Tears of joy

Is there enough water in the world for all the tears?

This time, they’re tears of joy. They drip and then they cascade as we watch the streaming videos and YouTube captures of the moments when the 20 living hostages who had been in the tunnels underneath Gaza were reunited with their families.

If there is anything that can unite the Jewish world, it is the relief at the miracle of their release.

The world is complicated, though. As we rejoice in the release of those last hostages, we also can’t help but think of the hostages who didn’t come home. There are the ones whose bodies remain in Gaza, some of them destined not to leave there for a long time. There are the hostages who were murdered in Gaza — the images blasted into our brains include the little Bibas boys, Ariel and Kfir, and their mother, Shiri, and Hersch Goldberg-Polin, whose parents, like other hostage parents, were beacons of hope and love, even after they knew that their own son was dead.

There is tremendous emotional resonance in the hostages coming home exactly two years less one day on the Jewish calendar after they were abducted, on Hoshana Rabba. But we also cannot forget that the next day, Shemini Atzeret here, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah there, fell on October 7 in 2023. That’s when Hamas butchers invaded Israel from Gaza and killed 1,195 people. Simchat Torah, the joyous day when we dance with the Torah, is their yahrzeit.

There’s some irony there. As on the second day of Pesach and the second day of Shavuot, we say Yizkor, remembering our dead, and we also say Hallel, praising God. It’s a hard emotional transition from grief to joy, but we’re asked to do it.

It also brings to mind what Israelis experience every year as Yom HaZikaron transitions into Yom Ha’Atzmaut, as the pain at remembering the soldiers who fell in the creation of the state of Israel turns into joy at the celebration of the state.

So here we are, with the mixed experience of the joy of the hostages’ release (and also keep in mind that they were released in return for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of them convicted of terrorism) and the memory of what — and who — we have lost. And we should also remember all the innocent Palestinians, all the children and others whom Hamas knowingly, willingly sacrificed, because it seems that for Hamas, hatred trumps love.

There is only one direction in which any of us can move, and that is forward. The joy of the hostages’ release, and the joy evident in the videos of their return to their famiies, will empower us. There is new hope in the world. Let us grasp on to it, and never let it go.

—JP

opinion

comments