Judaism is based on the fact that the year is cyclical; our holidays, Torah reading, and many seasonal aspects of our lives, especially in Israel. In years before this one, I never felt the way time moved as keenly as I do now. For most of the year we have said, “We are still stuck on October 7” and that was deeply true; the trauma from the collective experience, the horrific and shocking tragedy our people endured, and the fact that our hostages, even now, are still stuck in Gaza, warped time so that it felt impossible to move forward.
And yet, time also feels as if it’s been moving in circles; we keep revisiting the past moments with new twists and turns that we may or may not be able to see coming. Watching the rise of antisemitism in the Diaspora is a harrowing reminder of our grandparent’s generation. Watching ideas and morality rot from the inside, making it cool to hate Jews again; there is nothing new there, as horrifying as it is to watch and experience.
I am writing this on erev Rosh Hashana, after having spent last night in the bomb shelter while the Iranians sent ballistic missiles at our civilians. As my apple cake burned in the oven, I felt like I was back in the week leading up to Pesach when we experienced the same thing, except last night was double the firepower aimed over our heads. There was certainly an experience of déjà vu – didn’t we just do this a few months ago? Didn’t we spend all Tisha B’Av waiting for a massive attack as well?
It also feels like we’re living in a biblical moment; the miracles so large and so overt – undeniable really, that as I’m living it sometimes I tell myself the story as if the Torah would tell it. “And while the people prepared for the holiday, G-d shook the ground itself, and with a strong hand and outstretched arm he shielded the people from fire, clouds of glory and the angels themselves throwing the missiles into the sea. Fire of evil met with the Fire of G-d and His people trembled but were not afraid, because G-d was with them…” No doubt G-d Himself would write it better than I.
That being said, the first anniversary of October 7 is upon us, and in some ways, we feel like we are right back there, or maybe that we never left. Last week my brother was called up north to serve again, with just a few hours notice, and we relived the same scenes we did last fall. My parents’ blessings to keep him safe, teary goodbyes, fear in our hearts of the unknown for all of us, not knowing when we would see him again. It was surreal; hadn’t we done this just a year ago? What kind of year would this new one be? It was unbearable to think that time was repeating itself once more.
But we aren’t reliving an old timeline and there is the potential for something new in every new moment. We are far older and wiser than last year, no longer as caught off guard, and prepared for war knowing that we have survived it before. As weary as we are, stretched too thin and our hearts too broken from all we’ve lost and grieved, the fact that our hostages are still in Gaza, we also have developed resilience whether we wanted to or not. We took part in healing the world that broke in front of our eyes; we gave, we comforted, we visited, we helped, we healed, and became a new version of ourselves under the harsh circumstances. Maybe we have thicker skin, maybe fear doesn’t rule our lives as much anymore, maybe we have acclimated to war in a way that makes us stronger, bolder, and braver. Maybe.
The movement through the year also gave perspective on our storied history. Time and Torah came alive for me on Seder night; we had just survived a massive attack, having no clue about what was coming next, and we told the story of the Exodus as we’ve never told it before. We felt akin to the generation of Egypt who experienced grand miracles, and we for the first time had a new appreciation for those feelings of awe, for the need for shira – song – to express gratitude for being saved by an open miracle. I was crying into my wineglass as soon as my father began singing “Kadesh… Orchatz…”
There were many times this year where I questioned where we were living on the messianic timeline. At first, in the aftermath of October 7, I wondered if we were much further out than I had thought. That the hubris of thinking that we were almost there made us feel a false sense of security; that the only place left to go was up. As if we already understood the birth pangs of Mashiach and were no longer vulnerable to the type of suffering we endured this year. And yet, the closer into the year we got, I think I developed a hope that actually we were not living in a time of hester panim, but rather we would be living through a tumultuous time that would indeed bring us closer, with G-d showing His face sometimes in dramatic fashion. On Tisha B’Av, I was up all night waiting to see what Iran might do to us, and instead, there was a significant earthquake in Iran and Lebanon that night. G-d literally shook the earth in response to our enemies. Many times this year I walked out of the bomb shelter feeling in awe with a bolstered and emboldened faith.
For me, prayer became an act that grounded me through this process; a way to mark time, change myself, the needs that arose over the year, the passing of the seasons. I engaged in a daily practice of writing prayer in my journal, talking to G-d about what I felt, what His people were experiencing, and what I thought we needed. Writing it down kept me feeling tethered to the feeling that I was “doing something” even on days when it felt as if there was nothing I could do to fix the broken world I was living in. I also wondered what it would require to be the generation before Mashiach – was there something that we could do to bring it closer? To end this madness so we could move into a new timeline of peace and security?
I recalled that the Sages talk about how the exodus from Egypt will mirror the final redemption. They also mention that we merited redemption because of the nashim tzadkaniot, the righteous women who never gave up on the idea that G-d would save them. The midrash says that the Jewish women brought instruments with them when they left Egypt, fully prepared to celebrate the miracles they believed would come. They were right, and Miriam the Prophetess and the women began to sing, with words that brought the entire nation to celebration after they crossed the Yam Suf.
I realized that we had an opportunity to spiritually prepare ourselves as well, like the previous generations. We needed language that addressed right now, expressions of hope and faithfulness, in the mesorah of our foremothers who wrote techines, their own prayers in their own mother tongues – in response to their intimate lives. It was a practice that I personally found helped me move through time keeping tethered to my own reality and a vision for a better future. It was time to bring together other women living in Israel through this war, and create something that could hold us through the challenging feelings, experiences, and realities that this year brought to us.
And so this spring and summer, I, alongside my writing partners Rachel Sharansky Danziger and Anne Gordon, wrote, collected, and work-shopped tefillot, techinot, and piyutim, from 55 different writers. We wrote with women we knew would find the words, masters of creative expression: Torah teachers, leaders, scholars, writers, poets, therapists, and women who pray, leading to an anthology of prayers, a siddur – companion called “Az Nashir – We Will Sing Again – Women’s Prayers for Our Time of Need” – with 115 prayers and 30 pieces of artwork inspired by the land of Israel, prayer, and the war.
It contains prayers for right now, moments that we as a generation have never experienced before; prayers for Shabbat when a loved one is in danger, for sending children off to war, for our hostages and their families, for going to the mikvah when your husband is away at war, for pregnant moms praying their spouses will come home. For burying our soldiers, husbands, and children, for this new year to come, for the moment before you read the morning news in a time of crisis. It is tender, as it mirrors our broken hearts, in all its pain and joy. But mostly, it is awash with a great love. Love for our people, our land, G-d, and what we are and what we could be.
The chagim will feel different for me this year, because I will be able to hold in my hands a hefty book with all the wisdom, faith, and support that my teachers, leaders, colleagues, and friends have written alongside me, to lean on. I know that there is still much ahead of us that we will need to face; from the past, moment to moment in the present, always praying for a potential better future.
I wonder if we are cycling through time again, but this time climbing higher and higher – healing broken parts of our nation, the way we interact and support each other, recommitted to our ancient homeland that is experiencing an ingathering of the exiles; building a better society with sovereignty and justice. We have the opportunity to show the world and ourselves that our blood is no longer cheap among the nations; taking our rightful place in our indigenous homeland; investing in innovation, in peace, and bringing our light into the world.
So I pray that this year we heal and we become whole once more. That our hostages are returned home to us, our soldiers return to their families healthy and well, the war ends, and we have reason to rejoice. I pray that we sing and find the words that express the awe that we will feel, when we witness miracles that bring forth the final redemption, speedily in our days.
