Dear Emily, Doron and Romy,
It’s so good to finally have you home. We’ve waited so long for this moment to greet you, to welcome you home, to hug you. For 471 days, you lived through an unimaginable hell. You are very strong, brave and courageous to have survived the tunnels, the cruelty, the abuse. After this long, dark nightmare, you still have your sweet smiles that illuminate our hearts.
In your long absence, thousands of us gathered regularly at “Hostage Square” to sing songs of hope and lift our voices in prayer. We saw your smiling faces on posters, we heard your names being read – and we cried. We hugged each other and supported one another, hoping that we would see your smiling faces again, not on hostage posters, but in person. Our prayers were answered and our dreams came true: you came home.
Now we wait for those other beautiful faces to also come home. We continue to gather in “Hostage Square” to sing songs of hope and to pray. We continue to hug each other, hoping we will see all the other beautiful smiling faces, just as we saw yours.
Throughout this long, dark period, we’ve worn a yellow ribbon on our clothing, close to our hearts. We vow to not remove this yellow ribbon until every one of the hostages are home. We pray that day comes soon, when we can all remove the ribbon, saying in one voice – “They are all home.”
What will it feel like, to finally remove that yellow ribbon? It will probably be similar to a mourner removing the torn garment they wore during shiva.
After an intense week of mourning, accentuated by tearing a garment and wearing that garment all week, the mourner finally changes the garment, thus removing the external symbol of grief. But the internal grief remains. The outer garment is no longer torn, but the mourner’s heart is torn apart, still in grief. It takes a lot longer than a week for that to heal, if at all.
That’s how it will feel when we finally remove the yellow ribbons. They’ve been our external expressions of pain, grief, fear, anxiety and hope. When we finally remove them, when all of the hostages are finally home, the complex blend of emotions wrapped up in those ribbons will stay with us for a long time. Despite this “deal,” there’s still a long road ahead to our removing our ribbons.
In the meanwhile, Emily, Doron and Romy, we give thanks that you have come home.
By just being your beautiful selves, you’ve inspired and uplifted an entire nation. You are role models of courage, strength and character.
Welcome back, welcome home, with love.
Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the international director of the Sephardic Educational Center.
