Who am I in this war?

I wrote this to some colleagues and family and I was asked to share it here.

I was asked to keep writing, both by colleagues and by people outside, so I am trying.  The longer this goes on, the scarier things get, the less sure I am of what to say. 

More than 80 students have just completed the first summer session at the Conservative Yeshiva.  About 50 are leaving now, while another 80 are due to arrive to join us for a bigger second session.  I am working to quickly regain the skills I used in 2001-2003 to support (and recruit) students in Israel during very difficult times.  I am incredibly grateful for my partner and for the wonderful team of people I work with.

Yesterday at our closing program, I gave a dvar Torah along these lines:  These have been very difficult weeks.  During these weeks, I and our whole program have focused on Torah, Avodah (prayer) and Gemilut Hasadim (deeds of kindness).  These are the foundations of our tradition and can always be counted on. 

Our students have been volunteering around Jerusalem, many working with and tutoring children in a mixture of programs at Kol HaNeshama, YMCA, the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations and Merkaz Klass.  They have been working at a community garden and a wonderful group have been going with me each week to the Idan Hazahav nursing home (where RRC grad Alex Lazarus first introduced me 13 years ago).  Yesterday, the atmosphere of heaviness was palpable on both floors we visited.  We talked and sang, gave and gained strength.  Shortly after we left, a siren went off. 

Last week we sent 25 students to Tel Aviv for a program with Bina to learn about asylum seekers in Israel.  This week, more than 45 people attended a program with Ronit Sela, the East Jerusalem director for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.  More than 20 of our students have been learning a new Torah of Human Rights curriculum with Dr. Shaiya Rothberg.  Our center is currently collecting supplies for soldiers and for people in the south.

On the Avodah front, we have been holding a vibrant daily minyan.  As part of mincha, we include special memorial days of study and this week we gained strength hearing about a wonderful “rebbetzin of the old school”, a couple, parents of a colleague, who owed their longevity to either junk food or procrastination (or both), and the burning of the Gogol Street synagogue in Riga, Latvia, on 9 Tammuz 1941, a memorial donated by a man whose family came from Latvia to the US in the late 1800s who wanted to memorialize this community.

I got up on Wednesday after the sirens here and could not remember how to start my day.  My son reminded me to start my day with Tehilim (Psalms).

I ended my remarks by speaking about 1 Chronicles 10-15.  I am more and more holding the idea that the land does not belong to us, we belong to the land.  We don’t know what we are doing here.  I came here because I wanted to be part of the experiment when the Jewish people came back to their ancestral land.  Now that I am here, I am just one of all the people who belong to this land. 

“David blessed the Lord in front of all the assemblage.  David said, “Blessed are You, Lord, G-d of Israel our father, from eternity to eternity.  Yours, Lord, are greatness, might, splendor, triumph, and majesty – yes, all that is in heaven and earth, to You, Lord, belong kingship and preeminence above all.  Riches and honor are in Your hand, You have dominion over all, with You are strength and might, and it is in Your power to make anyone great and strong.  Now, God, we praise You and extol Your glorious name.  Who am I and who are my people, that we should have the means to make such a freewill offering, but all is from You, and it is Your gift that we have given to you.  For we are sojourners with You, mere transients like our fathers, our days on earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope.”

This last line, which ends on a stark note, is the one I have been carrying with me the past few years.  I heard last week (and may have written here) that hope is a beggar.  Hope can help you walk through things.  But faith can help you jump over them.  So I am digging deep for faith today. 

My facebook feed is full of the words of politicians, and many of us are searching for the right political interpretation of these devastating events, but I don’t have a job in politics.  My job is (still) to be a mom and partner, to recruit students to come to Israel and support them while they are here, including raising funds for their scholarships, and to teach Torah and be a religious leader.  I am praying for the strength to do that job in these times.