Today four Jews died. Two men with axes and knives came into a synagogue and hacked and slashed at whomever they could reach. Images of blood splattered siddurim are plastered across my Facebook newsfeed.
From my beautiful Beit Midrash in Migdal Oz I and my peers collectively recited tehillim, exactly as I did a few months ago on a summer program in New Haven. We said the same words, and were shaken by the same horror, the same anger, and the same tears. As a group we shut our eyes and shook the bloody nightmares from our heads; then the nightmares of our own brothers being kidnapped, now those of our fathers being stabbed with screwdrivers or mowed down by cars. The overpowering hopelessness was the same, too.
One thing was very different; I was here this time. This summer I kept telling myself I needed to be with my people in my homeland; that I stood in solidarity with my family in Israel; that I loved them and grieved for them. Somehow I imagined that by being on this land, I would be fighting back. The hopelessness would ebb knowing I’d aligned myself with those in the line of fire.
From this new vantage point, things look different. The proclamations of solidarity make less sense. It is not the Jews in Israel who are under attack. It is the Jews. The Jewish body bleeds as one; regardless of difference in belief or location.
Many of my friends in America have told me they “can’t imagine what it must be like for me” being in Israel. Yes, you can. This is happening to you, too. The threat is not limited to a geographic location; those who want us dead want us all dead. Those who call for Jewish blood are not particular about nationality. Three of the men who were killed today were U.S. citizens, the fourth a Brit. Last week in Belgium a rabbi was stabbed on his way to shul on shabbat. We have matching targets tattooed on our foreheads.
My point is not that being here isn’t important; it is. Living in our land is worthy and it is noble, but it is not ultimately what endangers us. The Jew is no more exempt from this war by living in England or America than I am enlisted by living in Efrat.
I don’t think there is an end for us. The white flag does not exist. There has never really been a stable, dependable peace for The Jew. Quite likely part of what defines us is the constant sacrifice, the constant fear. The fabric of our faith is riddled with the scars of our past. It is what shapes us.
We are a nation that dwells alone. Regardless of our internal differences we are united in our collective loneliness — forged in the same furnace of exclusion and contempt.
This morning my Israeli chevruta (study partner) and I stared in silence at each other for a few moments over our gemaras as the beit midrash around us buzzed with the usual hum of pages turning and chevrotot (study partners) laboring over sugyot (gemara portions) through seder boker (morning learning). Finally I broke the silence. I told her that this summer while on my program in New Haven, the day the boys were found I could not stop crying. The program director, an esteemed and beloved rabbi, told us that we had a responsibility to keep learning, that we would take a few moments to grieve but that life must go on. I acknowledged he was right, we must keep living, but I could not stop crying that day. Today was no different. The imperative to continue learning was juxtaposed uncomfortably beside a deep urge to mourn. Could the lives of those four Jews really be so insignificant that it could be briefly considered and then put aside? How do I respect their loss sufficiently without losing hope?