Over the past several weeks, I have accompanied groups of leaders, university presidents, elected officials, and donors through the Nova Exhibition, a pop-up museum dedicated to telling the story of the largest music festival massacre in history. I often walk through with a chosen guest, giving context to a video or an artifact, and then bring them into a healing space to hear from a Nova survivor.
This past week, we heard from Tal, a woman of 26 who went to the festival with her boyfriend. She quietly told her story of dancing in joy with her friends at dawn when Hamas terrorists arrived. She told of her harrowing escape. “Some of us turned left, and some of us turned right,” Tal said. “I’m only here because I chose to turn right. It’s unfair, it’s inexplicable.”
I’m reminded of one of the central prayers in the Ashkenazi tradition, the Unetanneh Tokef. The prayer describes a day filled with heaviness and awe, so much so that the world trembles and even the angels slink back in fear.
At the center of the prayer is a series of questions that ask: “Who will live, and who will die? Who by water, and who by fire? Who by hunger, and who by thirst? Who by strangulation, and who by stone?”
This terrible choice has never felt more real than it has this year.
“Who will live, and who will die?”
It’s a question that leaves behind a feeling of despair, of darkness, and of chaos. Our family in Israel feels stuck in this very morass right now.
As the prayer continues, it shows us the way forward by cutting the Gordian Knot of this evil decree weighing us down.
Teshuvah (repentance). Tefillah (prayer and reflection). Tzedakah (charitable actions).
In this nebulous moment, we need to give each other love, grace, and forgiveness. We have to do teshuvah with each other. The state must do teshuvah with its people. The left must do teshuvah with the right. The right must do teshuvah with the left. It is our love and responsibility for each other that will move us through this pain we all feel.
We have to take a moment to reflect and remember our past, and also remember our future. The point of tefillah is to take time out of the normal process of our messy lives to transcend into the past to know what shapes us, and into the future to know what drives us. In these peaceful moments of contemplation, we can remember what and who we love, so that we may hope again.
We must also practice tzedakah. Yes, that means charity, which is vital to our work as a Federation. But it also means to take action on behalf of tzedek, or justice and righteousness.
Fear is what we have when we are consumers of the moment. Courage is what we exhibit when we are producers of the solution to the moment.
If you want to do something about your fear, take action.
If you want to do something about your sadness, take action.
If you want to bring more joy to our Jewish community, take action.
As this new year begins, together, let’s reclaim this moment by putting your values in action.
