Home Is Where the Heartbreak —and the Solidarity — Are

“When are you coming back for good?” Mendel asked as he handed us our purchases from his Judaica store in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israelis love to ask visitors from chutz l’aretz (the Diaspora) this question. Mendel himself made Aliyah from Worcester, Massachusetts and opened his shop in the Jewish Quarter ten years ago.   

The question could seem impertinent, but impertinence is a Jewish specialty. A private van driver named Gavriel — who knew very well that our friends who hired him to drive us all from the Galilee to Tel Aviv had eight children — had plenty to say about religious women who have “too many children.” “They’re machines! After twelve children, their teeth fall out!” he declared, while hurtling us in his machine down the highway doing 130 kilometers per hour in a 100 kilometers per hour zone. (Fortunately, from where I sat I couldn’t see the speedometer but I couldn’t miss the moment when Gavriel took both hands off the steering wheel and held them high above his head, gridiron style, to show us approximately how wide a certain tree grows in his neighborhood. He’s named for an angel and we are in a land of miracles, I thought. God willing, this will be enough to get us to our destination safely. 

But back to Mendel and his question, we began to explain that all our kids and grandkids live in the U.S., and … “That’s the excuse everybody makes,” he interrupted, not at all unkindly. “Being near family is important to us,” I said in defense, smarting at the notion that in fact, Israel is our home and I believe we all belong there. Many olim have come due to rising antisemitism and the fear that American society has unraveled past the point of no return. I share this fear. Still, I can’t see moving across the world, so far from all our kids. “It’s complicated,” I told Mendel, who assured us that he understood, before attending to two Hasidic customers in Yiddish.  

We only had one day in Jerusalem after spending all of Pesach up north, and the hours were ticking by until our return flight to Los Angeles. We had never spent Pesach in Israel, and the location of our program on Lake Kineret was beautiful, despite two days of pelting rainstorms: biblical weather for a biblical holiday. The news about the terrorist attacks against Lucy, Maya, and Rina Dee was devastating, and it wasn’t the only attack during Pesach: a car ramming in Tel Aviv killed an Italian tourist and injured seven others the same day.  

Rabbi David Lapin, the scholar-in-residence at the program, offered helpful perspective. He explained that when the Jews had crossed the dried seabed and saw their Egyptian captors swallowed up, the angels in Heaven sang, and so did Jews on earth. God chastised the angels but approved of the Jews singing “Shirat HaYam,” the Song of the Sea, and of Miriam leading the women in dance and playing her tambourine. Why was one song wrong and the other right?

Feeling joy exclusively — even at an enemy’s downfall — is wrong. Only human beings are sophisticated enough to hold feelings both of grief and simcha simultaneously. 

Angels are unidimensional, Rabbi Lapin explained. They can only carry out one task at a time or feel a single emotion at a time. Feeling joy exclusively — even at an enemy’s downfall — is wrong. Only human beings are sophisticated enough to hold feelings both of grief and simcha simultaneously. While we grieve our losses, he said, we should also take joy in Pesach, its holiness and momentous significance. And so we tried to do just that. 

The following Shabbat we stayed in Efrat with our dear friends Sharon and David, whom we have known for 35 years. When Sharon and David made Aliyah last July to be near several of their children (coming home for good, as Mendel would say), we were happy for them but sad for us. They live in the same neighborhood as the Dee family and had been deeply touched by the small acts of kindness by Jews in neighboring communities. Those “neighbors” knocked on doors throughout Efrat, delivering homemade challahs, chocolate bars, and notes expressing their feelings of solidarity at such a wrenching time.

Again and again, we felt that foundational, unshakable resolve among the Jewish people never to let our enemies destroy our faith in our mission or our hope in the future.

Entering Efrat after passing through several checkpoints, we saw a display of more than a dozen Israeli flags, always ubiquitous this time of year in anticipation of Yom Ha’atzmaut. The largest Israeli flag had a photo of Lucy, Maya and Rina Dee superimposed on it. “Am Yisrael Chai,” read the banner immediately underneath. Again and again, we felt that foundational, unshakable resolve among the Jewish people never to let our enemies destroy our faith in our mission or our hope in the future.

Friday night we attended shul where our friends were also celebrating the bar mitzvah of one of their grandsons. This shul, led by Rabbi Shlomo Katz (formerly of Los Angeles) is not called Shirat David for nothing. The singing is Carlbachian-Breslovian on kosher steroids. It is joyous, authentic, emotional, tremendous. At certain moments of piercing intensity, I waited for the roof to lift off and for God to send Mashiach that moment to join the dancing. I was overcome, overwhelmed, and tear-sodden. This level of emotional power during shul isn’t possible outside of Israel, I thought. This is something that can only be earned through living in our homeland, toughing out the bitter moments, and feeling the limitless brotherhood and sisterhood of a shared mission and vision.  

At the bar mitzvah lunch, another family member said to me, “It’s very hard for us when terror attacks happen, of course, but it must be even harder for you. Here, at least, we feel supported by one another in an immediate way. Outside of Israel you don’t have that.” It was a profound observation that felt deeply true. I cannot imagine experiencing the kind of Shabbat that I experienced in Efrat anywhere outside of Israel, especially during such a raw time. 

Mendel, I don’t know when we are coming back for good. But I hope it won’t be too long.

Judy Gruen’s most recent book is “The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love With Faith.”