The sky turned orange when we first heard the news, a singular hue created by rage and love and a smattering of hope. Although this fiery haze was invisible to most, it created a rift in the universe that realigned the stars and caused the earth to shudder, and at the exact moment that daylight slid into dusk, two separate car crashes occurred in that rift which caused our power grid to fail, plunging two of our local towns into darkness. It was only later that we found out about the accidents, both of which had independently taken down a power line, but before that it was easy to imagine alternative hypotheses for the sudden blackout; a frayed wire, a cyberattack, or G-d Himself tampering with the laws of electricity, a nod to the darkness of the day.
On the second day that the sky turned orange, four caskets returned home; three truths and a lie. I never really thought that they were still alive, but there was a tiny space I had left open, a space between knowing and not knowing, a sliver that held hope; but on that day hope fled and instead, the space was filled with sorrow. Hope was not a thing with feathers; not that day anyway.
That second day unfurled itself and expected me to be a normal person. I tried hard to be a normal person but the color of apricots and carrots and tangerines had burrowed itself deep into my retinas and refused to be unseen. My orange exercise band reminded me that I was lucky to be alive, lucky to be middle aged, lucky to have knee pain and back pain and shoulder pain and all that pain that demands that I use an orange exercise band. At work there were oranges in the break room, a holiday gift that came two months late, lost in the bowels of the postal system, rendering them rotten and moldy and inedible; but they still smelled delicious, and that seemed meaningful in some way. During lunch, I shopped online for another pair of sneakers because lucky people who live to become middle aged also need good arch support. The only color in my size was orange with purple laces which also seemed like something meaningful but also seemed like something ridiculous. I put them in my cart and let them sit there, because I couldn’t bear to leave them behind.
At the end of the day, my last patient almost convinced me that it was not the Bibas babies in those caskets; I envied her positivity, her belief in miracles, her faith. After she left I opened my phone to find out that I was right and that she was wrong; I swallowed my I told you so like the poison that it was.
On Friday, the third day that the sky turned orange, still invisible to most, I had a sheitel appointment. The incongruity of being able to debate the merits of a lace top wig versus a lace front, while simultaneously having your heart squeezed inside out would have seemed ludicrous five hundred plus days ago, but now, this duality is the only way to function.
On Shabbos morning I awoke to the sound of a lone bird chirping outside of my window. Still bound by the layers of unconsciousness that sleep so blessedly provides, I thought it was spring, April or May, and was confused when I pulled back the blinds to see that the branches on the trees were still barren and bare. The sky was no longer pitch black, but it was the moon that demanded my attention. I was startled by its size, a significant crescent, and also by its unusual luminosity. I would have thought that at the break of dawn the moon would be bowing to the sun, but instead it glowed as if it still ruled the sky, opalescent, resplendent, bowing to no one. As the seconds passed, the edges of the sky took on shape and color, a reenactment of creation, and almost as if my imagination had conjured it, the horizon took on an orange hue. It was night, and it was day, it was both, and it was neither. This orange sky was no metaphor created by an aching heart, nor was it just flowery words on a page, this was real and true and terrifying, in the most wonderful way possible.
It seemed imperative that I go to shul for rosh chodesh bentching; the moon had spoken to me, how dare I not listen. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch in his commentary on Chumash teaches us that “each time the moon reunites with the sun and receives from it new light, G-d wants His people to find their way back to Him, so his light may again shine forth on them, no matter where they may be or through what periods of darkness they may have to pass in their path through history.” Although kiddush hachodesh ushers in the new month and determines the Jewish calendar, it is much more than that. The monthly renewal of the moon, phasing from darkness to light and back to darkness, mimics our individual relationship with Hashem, but also our nations place in history. Rav Eliyahu Kitov explains this in his book Sefer HaToda’ah (translated as Our Heritage) and teaches us that the capacity for renewal and revival is unique to the Jewish nation. The moon waxes and wanes and disappears completely, but it always reappears, unlike the other nations who hold dominion for a time, but ultimately disappear.
The chazzan sang birchas hachodesh to the tune of Shoshanas Yaakov. It was impossible not to smile, not to feel a glimmer of hope as we reminded Hashem that He is the one who performed miracles for our forefathers, released us from slavery, and that He is the one who can save us again and bring us all back, from all corners of the earth.
May it be so, speedily in our days.
