“Laugh, laugh at all my dreams,
Laugh, and I repeat anew
That I still believe in man,
And I still believe in you
For my soul is yet unsold
To the golden calf of scorn,
And I still believe in man,
And the spirit in him born.”
(Shaul Tchernichovsky)
Outside my window, a serene light blue sky crowns the stillness of dark green treetops. White clouds, pure and fluffy in their whiteness, slowly drift by. Sunlight glistens off the calm ivory of a neighboring roof. Gazing upwards, towards the heavens, I see only light blue. As it always was. As it always will be. Calm and serene.
My home is in stillness, in tranquility.
My heart is in anguish, in turmoil and horror.
My soul cannot grasp, my mind cannot comprehend.
Once again. The incomprehensible. The scope of man’s cruelty to man. The agony, the anguish, the helplessness.
My mother was a young girl in New York during the years of World War II.
I cannot begin to imagine the agony she must have felt a few years later, when photographs and reports began to appear of the human suffering across the seas at that time. When, after many years of living with my father, a Holocaust survivor, she began to realize the personal effect of this incomprehensible tragedy. The turmoil, the guilt she must have felt, knowing that she did not know. Knowing that she did not do. But then again, what could she have done?
And we, today. We do not have the comfort of not knowing. On the contrary, we are inundated with images, rumors, information, news. An agonizing awareness of horror and tragedy.
We have the sleepless nights, now. The knowledge that meanwhile we are doing….what? What are we doing? What can we do?
Mankind has a great ability to unite Against.
Would we could use this strength of unity to unite For.
For a world of peace and kindness. For a world in which we care for each other, respect each other, feel the pain and anguish of one another. For a world of understanding and tolerance. For a better place for us to live in, to raise our children and grandchildren in, with the blessing of life’s goodness.
“Words have the power to both destroy
And heal
to both destroy…
What we think we become
With compassion…”
(Shinnobu)
Would that we could find the words to change reality.
But now. There are no words.
Words are superfluous, unless they will lead to actions which will lead to peace.
Towards the end of Tisha B’av, there is a custom to wash the floor of our homes, in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. There is a concept that the very ground we stand upon is holy. Or rather, that we may make the ground we stand upon holy by our actions. We do our best to make the home in which we wish to welcome the Messiah to be one of cleanliness, of purity, so that Redemption may enter.
In today's world of darkness, of despair and anguish.
As we see the ground upon which we are standing consumed with fire.
How can we amplify the good, the true, the holy?
What can we do now to quell the flames, to help bring an end to death and destruction?
A call, a cry, a prayer, a plea for peace.
“Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, every one…”
(Pete Seeger)