Rabbi's Derasha

It is raining in Tel Aviv.

This morning we learned that six hostages – Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Alex Lubnov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Almog Sarusi, 25 – were found murdered in a tunnel in Gaza. They had been alive until just a day before, and were shot at point-blank range by Hamas. 

It is raining in Tel Aviv this morning–virtually unheard of for this time of year, the first day of school.  The skies are gray, and the outdoor deck is glossy with tears from the sky. There is no other way to see this meteorological aberration right now. Like everything else, the world feels upside down. 

Just yesterday a close group of friends, many connected to Rachel, Jon, and Hersh in one way or another, and our families gathered at our home in Tel Aviv to reunite after summers away. There were hugs and sangria and lots and lots of food. It’s been so, so hard to access joy these past 11 months, and I had relished the chance to cook and feed friends and their children and hear stories of lake visits and Broadway shows and even hard news about aging parents and return-flight drama. 

I skipped my morning Shabbat swim in favor of the quiet meditation of my kitchen, the squeezing of lemons and the shaking of dressings and chopping of herbs. Selecting a tablecloth and bringing up the extra folding chairs and wine glasses from downstairs. Normal things that normal people do. A group of 10 precious teenagers clustered around their own table just being themselves, catching up after the summer.  

For a few hours we hugged and ate and drank, and of course the political situation here and the hostages came up more than once. Little did we know that a few hours later we would wake up to the news we had all been dreading. The rumors began swirling last night, and tragically--as they often have been–the brutal, visceral honesty of Telegram turned out to be lethally accurate. Six souls lost, unnecessarily, maddeningly. You want to scream into the void of powerlessness and grief. 

And then you think about Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg Polin. Rachel, 23-year-old Hersh’s mother. Ever since they found out from CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Hersh was spotted on a video, injured but alive, appearing to have tourniqueted his own arm and saved his own life, they have been a very visual (and, for English speakers, relatable) symbol of this situation.  Rachel specifically has been the mother of a nation, the mother of a world unto itself these past 11 months. 

Amidst all the fear, hatred, anger, confusion, moral ambiguity, political cynicism, and desperation one person broke through the noise more than anyone else. And that person was Rachel. Ima. Mother of Mothers. She showed fear and dread but also hope and vulnerability. Realness. Mama Bear on highest of gears. What any mother would do for her son, Rachel has done in ways that none of us can even fathom. How does she do it? We all wondered. I worry and wonder what and how she will do whatever she has to do to survive this. There were days when her strength, her determination, her dignity—they felt like all that any of us had. Just this past Wednesday she drove with a convoy of hostage families down to the border and screamed Hersh’s name into a high-powered microphone that reverberated into Gaza. We can only hope he heard his mother’s voice.

Rachel and I are not close friends, which makes it even more remarkable that every single time I have texted her over the past 11 months to send a word of hope, encouragement, or just a “thinking about you” message she wrote back, usually within minutes. The last time was after I saw her remarkable speech at the Democratic National Convention. After breaking down briefly, she collected that perfect posture we’ve all noticed and, along with sweet Jon, reminded us why they were there. 

Rachel is a woman of faith, with more in her pinky finger than most of us contain within our entire spiritual and corporeal beings. Every time she wrote me back, her answer contained some version of the same message: “Keep Praying.” 

We are just learning that four of the six hostages—Hersh, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, and Almog Seroussi—had been on a list of hostages that would have been released in a scuttled deal with Hamas that was rejected July 2nd. Like sand slipping through our fingers, these lives flying away in the desert wind. The powerlessness and rage I feel are causing the blood to rise to my cheeks. 

Today I pray only for forgiveness, Hersh, that we couldn’t save you, when you did so much to save yourself. For now we hope that your parents, siblings, grandparents, family and friends can take comfort in the light and hope you brought us this past year. 

Written on September 1, 2024