When Hersh Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped from the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, his mother Rachel had just started a new job at Pardes — a pluralistic yeshiva in Jerusalem where I was studying at the time.
Because of what happened, I never got to meet Rachel. I never got to pass her in the hall or chat with her in the Beit Midrash. I never got to see her name in my email inbox or on WhatsApp. The tide of history swept her and her family away from that quaint institution of Jewish learning to bigger and more momentous things — speeches at the DNC and to the U.N., meetings with world leaders, becoming a public figure and the symbol of a cause.
Rachel became something extraordinary. A voice of leadership at a time when so many of our leaders were failing us — someone whose moral clarity, eloquence and urgency penetrated right to the heart every time she spoke.
Rachel became something extraordinary. A voice of leadership at a time when so many of our leaders were failing us — someone whose moral clarity, eloquence and urgency penetrated right to the heart every time she spoke.
Another life was possible for Rachel. A life that was ordinary: having a son who she worries about, but not too much; a job that she’s good at, but not one that will change the world; nights spent sleeping and days left uncounted.
An ordinary life was possible for Hersh too. Exciting — yes, but ordinary nonetheless. Trips around the world. Late nights with friends. Music. Waves crashing on the beach. Falling in love.
“We say we are an Am Kadosh — a holy people,” Rachel Goldberg said in a speech given shortly before Purim. “Kadosh is a funny word. It’s always hard to explain. In English, we like to say it means holy, sacred, hallowed. But, actually, Kadosh means different, separate, special. Part of being different and special is that we will do things that seem extraordinary. For example, we will pay a high price to get innocent people back because we value life, and we think it’s precious.”
Today we can see that we failed to do this extraordinary for Rachel’s son and for the five individuals — Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Alex Lobanov, and Ori Danino—who were found with him.
They were all young, beautiful, dearly loved, and desperately missed. We have learned they were executed by their captors with gunshots to the head. This happened just days ago. Their bodies were then abandoned in a tunnel underneath Rafah. Three of them were on the list of hostages to be released in the deal currently being negotiated, a detail that pricks at the heart and makes it bleed.
Hersh will never get the ordinary life that once lay before him — taking those trips around the world and falling in love.
His mother will never get back the ordinary life that she once lived — going to work at the slightly dilapidated but always heimish Pardes building and returning home to a family innocent of the knowledge of tragedy.
But as we struggle to comprehend the destruction of these ordinary lives, we must remember that there are still living hostages in Gaza.
As we struggle to comprehend the destruction of these ordinary lives, we must remember that there are still living hostages in Gaza.
They are there now, in the darkness, as you read these words.
They are waiting for us to heed Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s message and do something extraordinary.
Matthew Schultz is a Jewish Journal columnist and rabbinical student at Hebrew College. He is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (Tupelo, 2020) and lives in Boston and Jerusalem.
