Yesterday at a beautiful ceremony to dedicate a memorial of ceramic kalaniot flowers
representing those killed on October 7th, I had the z'chut to hear from a remarkable man - Nissim Louk, the father of Shani Louk. It is insufficient to say that he spoke with love about his daughter. He shared bits of information about who she was and what she believed in. He outlined the terrible things that happened to her on October 7th and the horrors faced by all of Israel right now. He said two things that really caught my attention.
The first was his hope or belief that something will come from this terrible tragegy. He referenced the birth of the state of Israel just a few years after the Holocaust and how it would have been hard to believe in 1938 that just ten years later there would be a State of Israel. Perhaps he says this because he wants to believe his daughter's death is not meaningless. Perhaps because I want this to be true too, I hang onto his words.
Later I heard him repeat this idea in a slightly different way and then said how hard it is to be where we are right now, with the waves coming at us - big waves. This really hit home and felt like the right metaphor for the emotions and challenges that come at us. We fight to keep standing, grabbing onto others that the wave pushes; we get pushed backward, sometimes even fall down and then stand back up; we keep looking at the horizon to see what's next, hoping to stay steady and maybe even be able to make it out past the worst of the waves.
Today, as I have done for the last 121 days, I put on my piece of tape counting the number of days hostages have been held captive in Gaza. Over the course of the day, the tape curled in on itself. I
know it's probably just because of the material of my shirt or something in the weather, but it felt like it was symbolic. Symbolic of the curling in on oneself in pain or saddness, the reaction of self-protection, and to make oneself smaller to be less obtrusive - all of these as responses to withstand the wave of hate and tragedy that come at Zionists right now. But the generations before us had to withstand waves and they found a way to stand strong, to stand back up, and we will do the same. So, I straightened out my tape, held my held high, and keep moving forward.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Comments