The Tao of Steve

“All of Israel is responsible one for the other” (Talmud Bavli, Shavuot 39a)

As the horribly s***** news keeps flowing in over the last several hours about the murders of these 6 beautiful souls by Hamas terrorists, I’m struck by several things that I’m seeing.

Everyone that I know seems to be concerned and are expressing sympathies and condolences and utter shock at what transpired in Gaza yesterday. My Facebook and Instagram feeds are full of people reacting to the murders.

Our Portland Jewish community is no exception. Somebody who had been serving as our Shatz (The high holiday Cantor) at one of my local synagogues was very close to Jon Goldberg Polin and his family. She wasn’t planning on coming this year apparently because her husband had recently been called back to active duty in the army and there was no way for her to feasibly care for her children without her husband at home and so she’s not coming to Portland this year. We knew about that weeks ago, but nonetheless.

Today, I’m starting to notice the funeral announcements that are starting to come out. Somebody, and I don’t know who, seems to be coordinating the time and date that these funerals will be taking place in the next day or two.

One expects that the crowds at these funerals will be massive, and somebody is taking great care to make sure that people are not stepping over each other to the greatest extent possible. But who does that? In a country the size of Israel where oftentimes even the simplest thing is made incredibly difficult by the bureaucracy, somebody somehow somewhere is making sure that these funerals are not taking place at exactly the same time even in different places across the country from what I can see.

I can’t think of a similar corollary in this country, except maybe for 9/11, can you?

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This one really got to me. There is a tradition at many kibbutzim (and maybe elsewhere in the country) on September 1st for parents to carry their first grade children on their shoulders escorting them to their first day of school. Kibbutz Be’eri was no exception.

The picture on the left was of Carmel Gat and I assume to be her father. 34 years, nearly to the day, will be Carmel Gat’s funeral. I think any parent or family with young children can relate to this touching tradition and yet parents and families throughout Israel and, over this entire war are burying their children. Everyday on the television news it seems there is coverage of these broken families burying their dead.

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This weekend, in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, hundreds of thousands of folks are reveling in the annual tradition of Burning Man. Every year, it kind of passes by me almost unnoticed. But for many folks, including many Jews that I know who aren’t particularly religious, this is their high holidays  One year, my Israeli cousins spent part of their honeymoon trip at the festival.

A friend of mine just noted, what if you were a participant at Burning Man this year and hundreds of terrorists had burst in to the festival, engaging in mayhem terrorism murder and kidnapping? That’s exactly what took place at the Nova Festival on October 7th, 2023 in Israel. And 5 of today’s 6 victims were kidnapped from the Nova Festival.

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It looks highly probable that there will be massive protests in Israel today, including, what appears to be a widespread general strike. A friend of mine just shared a very somber video of thousands of people gathering at a rural junction just outside of Haifa standing on the roadside with thousands of Israeli flags and somber music playing in the background.

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And now I’m starting to see a number of people posting things like:

יהי זכרם ברוך

and,

השם יקום דמם

“May their memories be for a blessing” And “may the omnipresent avenge their blood”

I think many of us are torn between the two poles reflected in these statements. We want to reflect positively on the lives of the victims and yet we want vengeance for their deaths. It’s a difficult question and I don’t really have an answer for it other than just a note it.

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The Shalom Hartman Institute recently came out with a memorial email and I think the end of the email definitely summarizes where I am at this very moment.

“We pray for the safe and immediate return of all the remaining hostages and implore the Israeli government and the international community to do everything in their power to bring them home. As the Torah exhorts, לא תעמוד על דם רעך, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” (Leviticus 19:16)”

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2 days ago, members of the hostage families came into the Gaza border area with loudspeakers desperately calling out to their loved ones. The ones pictured here were not among the ones who had their six loved ones snuffed out by Hamas terrorists yesterday. However one of them, Rachel Goldberg Polin was recorded in a subsequent video. I challenge you to look at these videos and not be utterly heartbroken by the pain that these families are facing.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/hNLXkKp34Ta5NzKq/?mibextid=D5vuiz

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I’ve been thinking a lot about words lately and in particular a phrase that I’ve heard over and over and over again over the last couple of days, “I have NO WORDS” I think we all have probably said that a lot, and maybe too much?

It seems to me that “no words” is something that you say in shock, maybe, for 5 minutes or an hour or a couple of hours. It’s what we say when we’re trying to come to grips with what just happened and we really can’t find a way to describe it.

But, as time has gone along, I’m starting to get some words and some of them were inspired by this post by Danny Gordis.

But probably more importantly for me, my words were inspired last night when we had our vigil at Congregation Neveh Shalom here in Portland.

We heard from Efrat, a woman I have seen before at things like this but who I really don’t know. She was invited to speak about her brother Ohad, who is one of the hostages currently being held in Gaza. We don’t know what Ohad’s fate will be. Efrat wore a black T-shirt with Ohad’s smiling face on it.

As Efrat spoke last night, You could have heard a pin drop and afterward people that knew her much better than I did came up to her and were giving her hugs. As I said I don’t know her very well and so when it was my turn I took her hand in mine and I said,

“אני מקווה שאוחד ישוב הביתה מהר שאפשר”

“I hope all had returns home (safely) as soon as possible.”

She looked at me with tearful eyes and acknowledged what I had said to her and we gave each other a brief hug.

Last night, as we looked at the 6 Yahrtzeit candles that were lit on a table in front of the bimah, We knew it was too late for Hersh, and the five others. They were home but not in the way that we wanted them to be home.

What Israel buried yesterday… Take Danny Gordis’ words for what they are, but what struck me in this article were the three videos, one taken from some unknown wedding and two of them taken from the crowd that assembled at Hersh Goldberg Polin’s funeral yesterday.

All of them spoke to me in different ways.

In the two from the funeral, someone just starts singing and the crowd joins in. I wasn’t there but I can imagine this must have been terribly emotional and yet here we have these two songs joined.

The words are starting to come to me and some of them are inspired by these songs. The song “Acheinu” seems to have become an anthem of sorts. We also sang the official anthem (Hatikvah). Those words spoke to me as well, and are helping me to find the words that I need to speak now.

https://danielgordis.substack.com/p/when-israel-buried-hersh-yesterday