When the Hartman Institute sent out the all call to the graduates of the RLI fellowship, which I completed in 2019, and has 5 other cohorts that have completed the program, I hesitated. According to their email, the reason for the mission was to volunteer and express our deep solidarity with the people Israel even in a time of war. It wasn’t the money, though that was a big lift. It wasn’t the time, logistics are always complicated and it wasn’t that I was frightened to go Israel in a time of war. I wondered allowed to some dear family and friends, “was this really the best way to help Israel? For me, with little to no power to effect the situation to use resources to simply go and listen? And to volunteer to pick produce ?” These ideas volleyed in my head for a number of days. Something kept pulling me there to the East, over and over again, I would wake up in the middle of the night, checking the news against my better judgment, feeling bereft and helpless. And I would drowsily fall back asleep thinking of the stones, the streets, the people and the feeling that I was missing something. Stones yet unturned.
I flew to Israel with a heavy heart. I had seen the photos from other colleagues and friends. The empty airport, the hostage posters, I knew that the place I’ve travelled to two dozen times and lived twice would not be the same. Yet, I was wholly unprepared for what was to come.
I made my way with some friends to a taxi and headed up toward Jerusalem. There was no traffic, for the entire ride from Ben Gurion to Tel Aviv, we hardly paused - a rarity, one I have never experience before. And I hardly paused at the hotel to put down my bags and head to the Hartman Institute so I could be there for our first session. We met and listened to Dr. Ohad Ofaz and Hadas Ron Zariz, the former a documentary filmmaker and the latter a rabbi and a therapist. The project they were sharing Edut710 (https://www.edut710.org/) is the largest documentation organization in Israel, which aims to establish a database of testimonies preserved for generations. Documentation with historical value, serving as the national archive of events on October 7th." Dr. Ofaz and a team of therapists, social works and rabbis are beginning the long journey of listening to and recording all the testimonials - this work is rooted in the brokenness I wrote of last time but has a deeper philosophical underpinning. Dr. Ofaz said to us, “survivors are the force of life” and herein lies the foundation of the entire trip. To witness a survivor and their experience, in this case of every Israeli, is to feel a pulsing force of life. A reaching for some sort of hope, some sort of light from the deepest darkness. It is painfully true that all of the people we worked with and spoke with are still very much in the darkness, the deep and profound trauma of the violence that was nearly impossible to comprehend. They are still living on October 7th and 8th and 9th…the day of the attack and those just after it in a pain so raw you are while listening nearly blinded by the darkness. And yet, in this 3.5 days of witnessing the depths of despair, fear, grief, loss, anger and trauma I found also tremendous awe, for the crying out toward some tiny light of every person, every project, every story. Perhaps best described by these verse of song meant to be sung on Chanukah which we will begin later this week - the first holiday in the after times:
באנו חושך לגרש
בידינו אור ואש
כל אחד הוא אור קטן
וכולנו אור איתן
סורה חושך, הלאה שחור
סורה מפני האור
We came to drive away the darkness
in our hands is light and fire.
Each one of us a small light,
and all together we are a strong light.
Flee darkness, away blackness!
Flee before the light!
Things are so dark right now but the people, even those in the deepest despair and carrying a light and leading us to something new.
Feeling so bereft and helpless witnessing the horrors and the rising anti-semitism in these scary times. Thank you for shining a small light of hope. Love will always be stronger.