NOTE: This post was first circulated through our newsletter with related opportunities for gathering, learning, and reflecting in the first week following attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7.
Bereshit barah elohim – In the beginning there was light that scattered throughout the world. Lately it feels like that light is hidden, but it is still there. It’s up to us to find it. . .
This past Saturday morning I was up well before dawn to celebrate my daughter Cora’s Bat Mitzvah. Really, to say I woke up is a bit of a misstatement since it didn’t feel like I ever fell asleep. I wanted to get everything right. I went to bed remembering details and got out of bed hours later to execute them.
At 6:40 I got a text from Joanie, “Not sure if you’ve seen the news…if you want to bring that in today :-(.” And just like that, the script took on a new tone.
The service and brunch went on as planned, and they were lovely. Thanks again to Joanie, Mike, and all the members who attended and helped Cora feel seen and heard. Thanks to everyone who helped us pull it off – setting tables, making coffee, greeting guests, doing a reading. And thanks to Joanie for bringing her version of Oseh Shalom to offer space for us to turn our attention to Israel-Palestine.
It wasn’t until Saturday night that I really had time and energy to start scrolling the news; to begin to absorb what had happened and continues to unfold. I read statements as they came to my email from organizations across the Jewish world. Like you, I’m trying to make sense of it all. But I never feel like I know enough about the history or recent politics to feel sure of anything.
As an organization, Sukkat Shalom isn’t in the business of making statements on current events. We don’t have the capacity to respond that quickly and our members opinions don’t always align perfectly. Reconstructing Judaism did publish a statement which you can read by clicking here. But as an individual, I wanted to acknowledge that this is a hard time. Those of us with family and friends in Israel may be feeling this more than those of us watching from the sidelines. But we are all effected. Hearing reports on the ground in Israel and even kind words from non-Jewish friends checking in and telling us there are thinking of us can add to the anxiety. Feeling like there is nothing we can do to help the situation also adds to the stress.
Like a gift from the school scheduling gods, Cora was off Monday. We were both happy to have the day to catch our breath and just be together. After we dropped my parents at the airport then spent part of the morning listening in on Rabbi Yael Levy’s weekly “Torah in These Times” session. I thought it would be cool for Cora to hear what R’ Yael had to say about Bereshit compared with her own d’var torah and I wondered what she might say about the war. That all happened, couched in a report on R’ Yael’s journey to California to be amidst the Redwoods for Rosh haShanah. Sadly, the trip she and her wife planned for all year was clouded by wildfire smoke.
Through tears, R’ Yael shared how hard it was to have the trip ruined by the smoke. When they couldn’t breathe – even through masks – at the perfect davening spot they’d selected by a river within walking distance, they reluctantly drove a short way and found themselves in a special stand of old growth trees with the cleanest air they’d breathed in days. Despite the odds, they turned the experience into a reminder that even while we find ourselves in a world on fire, literally and figuratively, we have to look for the good, we have to be the good.
R’ Yael related this to the fact that on the sixth day, after creating man, G?d doesn’t say “ki tov” as on all the other days. She suggests this is because we have to choose to be good, it isn’t a given. “It’s a radical act to be open to the possibility of healing amidst the darkness….amidst the outrageousness, we are called to be the good for the sake of all life and all creation.”
With this in mind, I felt grateful I was able to embrace the joy of Cora’s bat mitzvah. But now that all the family has gone home and the tablecloths are washed and folded, it’s time to return to work and to face the reality of the news.
b’Shalom,
Jodi Kushins
KSS Board Chair