Abyss
Rock Bottom
1.9.24 Sunday
Abyss, I don’t know if we have hit rock bottom, but it feels so…
I awoke as usual just after 6 a.m. I crafted a warm greeting to my family's WhatsApp group, wishing everyone a successful back-to-school. My family includes teachers, pupils, and students. My grandchildren, the twelve tribes of Israel in number, are amongst the 2.5 million kids in educational frameworks, and some of my children and their spouses are post-grad students.
September 1st is always a special day here, celebrated annually, by escorting the excited returning pupils, with great fanfare and festivities.
Still, to put a damper on the fun, a teachers' strike was called for high schoolers, which seems so way out of line, during these difficult times for Am Yisrael. These strikes though have also become an annual tradition, sad to say.
Many of the evacuees have not returned to their homes and makeshift schools have been erected to accommodate their needs. A big ‘happening’ was held at Kibbutz Yad Mordecai, where many of these children kicked off their big day. President Herzog and his wife Michal, attended.
No sooner had I sent my message, then did I hear the tragic, if bittersweet announcement of the return of six bodies of hostages who had been held since October 7th. The ‘sweet’ is only because they will receive a proper Jewish burial and their families will have a grave. Endless nights, days, weeks, and months of uncertainty as to their fates, are finally over. For them. Some 100 still remain.
Hardly the much prayed for outcome, just more agony.
They had apparently survived eleven months, twenty meters (65 feet) underground, only to be brutally executed a short time before the IDF reached them. One was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a dual Israeli- American citizen, whose parents had very recently spoken at the American Democratic party conference. His arm had been blown off at the time of his capture. I wonder how he managed with such a wound, how it was treated, if at all. But he did.
All six were young people with smiling faces and what should have been bright, promising futures.
During the morning broadcast, another terror attack was underway at the Turqemiya junction, near Hevron, with three seriously wounded. Not long afterwards, they were pronounced dead, all of them police security forces. I was out for a couple of hours and just read that one of them, Roni Shkury, had lost his daughter Mor, a policewoman in Sderot, on October 7th.
Just days ago we cheered the safe rescue of Farhan Kadi, the 52 year old Bedouin father of eleven, the youngest, an infant. He also had managed to survive his captivity. Even as a Muslim, he was just as miserably treated.
Today's six victims were found not far away from where he was, in Rafiach (Rafah). Not long ago, Israel was urged and beseeched incessantly, not to go in there, but as we have all plainly seen, there was and remains good reason to have done so. We must neither give up nor lose hope, ever.
Calls for a deal, ceasefire, (on our part only, it seems) are going around in circles. For anyone who needs a reminder, it is Hamas and nobody else, who is torturing and killing our hostages. Not anyone else! We need to be loud and clear about that. It is appalling that suggestions abound, which lay direct blame on any other party.
Hamas has no incentive to sign anything. They do not show up to the negotiating table, they have no scruples and nothing to bring, even if they were to appear. As I've said from the beginning, I resent the fact that we have to pay any price at all, as if we haven't already, with all the victims, over 1,200, who perished on that awful day, and the hundreds who have since. What of all the bereaved, orphaned and homeless and displaced?
Is this not so outrageously preposterous?? The hateful, shameful way in which so many around the world have reacted too, is beyond comprehension and deeply concerning.
More soldiers fall daily and Judea and Samaria have flared up, as the IDF has taken on eliminating many terrorists.
In past weeks I've attended a few very moving talks sponsored by Forum HaGvurah, a group of bereaved families of soldiers who host family members in a tent on the plaza just opposite the Foreign Ministry and Cinema City movie complex. It's an easy direct, one bus ride on #90 to and from my place. The # 7 also goes there.
Everyone is welcome to browse, look at photos of the fallen, a collection of mementoes, bumper stickers, writings and just to show up to pay respects and listen to their heartfelt and heartbreaking stories.
I heard about their loved ones from the parents of Itai Seif of Yerucham (where my parents spent their sabbatical in 1982), when Montreal was twinned with the city. Now, Miami is.
Yehudit, sister of Refael Chodrous of Tzur Hadassah (where my daughter and family live), and Chaya, sister of Ariel Walfstahl of Elazar, Gush Etzion. I try to go whenever I can. They post a daily schedule. Such events are held once a week or so, also around the country.
Israel is allowing Gazan children to take polio vaccines, with UNWRA personnel who were involved in the October 7th massacre, leading the campaign. Just how much more absurd can things get?
On the upside, if there is one, last Sunday evening I met my eldest daughter, husband and five kids at the Kotel. It was packed and lively. We strolled around the Old City's Jewish Quarter to get a bite to eat. There was hardly a free seat in any of the eateries, as hundreds were out enjoying themselves. During the week, all over town I observed much the same and it felt so good that we are so resilient and able to carry on and do our best to get through this terrible crisis.
A few days later I went to Charles Clore beach near Yaffo, in Tel Aviv to meet yet another daughter. It was a pretty easy train ride to Savidor /Arlozoroff station, with a quick change to the one year old light rail, also called Arlozoroff, right across from the train station. Then about four stops underground, till Elifelet station. A pleasant ten minute walk along a pathway, to the magnificently designed, well kept, sprawling beach. What a delight and joy to spend time relaxing, forgetting the world and our troubles, along with dozens of beach goers, cyclists, joggers. There is plenty of room for all.
So it goes. Rosh Chodesh Elul is upon us this Tuesday and Wednesday. One month to Rosh Hashanah, which this year is followed by Shabbat, so a three day bonanza. Who can say what the New Year has in store, after such a catastrophic one? Surely things must, and will, get better.
For now though, we are in deep down, in the deepest depths of the abyss.
Wikipedia’s definition:
In the Bible, the abyss is an unfathomably deep or boundless place. The term comes from the Greek word abyssos (Ancient Greek: ἄβῠσσος, romanized: ábussos), meaning "bottomless, unfathomable, boundless".[1] It is used as both an adjective and a noun.[2] It appears in the Septuagint, which is the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and in the New Testament.
It translates the Hebrew words tehóm (Hebrew: תְּהוֹם, lit. 'deep, void'), ṣulā (צוּלָה "sea-deep, deep flood") and the name of the sea monster rahab (רחב "spacious place; rage, fierceness, insolence, pride.")[2]
In the original sense of the Hebrew tehóm, the abyss was the primordial waters or chaos out of which the ordered world was created (Genesis 1:2). The term could also refer literally to the depths of the sea, the deep source of a spring or the interior of the Earth.[3]
Let us add:
מִן־הַמֵּצַר קָרָאתִי יָּהּ עָנָנִי בַמֶּרְחָב יָהּ: (תהלים פרק
קיח פסוק ה)
Psalm 118:5
Out of my distress I called on the Lord the Lord answered me and set me free into a spacious place.
May we soon emerge from this interminable and terrible tehom. May this space be filled to overflowing instead with solace, consolation, forgiveness, kindness, empathy, understanding, unity and any and all related traits and values.
The three courageous dedicated police murdered today:
Roni Shkury, Hadas Brantz, Arieh Ben Eliyahu
The six who died Al Kiddush Hashem
r-l top row
Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin
bottom row r-l
Alex Lubnov, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi
May their memories be for a blessing, along with all the many other victims.
o