It seems like just yesterday that I danced and made a l’chaim with Jon Polin at my nephew’s wedding in Jerusalem. On Monday, I watched him and Rachel bury their son Hersh, of blessed memory. And this is hardly my first funeral since Oct. 7th, making me not so different from millions of people, both in Israel and Gaza.
To be clear, I am not making any moral equivalence between the circumstances under which people have died, nor can any decent person, regardless of their politics. I am simply recognizing that pain is not zero-sum, even if moral accountability should be, at least in some circumstances. I do so because that is part of my noticing the many responses — my own and others’ — to the murders of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages whose bodies were recovered on Saturday.
There are many reasons why this most recent brutality has mobilized the mourning of so many thousands, in Israel, in the US, and around the world. From the thousands at Hersh’s funeral to the tens of thousands marching in Tel Aviv, I am taking stock of my feelings and others’, in the hope that with greater awareness, we might find as yet undiscovered responses, if not solutions, to the past 11 months of terror and pain.
The first wave of emotion was best summed up by dear friends — proudly progressive and about as opposed to violence as any two people can be — who shared their felt response with me: “Kill them all.” Forget that they had no interest in actually doing that. The fact is, they felt it, with every fiber of their bodies. And, truth be told, I felt it too. That initial rush of rage was real, if not what I really hoped would happen. It was real and it needs to be acknowledged, especially because it is more present for more people than we often want to admit, and “playing ostrich” with our emotions never works.
The next wave of emotion emerged on the streets of Tel Aviv and in the posts of pundits around the world. And as with the “kill them all response,” this emotion filled me up as well. This was and is the “blame Bibi” response. This is the response that screams about a Prime Minister who could have done so much more to bring the hostages home. As much as I believe that to be true, that claim also suggests that even if he or we had done the “so much more,” it would have worked. It imagines that all the right moves, as some of us understand them, could guarantee the right outcome. As if we are the only actors in this dreadful story. We are not. Would that we were.
This brings us to the funeral and the same word used by President Herzog, and both Jon and Rachel, in their eulogies this morning: S’licha, we are sorry, forgive us. Each asked Hersh’s forgiveness for failing to protect him and those who were murdered with him, forgiveness for the suffering each hostage endured, forgiveness for failing to bring them home alive. And yet again, the speaker’s words resonated deeply with me. I too am sorry, and I too wonder what else I could have done — not out of any sense of self-importance, but out of the covenantal connection I feel when a member of my extended family falls prey to evil.
As I reflect on all three of these responses, as I identify with each of them in one way or another, I also begin to see how they are deeply connected, even if most who subscribe to any one of them might not see it that way. Each response is a grasping for power, for control, for the capacity to shape the end of the story to whatever conclusion we wish to see. I/we imagine that there is a way to kill the problem away, as if it would not crop up again and again. We imagine there is a deal that could be made which would not have other costs we cannot even imagine. And we apologize, affirming, if only surreptitiously, the idea that there was something we could have done that would have assured a different outcome. If only it were that simple. It is not, not ever, when the stakes are this high — and that is when the pain really hits.
We are more vulnerable than we care to admit. We just don’t have nearly as much power, control, or capacity as we wish for — certainly not in this case. That does not mean we shouldn’t always use whatever capacities and influence we have. We can and we must. In fact, it is standing at the intersection of the painful humility we feel in realizing our lack of control and the profound possibility we discover in mobilizing whatever capacities we possess that new and better responses can emerge. At least, that is my prayer because, after all, that analysis may also be just another attempt to claim greater control. It may be, but I don’t think so.
To stand at that intersection of painful humility and profound possibility is to let our hearts break —not simply to break or break down, but to break open, and to feel what we have not previously felt, think what we have not previously thought, and imagine what we have not previously imagined. It is to realize that none of us can do business as usual on the other side of days like today — not the “kill them all” people, not the protesters against Bibi, and not even the apologizers.
Perhaps we can stand together, proclaiming not only what we (think we) know but also admitting that there is much we do not. Inviting ourselves to live into the awareness that today cannot simply be a spruced-up or intensified version of yesterday, if we really want tomorrow to be better than today.
*Photo is Mount Hamenuchot Cemetery, Jerusalem
Brad Hirschfield is the co-founder and co-executive editor of The Wisdom Daily. A rabbi, Brad has been featured on ABC’s Nightline UpClose, PBS’s Frontline, Fox News and National Public Radio. He wrote a long-standing column, “For God’s Sake,” for the Washington Post, and has also written for The Huffington Post and Beliefnet.com. He authored the book, You Don?t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism. Brad also serves as President of Clal, The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a leadership training institute, think tank and resource center in New York City.