It’s been heartbreak after heartbreak here. But also, inspiration after inspiration. Yet, “after” isn’t really the right word, because it’s not been sequential. From mourning to simcha and from simcha to mourning. It’s all been concurrent, with no recovery time. The euphoria of heroic hostages returning alive, the heartbreak of hostages returning dead, in coffins.
The moments of epic joy, encircling a returned hostage, dancing in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, dancing suffused with hope and love. The vigil of solidarity across the entire country — Israelis of all persuasions — stood still in grief and sorrow with Yarden Bibas upon his wife Shiri’s and sons’ Ariel’s and Kfir’s final journey, to be buried.
The heartache of more hostages returned, dead. Of Tsachi Idan, who was perhaps the first or almost the first hostage I learned of on Oct. 7. How his oldest daughter was murdered before his and his family’s eyes, as they sat huddled in their “safe” room, his his beloved daughter’s blood on his hand, as he hugged his younger son. The distraught hope and prayers for his release, alive, have come to an end.
All of that smoldering hope buried now, for Oded Lifshitz, Shlomo Mantzur, Itzik Elgarat and Ohad Yahalom, with whom I shared a Facebook friend who wrote extensively about his sterling and wholesome Land-of-Israel persona that only added more sadness to understanding the depth of who we lost.
But then comes an extensive interview with hostage survivor Eli Sharabi. It leaves you stunned in silence and awe. As he appeared on my screen, still so gaunt, as he spoke I knew i was in the presence of true nobility.To hear his descriptions of the torture, the hunger, the other tribulations. It’s not like anything I have heard since the Holocaust stories from the circle of survivors in our shul.
To hear Eli Sharabi express how, in the moments of his deepest crisis, he had the poise, clarity of mind and generosity to understand his role as mentor to the younger men who were with him, in order to help them survive mentally . . . His capacity to transcend more than a justified bitterness, rage and even hate, and instead model gratitude, clarity, calm and peacefulness is testimony to how sublime the human spirit can be. Listening to Sharabi was like witnessing such towering Holocaust survivor personas as Viktor Frankl, the Bluzhever Rebbe, the Klausenberger Rebbe or Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (the Aish Kodesh). Sharabi is a rare persona in our generation.
Eli Sharabi is a distilled example of the diametric opposite of the evil of Hamas. The human being can descend to the depths of depravity or rise to — the sky is the limit.
Watching the soldiers, one by one, has been breathtaking, too. Daniella Gilboa singing the Friday night Shabbat Shalom Aleichem melody, in Arabic, as she became accustomed to singing it in the catacomb hell of Hamas. To see Agam Berger’s majestic confidence in leading with prayers and mitzvot on behalf of the hostages still in Gaza. To encounter Emily Damari’s declaration just prior to her hand surgery, her scars represent freedom, hope and strength.
Shelly Shem-Tov, mother of former hostage Omer Shem-Tov, has been so deeply maternal in her visible weeping gratitude to the heroic IDF soldiers and their sacrifices in fighting the war that helped bring her son home back to her — it’s simply heartbreaking.
Alongside this sense of uplifting hope, there’s are the bereaved families, engulfed in mourning and sorrow, struggling learning to live with the void of their loss and the reunions with their loved ones that will never come to be.
And, of course, there are all those endless unsung heroes who have redefined the Israeli scene here since Oct. 7. The country is reeling from all of this. It has bled into the tense political situation, too. Even so, the cadences of quotidian life continue. The contours of our Jewish calendar march on (pardon the pun!). Pans of hamantaschen fill the bakery windows. Costumes hang on rods outside clothing bazaars. Elegantly wrapped festive or whimsical shalach manot Purim goodie packages line shops’ shelves.
How strange it is to think of the festive spirit of Purim, so dissonant with the mood and reality in Israel right now. My heart isn’t in it this year. To think of focusing on details like food packaging feels so hollow. It couldn’t be farther from my interior emotional state. I will, of course, direct it toward bringing treats and joy to the soldiers.
Yet, the essence of the story of Purim not only resonates, but a little too much. The term genocide was coined in 1942 by Raphael Lemkin — a new word had to be created for the scale of the Holocaust’s destruction — so it would be anachronistic to call the Purim story a genocide. But is precisely what it was. Haman intended to wipe out the Jewish people.
We overcame Haman’s decree and plan. We carried on. Yet painfully, here we are, once again contending with an enemy sworn to the destruction of the Jewish people.
Genocide.
The fact that that term is being manipulated against Israel truly is the darkest nahafoch-hu, the upside down of Purim.
On my quest to be organized for Purim, I took a look at the calendar, to create a timeline for my Purim baking and other commitments. It’s small sweet joys like this that within the painful state of this war and pervasive anguish that bring a smile to the face.
I take a second look at the calendar. Could it be? Purim falls on 3.14? None other than “Pi Day?” The digits 3.14, symbolized by the Greek letter shaped by two vertical parallel lines side by side, covered by a flat horizontal line above them, which represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, is playfully commemorated on March (3), 14!
3.14 is an irrational number that goes on forever.
This March 14 — 3.14 — is an opportunity to celebrate by baking pies whose top crust is perforated with the Pi sign, or cutting out Pi signs from the pastry dough and decorating the pies, the endless apple, cherry, pecan, rhubarb or lemon pies with the Pi pastry shape nestled upon them.
3.14, it’s like a math holiday. Had my heart been in it, how perfect a day to conflate Purim and Pi day by baking Purim Pi’s for mishloach manot. After all, it’s a day whose mathematical essence expresses eternity — 3.14 — the number that carries on forever.
For the Jewish people that carries on forever.
Am Yisrael Pi.
