Thought for the Week

Dear Members and Friends,

I share with you the words we spoke just a few days ago as we celebrated Simchat Torah - the festival at which we conclude our reading of the Five Books of Moses with the death and burial of Moses, and begin again with the story of creation in Genesis.

The return of the living hostages to Israel and to their families is a source of joy and immense relief. The return of some of the dead must also bring a sense of coming home for their loved ones now that they are able to give them a proper burial and say a final farewell to them. But there are still hostages no longer alive, whose whereabouts are unknown, among them Dror Or, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, murdered on October 7th with his wife, Yonat. The LJS had the honour of ‘adopting’ Dror in the months before we knew of his death. His body has still not been returned to his family. May we hold his and Yonat’s memory and the anguish of his children, parents and siblings in our hearts.

There is a longing to rejoice and to celebrate the return of the hostages, but as we saw in the faces of those in Hostages Square on Monday, there is also acute pain at the losses that have been sustained over these past years – Israeli and Palestinian. And we are deluded if we believe that our joy is complete and absolute. For beyond the repair and renewal of a devastated landscape in Gaza, beyond the slow return of Israeli residents to their burnt-out kibbutzim and homes which are slowly being rebuilt, and Gazans to their razed villages and towns, are broken bodies, broken hearts and minds and a single, faint thread of hope that the fragile peace process will hold, that a second phase will not be held back, that sense will triumph over madness, compassion over revenge, and human yearning for an ordinary, peaceful life over violence and terror.

Never have our prayers felt more earnest, more pleading than over these last two years; never have we yearned more for God’s intervention in the human drama of war and brutality. Can we trust our own free-will, the choices we make for ourselves? Can we put our faith in a God who longs for our faithfulness, but who is saddened and disappointed in our alienation and estrangement from a covenant which requires a universal ethical imperative of love and righteousness.

‘It is with a mixture of joy, relief and grief that we celebrate Simchat Torah this morning. Joy that the remaining living hostages have been released and reunited with their families, relief that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is holding and grief for the loss of life that has occurred over these past years on all sides of the war.

We ask God to bring healing and strength to the men who have returned home today and all the hostages who endured captivity for days and months and the two long years of this war. Grant them comfort and health, strength and peace. May they return to active life together with all whom they live, together with all those injured, wounded and bereaved in the attack on Simchat Torah 2023 and in the war that followed.

We mourn all those who died in the massacre on October 7, those who have died in captivity and the tens of thousands who have died in the two-year war. May their souls be bound up in the bond of everlasting life and their families find consolation in the memories they cherish of loved ones.

And we pray that the strength and determination of the world’s leaders will help to bring an enduring peace to Israel and Palestine. We know that fear and hatred will not be dispelled until there is a process of truth and reconciliation for both peoples.

Then, in the words of the prophet: ‘Each person shall sit under their vine and under their fig tree and none shall make them afraid’ (Micah 4:4).

Let that time come soon, and in our time, so that with Kohelet we shall affirm the hope that the time ahead will be eit shalom - ‘a time for peace.’ Keyn yehi ratzon. Amen.

Shabbat Shalom,

Alexandra Wright

The prayer is based partly on words written by MK Rabbi Gilad Kariv, former Executive Director of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism.