Sometimes, at the worst of times, the thing you have to concentrate on, is the best of times. Sometimes, when there is a funeral, a painful, horrible, agonizing funeral of someone who should not be dead but alive and enjoying her summer freedom…you have to remember life.
Yesterday was an agonizing day in Israel. Unbearably hot from a regional heat wave that has sent temperatures soaring well over 100 degrees (well over 40 degrees Celsius and even into the 50s and 60s in some areas). And unbearably sad because Israel spent much of yesterday and the last few days focusing on negativity.
Throughout the day, people spoke of two horrible events, attacks on our society as much as on the individuals who suffered. Terror attacks. Yes, terror for people who went to a parade on a summer day in Jerusalem, never believing violence would erupt before their eyes. Terror for a family in their home, when masked men brought fire and death to a baby. Some quibbled over who was responsible; others wasted time arguing over how to label these things — arson attack or terror attack or hate crime, all of the above or some.
At some point, after we heard that young Shira Banki had died, the anger that many were feeling simply deflated. What is left to say when in the end, a 16 year old is dead? I spent much of the hours that followed this announcement trying not to think of one simple thing.
My baby is 15.5…even a bit more. She is grace and beauty; she is a teenager. She is a girl and almost a woman. She’s all about her hair and her friends. She makes me tea sometimes and plops on my bed when she has nothing to do. We talk…we play games together. We are very close, closer than many mothers and daughters.
She tells me about things…I tell her about things…we’ll go out to breakfast, I’ll force her to wear boots or a sweater. She’ll come home late and I’ll give her a hard time. She’ll tell me she’s starving and ask me to make her food, or she’s late and ask me to drive her somewhere. She’ll send me messages that she loves me and hearts and smiles and flowers…
With I thought of how Shira’s mother would cope without her, I broke last night. Don’t ask why Shira was there at the parade. It really, really doesn’t matter. I have deleted a dozen comments on Facebook…could easily have deleted another dozen. The question isn’t why she was there, but how her mother and her family will live without her. Ask who will make her mother tea, and play games with her, and who will she talk to…
In such sadness, I thought of the day; of the arguments I’d had and the comments that I had read. Around Israel, and from across the world, criticism and complaint. Almost weekly in the US, there is a mass shooting without nearly the amount of soul searching that took place here in Israel. But we needed that soul searching, and we still do. Perhaps the most honest comment came from Rabbi Benny Lau who said simply, “We are all responsible.”
It is impossible to denounce this crime by saying ‘A Jew doesn’t stab a Jew!’. That’s racism! A Jew doesn’t stab, period. Everyone who prayed today heard the 10 Commandments and they stood and heard ‘You will not murder’. In the name of which Torah? In the name of which Torah does someone stab? Or goes and burns up a baby and his whole family? Everything starts from what we say in shul and we need to take responsibility!
When everyone says that we are losing our soul, that’s the time to find it. When people question our direction, it’s time to look around and remember who we are, what we are, and what we have accomplished.