christians, visiting workers, artists, soldiers, peace activists, babies, children, elderly people, young adults at all all-night music festival. I’ve been to Israel five times since that horrific day, and the trauma of it continues to live in the heart of every Israeli — everyone has a story of where they were, and what they endured on that unimaginable day.

But how they, and we, have internalized the awful events of that day have evolved over the past three years. The day after the attacks we sent a message to our community: solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Israel still reeling from this attack. We prayed for the families of the dead and for the 250 hostages abducted into the tunnels of Gaza. And we prayed that Israel’s response not treat Palestinians on the whole, as the enemy. And what followed was an aerial and ground campaign that did, indeed, destroy Hamas strongholds — yet also killed 70,000 Palestinians, which included children, women and elderly, doctors and journalists, aid workers and advocates for peace.

It has been a devastating three years for anyone who cares about Israelis, Palestinians, and prospects for a peaceful future there. Combine that with the increase in hate crimes against Jews all over the world, as if we are responsible for what happens in Israel.

This morning we devoted our minyan to Jewish prayer and song, as we did in the days following Oct 7th, finding solace and support in the structures and words of Jewish prayer. And we also read poetry — poetry written by survivors in the Israeli kibbutzim in the South, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, and poetry written by a Gazan poet killed in an Israeli airstrike. You can listen to the minyan on Contact Chai, our podcast, here.

There are very few spaces where a person can lift up the humanity of Israelis and Jews, as well as the humanity of Palestinians, without being called a traitor to a side, or being told to wait until a better time to recognize our shared humanity. 

To quote Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, in their statement today: “If these three years have taught me anything, it is that our work to build coalitions across communities is more important than ever — and that we cannot retreat into simple, binary answers in response to our profound trauma. 

We can mourn the horrific terror of October 7th and the devastating loss of Palestinian life. We can believe that both Israelis and Palestinians deserve dignity, safety, freedom, and self-determination. We can unequivocally fight antisemitism and Islamophobia, racism, and all forms of hate.

These commitments do not compete with one another.  

Jewish safety and inclusive democracy are inextricably linked, and the safety of every community is interconnected. We must reject the false belief that one community’s safety comes at the expense of another — and continue building the relationships and coalitions that allow us to stand up for one another. 

On this October 7th, we remember and we mourn, and we recommit ourselves to supporting the people building a country and a world where Jews — and all people — can live with safety, dignity, and freedom. 

Mishkan will always remain a place where we hold out hope for a future in which we don’t choose whose humanity to prize, recognizing that it’s only when all who live between the river and the sea see the humanity in one another, that peace can prevail. We will continue to amplify the voices of those brave peace makers and support Israelis and Palestinians imagining and working toward a peaceful and just resolution to this near-century of conflict. I am reminded of the words of Alon Lee Green, one of the national leaders of Standing Together: that this is not about Israelis versus Palestinians but extremism versus humanity. We, here, will continue to be voices of sanity, nuance, and humanity, even as our world rewards extremism in both word and deed. 

May all of the memories of the beautiful souls lost on October 7th and since be for a blessing and a revolution of political creativity, will, and love. 

****

Poetry selections from our Morning Minyan:

Kaddish | Assaf Gur

Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mey rabbah.
And no one came.
Many thousands called to him on Shabbat morning,
crying His name out loud,
tearfully begging Him to come,
but He had ceased from all his work.
No God arrived, and no God provided comfort.
Only Satan celebrated uninterrupted,
dancing between kibbutzim and the Festival of Slaughter.
Our correspondent goes on to report, sobbing all the while,
that there is a burnt baby,
an abducted baby,
an orphaned baby,
and a day-old baby still linked by the umbilical cord to his mother.
He wasn’t even able to learn his own name
that will be inscribed on the tiny headstone with a single date for birth and death.

This is what the kibbutz looks like after Satan’s visit.
Turning the broadcast back to the studio.
Quiet now, they are shooting.
There are also launching rockets.
There is no government.
There is no mercy, just the screaming and the images that will never leave the mind. 

The 7th of October 2023.

“If I Must Die” |  Refaat Alareer

If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale

Everywhere | R’ Hanna Yerushalmi

Where should I kiss?
The universe asked
the land.

Devastated in the north.
Bereft in the south.
The land was hurting
And stayed silent.

Where should I kiss?
The universe asked
the people.
Broken by history.
Betrayed by allies.
The people were hurting
And stayed silent.

Where should I kiss?
The universe asked
the child.

Everywhere,
The child responded,
I hurt everywhere.

Tikkun | Aharon Shabtai | October 10, 2023

The horror,
the terrible disaster,
the shame,
the fragments of stupidity,
the foolishness of religion,
the blindness of eyes,
the violence of despair,
will not be repaired by: an officer
Nor a bomb
Nor an airplane
Nor by any more blood.
Only the heart’s wisdom can repair.
Only the doctor, the physician, can repair.
It is only the good teacher who can repair.
The medic, whether Arab or Jew,
the peaceful traveler can repair.
The bicycle rider,
the sandwich carrier,
the one who walks in the street,
the one who opens eyes can repair.
The one who speaks compassionately can repair.
The listener can repair.
The educated person can repair.
The one who waits and ponders can repair.
The guide can repair.
On the paths of generosity, of love, the painter can repair,
The poet, the students of peace can repair,
The gardeners of peace.

One Tiny Seed | Rachel Goldberg-Polin

There is a Yiddish lullaby that says:
“Your mother will cry a thousand tears before you grow to be a man.”
I have cried a million tears in the last 67 days.
We all have.
And I know that way over there
there’s another woman
who looks just like me
because we are all so very similar
and she has also been crying.
All those tears, a sea of tears
they all taste the same.
Can we take them
gather them up,
remove the salt
and pour them over our desert of despair
and plant one tiny seed.
A seed wrapped in fear,
trauma, pain,
war and hope
and see what grows?
Could it be
that this woman
so very like me
that she and I could be sitting together in 50 years
laughing without teeth
because we have drunk so much sweet tea together
and now we are so very old
and our faces are creased
like worn-out brown paper bags.
And our sons
have their own grandchildren
and our sons have long lives
One of them without an arm
But who needs two arms anyway?
Is it all a dream?
A fantasy? A prophecy?
One tiny seed.