Fireworks in Rafah
Shabbat shalom
Much has been written on the intentional juxtaposition of Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s day of remembrance, which we observed Tuesday, and Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s celebration of independence, which we observed on Wednesday. The first merges without a gap into the second.
Decompiling the seamless segue exposes our national formula: to be informed by our history and pain but defined by our future and joy.
How much simpler it would be to languish in Yom Hazikaron and Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day, which we observed last week); to identify exclusively with our tribulations and tragedies. To deny our pain through rose-colored blinders, to suppress our grief on the 24/7 dance floors of the Start Up Nation.
But simple we are not. We function because of, not despite, these competing elements.
I always have found the juxtaposition of the Yoms poetic. After October 7 I thought it genius. Even with the proximity of loss, in the first two years after October 7 I transitioned effortlessly from Yom Hazikaron into Yom Ha’atzmaut.
This year, the third, I stalled. I again came into the sadness of Yom Hazikaron naturally, but I could not quite move past it, likely because I chose Independence Day to listen to Rachel Goldberg-Polin live on Call Me Back. Ironically, it was Rachel’s husband Jon’s afterword in When We See You Again that pushed me forward, just as Yom Ha’atzmaut was ending:
Of course, we will grieve your loss for the rest of our lives. We miss you every nanosecond, Hersh. But I hear you telling us not to allow our anguish to become an anchor that drowns us.
Those who have suffered intimate, tragic loss can process, submit, react, struggle, survive, succumb, move backward, move forward, stall, suffocate, breathe – all of the above, and more – in whatever way, in whatever sequence, at whatever cadence, on whatever calendar they must.
It is on the rest of us to ensure that the collective we is not anchored in tragedy, in the merit of those we have lost.
Shabbat Shalom
