on hostages and broken hearts
some thoughts on today's news
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This is a House of Study Post, but I've chosen to make it unlocked, so that anyone can access it.
Yesterday, Hamas returned four deceased hostages, people taken on October 7th. They were hoped to be Shiri Bibas, 33, her sons Ariel and Kfir, ages 4 and nine months at the time of their capture, and Oded Lifshitz, 84. Horrifically, it seems that the deceased person believed to be Shiri Bibas is not.
My deepest condolences especially to everyone suffering this loss personally, most especially as these agonies stretch out in unimaginable ways.
And many, Jews especially, are experiencing this loss on the level of collective grief; the terrified image of Shiri and her children had gotten to heart of the matter for so many over these months.
For some of youâ especially the Jews in this communityâ this all may be triggering some very, very deep feelings. If you're one of those people, if what's coming up for you today is grief and pain: Feel what you feel, allow it.
That is to say: Make conscious, intentional space for your feelings. Something that's not, "scrolling endlessly while feeling kinda sad, and sublimating your emotional life into intellectual, political things,"â which we all do, especially these days, but I urge you to Make. Time. To. Stop. And. Feel. (And this is for all of us, with regards to everything going on these days. Please.)
Set apart some time today wherein you actually check in with your actual body and ask yourself what you're actually feeling. A quiet, safe space, the screens off. ("Hey, self, how are you? What sensations of tightness or discomfort or pain am I feeling, and where? What happens when I tune into those sensations for a moment or two? What happens if I give myself permission follow the feelings fully for a bit?")
Release something.
*I'm operating on the assumption that I'm not talking to/about people who are directly impacted by this loss; for those of you who had personal relationships with the hostages, those murdered on 10/7 or in Gaza, all of this trauma is of a different order of magnatude and demands an entirely different kind of conversation. Either way, however, if you're someone for whom strong feelings are persistiently present (and most certainly if you're personally impacted!) around this horror or any of the others happening in our world today, a trauma-informed therapist may be a good idea. Staying whole in 2025 is truly no joke.Lay culpability where it goesâ but remember that, as Elad Nehorai reminds us,
Their goal is to terrorize. Over and over again, in as many ways as possible, whether at war or in a ceasefire. It is psychological targeting.
They are targeting us, and anyone who cares about this family. In order to hurt, but also in order to divide us against others and isolate us.
Never let them steal your humanity.
It's important to hold all the layers of this horror.
The extremely wise Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz writes,
We are feeling complicated grief... and bad faith political actors in our community have been affirming and entrenching the 'stuck-ness' [related to the complicated, limbo feelings of grief around the hostages] for political expediency.
If a population... focuses on their own victimhood rather than slowly making progress to resolving trauma, that population is more likely to support or condone dehumanization of the (so-called) 'enemy.' It's an old playbook.
Getting unstuck [and moving through grief] doesn't mean being disloyal to the legitimate plight of the hostages. You can still advocate on their behalf, campaign for their release, humanize them...Even in normal cases of loss, many bereaved folks are hesitant to [work through] that grief because it feels like a betrayal towards the person they are grieving. I think especially with the hostages, who are still trapped in unimaginable conditions, this impulse [to want to stay in grief] may be very real for folks. They don't want to be responsible for the abandonment of the hostages. But it's the Israeli government that has abandoned them.
Again: Grieve. Rage. Feel the things. But don't allow yourself to be stuck in a place that makes it easier for you to dehumanize.
I can't not make sure we're grounding and centering, that's part of my job over here.
So: On Oct 12, 2023, my first words after this cycle of horrors began, I wrote, "Nobodyâs children should be killed. Nobodyâs." That's still always, always true.
These babies, this mother, this elder should have lived, no matter what. There is nothing that justifies their murders.
It is simultaneously true that the Palestinian infants, toddlers, children murdered in bombings, by freezing, by hunger do not matter less than these babies.
Not a single one matters less.
Every child, a world.
Every child, a universe.
Every human being, a universe.
It's often the case that people tend to feel more connected to those who are more like them. In the Jewish world, our concept of peoplehood, for example, encourages and fosters our sense of connection to and responsibility for other Jews. We can and should mourn these deaths, fully.
And, as Jonathan Bressler puts it, there's sometimes a "scarcity mindset around empathy."
There can be enough. Our hearts can open wide enough for everyone, to feel everyone. To decide that everyone matters, every soul, a matter of consequence.
Every person matters enough to build policy around.
Every death, a world worthy of mourning.
Let our hearts break, let us pour out for them.
Oded Lifshitz, the fourth soul brought home today, was a retired journalist and peace activist who, among other things, volunteered with Road to Recovery, an organization of Israelis who drove Palestinians to hospital appointments in Israel and in the West Bank. His life was an ongoing offering to the understanding that there could be enough for everyone. That our hearts didn't need to scrimp.
These are dangerous times everywhere.
Hate has taken power in so many places, caused so much harm, hatred, bloodshed, scapegoating, hurt, has so many plans to do so much more.
The very least we can do is open our hearts wide, wide enough for everyone.
To allow our heartbreak to lead us to more compassion, more caring, more concern that not one more family suffer any more devastating losses.
To allow our hearts wide enough to hold the whole world.
Prayer of the Mothers
By Rabbi Tamar Elad Appelbaum and Sheikha Ibtisam Mahamid Translated by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie
God of Life
Who heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds
May it be your will to hear the prayer of mothers.
For you did not create us to kill each other
Nor to live in fear, anger or hatred in your world
But rather you have created us so we can grant permission to one another
to sanctify Your name of Life, your name of Peace in this world.
For these things I weep, my eye, my eye runs down with water
For our children crying at nights,
For parents holding their children with despair and darkness in their hearts
For a gate that is closing and who will open it while day has not yet dawned.
And with my tears and prayers which I pray
And with the tears of all women who deeply feel the pain of these difficult days I raise my hands to you
please God have mercy on us
Hear our voice that we shall not despair
That we shall see life in each other,
That we shall have mercy for each other,
That we shall have pity on each other,
That we shall hope for each other
And we shall write our lives in the book of Life
For your sake God of Life
Let us choose Life.
For you are Peace, your world is Peace and all that is yours is Peace
And so shall be your will and let us say Amen.
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