January 18, 2025
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Shemot
A Lens for Understanding the Ceasefire and Hostage Deal: The Power of “And”
January 18, 2025 – 18 Tevet 5785
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
For 469 days, ever since October 7, every morning, and every evening, at our daily minyan, we pray for the IDF, that God should guard and protect Israel’s courageous and heroic soldiers. We pray that God return our hostages safely to their families. We say Mourner’s Kaddish as a community, as part of am Yisrael, for Israel’s fallen soldiers.
Occasionally, somebody will ask: how much longer? How much longer will we offer these prayers? No one knows for sure, but the general answer has to be something like: We will keep praying for the IDF for as long as Israel is at war. We will keep praying for the hostages as long as the hostages are stuck in Gaza. And we will keep saying Kaddish as long as soldiers keep dying in combat. Just this week, 5 more IDF soldiers were killed in northern Gaza. If you read the article in the Times of Israel, it just breaks your heart. You see pictures of these five idealistic, noble, beautiful young people. So incredibly, heartbreakingly young: Cpt. Yair Yakov Shushan, 23; Staff Sgt. Yahav Hadar, 20. Staff Sgt. Guy Karmiel, 20; Yoaf Feffer, 19; Aviel Wiseman, 20. Fifteen months later all that young beautiful life snuffed out. How could we not say Kaddish for them?
The larger point is: it is all so murky—and sad. When will it end? How will it end? How will Israel and Israelis be at the end? All so murky.
And then this week, news of the ceasefire and hostage deal. I want to offer three questions. First, what is a lens through which we can see this murky deal in this murky war? Second, when we apply that lens to the facts before us, what do we think, and how does it make us feel? Third, what do we do?
First, what is a helpful lens? I have shared before the profound insight of a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Kathryn Schulz, in her masterpiece Lost & Found. The book is a personal memoir in three chapters. Chapter 1 is Lost. She tells the story of losing her beloved father, Isaac Schulz, a man whom she adored. Chapter 2 is Found. She tells the story of how, in her mid-30s, when she wondered if she would ever find love, and while her father was in the midst of dying, she found Casey, the woman whom she would marry and with whom she would have a child and build her life. Chapter 3 is “And”. She wonders how it is possible to lose a father and find a life partner in the same period. Truer words were never written than these. She writes:
Life…is a perpetual “and” machine, reliably delivering us a mixture of
things to experience all at once….Maybe your own personal circumstances
are the best they’ve ever been but your nation is in crisis; maybe your brand-new
baby daughter looks just like her grandmother but that grandmother is suffering
from Alzheimer’s and cannot recognize either one of you. Contrasts like these
proliferate both around us and within us: you adore your brother but he drives
you crazy; you despise your ex-husband but love beyond description the children
you wouldn’t have without him. We all have mixed experiences, mixed emotions,
mixed motives, even mixed selves.
In short, we know that, as Philip Roth once put it, “Life is and.” He meant that
we do not live, for the most part, in a world of either/or. We live with both at
once, with many things at once—everything connected to its opposite, everything
connected to everything. (194-195)
What happens when we apply this lens of and to the ceasefire and hostage deal? I find it helpful because it enables us to give expression to deeply felt and quite conflicting emotions.
We love that some hostages are coming home. We are so happy for them and for their families. And we hate that other hostages are still in hell, and that they and their families will continue to be tortured. Because the deal contemplates that the hostages are to be released in stages, that builds in more uncertainty, more risk for the hostages to be released later. Hostage families have used Holocaust categories like Sophie’s Choice and Schindler’s List to convey the agony of some getting saved now, and others not yet, and who knows when. Or if.
We love the release of innocent Israelis. And we hate that Israel must free Palestinian terrorists, many of whom have blood on their hands. We know that Yahya Sinwar was released in the deal that released Gilad Shalit. Which means that it is literally true that October 7 flowed from a hostage release deal. The thousands of terrorists with blood on their hands will pose a clear and present danger to Israel and to Israelis the day that they are set free.
We love that a ceasefire would mean an end to the hostilities. Israeli soldiers like the five who died this week no longer will fall in combat. Innocent Gaza civilians will no longer be caught in the crossfire. Israelis and Gazans can begin to rebuild their lives. All of that is a good thing. Even Danny Gordis, no dove, in his most recent podcast averred that the war in Gaza has accomplished what we can do; that the time for a ceasefire is now. And as Danny also affirmed, Hamas is weakened substantially. But it is not completely crushed.
This “and” lens applies not only to the murky deal, but to the murky larger condition of Israel 469 days after October 7. Entebbe level-heroism in crippling Hezbolla, destroying Iran’s missile factory in a mountain in Syria, and taking out leadership of terrorist organizations. And ongoing vulnerability as Hamas is still there in the south, Hezbolla is still there in the north, both are weakened, neither is gone. Some Israelis are more inspired and committed than ever. And record numbers of Israelis are leaving Israel. I was speaking recently with a health care executive in Greater Boston. He said a week does not go by when he is not contacted by Israeli doctors who want to leave Israel, with their family, and come to Boston or any North American city where they no longer have to deal with Hamas, Hezbolla, and the prospect of their young adult children dying in battle.
So our lens for understanding the deal is the power of “and”. And when we apply that lens, there is much we love and much we hate about this murky next stage in this murky war. Which raises the question: what do we do now?
Much as I admire Kathryn Schulz, she was not the first to note the power of “and”. In fact, we note the power of “and” every morning in our shacharit service. We say of God: yotzer or u’voreh choshech, God creates light and darkness. What do we do about it? We bless God: Barchu et Adonai hamevorach, Blessed be God who creates light and darkness.
What does it mean to bless God who creates light and darkness? At the beginning of every day, we affirm that we are okay with mess; with problems unresolved; with darkness and problems that we wish were not there but they are there. We see the light and the darkness, and we still say barchu. We see the murk, and we still say barchu. We see the complexity and the layers, and we still say barchu. Bless what is in all of its messy complexity.
Every morning, Jewish tradition invites us to get up, get out, get dressed, get in your car, and go to shul. And huddled together with other people in this manifestly beautiful and manifestly imperfect world, we begin every morning by saying: it is what it is, and it is going to be okay. Barchu. Bless.
That is a choice. We could make other choices in response to the unresolved darkness. We could live in denial. We could be depressed. But denial and depression do not serve us. What serves us is the ability to look at light and darkness and say: Barchu.
I want to offer that our sacred work now is to channel the wisdom of Barchu to the unresolved complexity that is Israel 469 days later.
For the last 28 years, I have been saying go to Israel. But in the wake of the 469 days since October 7, the meaning of go to Israel has evolved. Going to Israel now means that we can see with our own eyes, touch with our own hands, hear with our own ears, the murkiness of Israel today. For Jewish Israelis. For Palestinian Israelis. For Gazans. For soldiers. For settlers. For Haredis. Going to Israel now means trying to get deeply in touch with all this unresolved and unresolvable complexity, and still say barchu. I see it. I get it. I bless it.
We are doing a Hartman mission to Jerusalem at the end of June. And we are doing a JNF service mission in November to rebuild the north. If you are open to considering either mission, please let me know. Being in Israel allows us get Israel in a deeper way and say: Barchu. If you go, you will be glad you did.
What if we can’t go to Israel? Then our spiritual homework is, from here, where we live, to come to a deeper understanding of Israel as it is, in all its layers and complexities, and to say Barchu. The universe is not perfect. And we love it anyway. Israel is not perfect. And we love it anyway. It is the only Israel we’ve got.
The bad news is that there was murk, there is murk, there will be murk. This new deal does not solve the murk.
The good news, in the face of both light and darkness unresolved, is that our prayer life trains us to love and bless our imperfect, beautiful world, and our imperfect, beautiful Israel, as it is. Barchu et Adonai hamevorach. Shabbat shalom.