Rabbi's Message

This moment feels different.

For months and months, we have hung our prayers on the fate of little Kfir and Ariel Bibas, longing for their safe return, refusing to give up hope. This morning, we saw coffins brought back into Israel containing their bodies, along with those of their mother, Shiri, and fellow hostage, Oded Lifshitz.  It's hard to overstate how devastating this loss is for Jews around the world and how the Bibas family, in particular, came to represent the interconnection of all Jews everywhere.  Like so many of us, I saw myself and my own kids in the faces and stories of those beautiful, innocent children, stolen from the safety of their own home, from their beds. Only to be murdered in cold blood.  Acts of pure cruelty and evil. Today is a day of incredible loss and deep pain.  Our hearts are broken, and we find ourselves overwhelmed by our emotions: sadness, despair, and deep anger. What are we to do?  

The rabbis imagine that God cries in moments of great pain and loss.  In fact, one midrash (Eikhah Rabbah) imagines God crying for the Jewish people.  The story suggests that as God wept, the archangel Metatron came to God and fell on his face and said, “Master of the Universe - I will cry instead of You, for You should not cry.” God responded to him, “If you do not leave me to cry now, I will enter the place where you cannot enter, and I will cry there instead.” 

God teaches us that sometimes, tears are necessary.  Sometimes, tears are all we have. There are not enough tears for today as we cry for a baby and a small boy, for a mother who desperately tried to protect her young children, and for a grandfather and peace activist who transported ill Gazans to hospitals in Israel.  Our hearts are broken, and today, it feels like all we have are tears. 

But, the truth is, we have more than our tears, we have each other.  Last Shabbat, we read about the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai and how ALL of Israel stood together.  The rabbis take it one step further to suggest that ALL of Israel, Jews of every generation, past, present, and future, stood together in that moment of revelation.  And today, on day 503 since October 7th, 2023, we ALL stand together today as well.

As the four coffins were paraded through Gaza and ultimately returned to Israel, rain fell from the sky. God is crying.  We are all crying, yet we find strength and resolve in this moment by standing together as a Jewish people.  We must literally and figuratively hold one another up.  The Bibas family kindled our flame of hope for more than 500 days, now we pray that Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel, along with Oded and all of the other murdered hostages and individuals can rest in peace as we continue to stand tall together as a people.

And, of course, we can support one another by coming together as a TBS community.  Join us tonight on Zoom at 8PM for evening minyan where we will say kaddish for Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel Bibas, as well as Oded Lifshitz, and offer a prayer for the hostages.  We also hope you will join us this Shabbat, both tomorrow night for our Wine and Cheese Shabbat (starting at 5:30) with guest musicians Hadar Orshalimy and Sheldon Low and again on Saturday at our Shabbat morning service.

May our tears water our broken hearts.  May we soon see an end to this nightmare. May we carry the names of Oded, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir with us, and may their memory and beautiful souls give us purpose in the days to come.