An Understanding Heart

We now enter the depths of this winter, with a long stretch between the afterglow of the lights of Chanukah and the dawning of the joy of Adar and Purim. Furthermore, there is an extra month between them with this year being a Jewish leap year. During this winter we might feel particularly down. I refer, of course, not just to the lack of holidays, but to the continuing pain of Israel’s war with terrorists in Gaza and on other fronts. We are still processing the cataclysmic loss and pain of the murderous attacks of 10/7 as more and more details come to light. Every day, alas, we hear of more hostages murdered, and more and more of our best and brightest killed in the IDF’s war against our implacable enemies. Those we have lost are: Wonderful people still in their teens who had whole, brilliant, lives before them. We have lost those who are parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters. We have lost great scholars of Torah, artists and scientists, doctors and nurses, craftspeople and t...

Dear All, We now enter the depths of this winter, with a long stretch between the afterglow of the lights of Chanukah and the dawning of the joy of Adar and Purim. Furthermore, there is an extra month between them with this year being a Jewish leap year. During this winter we might feel particularly down. I refer, of course, not just to the lack of holidays, but to the continuing pain of Israel’s war with terrorists in Gaza and on other fronts. We are still processing the cataclysmic loss and pain of the murderous attacks of 10/7 as more and more details come to light.  Every day, alas, we hear of more hostages murdered, and more and more of our best and brightest killed in the IDF’s war against our implacable enemies. Those we have lost are: Wonderful people still in their teens who had whole, brilliant, lives before them. We have lost those who are parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters. We have lost great scholars of Torah, artists and scientists, doctors and nurses, cra...

  We have all been consumed with the war forced upon our brothers and sisters in Israel, and the terrible suffering endured in the massacre of Shemini Atzeret (Simchat Torah in Israel) on 10/7, and all the subsequent troubles. Namely, the suffering of those murdered, tortured, and abused, the grief of the bereaved, the agony of the hostages and their families, the deaths of so many brave men and women fighting to defend G-d’s people on G-d’s land. I write these words with candor, driven – as we all are - by great pain and hope, so do not judge me too harshly for the jagged edges herein.   I write this on the cusp of Chanukah, I think the parallels to our present situation are remarkable. Yes – “our” because our lives and fates cannot be sundered from the lives of those in Zion.. Jewish history does not repeat itself, but it spirals through time constantly returning to the same axis -but in different circumstances.   To use a geometric metaphor - we keep coming back at d...