Rabbi Janine's Messages

Dear Community, 

In Psalm 118 we read: 


מִֽן־הַ֭מֵּצַר קָרָ֣אתִי יָּ֑הּ עָנָ֖נִי בַמֶּרְחָ֣ב יָֽהּ

From the depths of despair I called out to Gd and Gd answered me and comforted me. 


There have been several moments in my lifetime when the Jewish world, as a collective, has experienced tremendous communal grief. There was the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin, the murder of reporter Daniel Pearl, and of course, October 7th. This week we experienced another devastation with the confirmation that the two young boys, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were taken hostage on October 7th, 2023 will never return home alive again. With that news we lost another window of hope and still there are no answers about the location of their mother Shiri Bibas, who was expected to come home as well, but was not with the bodies of her sons. We also mourn the death of Oded Lifshitz, 83, a peace activist whose body also was returned this week. 

How do we express our devastation? How do we cry out for an answer? Who will comfort us? 

From the depths of despair, I call out now to Gd. 

In this unbearable moment there are no easy answers. Instead, I share these words from Rabbi Hanna Yerushalmi:

To Receive Our Dead
 
How do we prepare
to receive our dead?
With stones from Jerusalem
in our pockets, anchoring us,
with red anemones in our hands,
and a knife wedged in our hearts.
With murmurs of ancient laments
on our parched lips as
we drag our feet with halted steps
to receive those dear souls,
because not a single one of us
wants to face this news.
How do we prepare
to receive our dead?
With numb spirits,
fragmented for months,
with our right hands,
lost and withered,
with our left hands
wiping at our infinity of tears.

May we find ways to share our grief. May we continue crying out for answers. May we find comfort in one another. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Janine Jankovitz
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