This Week: Seeking Some Hope

So much violence. So much rage. So much pain. Is there hope somewhere?

Dear fam,

What can I possibly write to you from within this darkness? It’s been a hard week —and I’m one of the (very few) blessed ones. All I’m suffering is heartache, terror, anger, disbelief. There are many people whose fate is far worse than mine.

Those people occupy my thoughts whenever I have a quiet moment. So, I try not to have a quiet moment. We have two kids, so it’s pretty easy to stay busy during the day. There are swim and ninja classes to attend, playdates to have, spaghetti dinners with classmates. There are endless questions about dinosaurs, lava, asteroids. There is a standing Baby who wants to climb the stairs. There is endless laundry to wash and dry and fold.

Eventually, though, the day comes to a close. I have time to experience everything I’ve heard and read in little snippets during the day. It’s all bad news.

No, it’s all terrible news.

So much loss. So much blood. So much anguish. There has been a howl in my head all week — it is the collective howling of a region slashed to pieces by violence. Have you ever heard a mother scream over her child’s grave? That’s the sound. Times a million.

—

The Mishnah is one of the most important books of Jewish law. It’s essentially an aggregation of oral laws and traditions, set down by Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi in the second and third centuries. The Mishnah is the basis of most Jewish laws, the first step towards all further documented interpretation and delineation of the Torah.

In the fourth masechet (chapter) of the fourth seder (order), it says:

Therefore, humans were created singly, to teach you that whoever destroys a single soul, Scripture accounts it as if he had destroyed a full world; and whoever saves one soul, Scripture accounts it as if she had saved a full world. And for the sake of peace among people, that one should not say to his or her fellow, "My parent is greater than yours;" and that heretics should not say, "There are many powers in Heaven." […] the Holy One, blessed be God, stamped each person with the seal of Adam, and not one of them is like his or her fellow. Therefore each and every one is obliged to say, "For my sake the world was created."

לפיכך נברא אדם יחידי ללמדך שכל המאבד נפש אחת מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו איבד עולם מלא וכל המקיים נפש אחת מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו קיים עולם מלא ומפני שלום הבריות שלא יאמר אדם לחבירו אבא גדול מאביך ושלא יהו מינין אומרים הרבה רשויות בשמים […] מלך מלכי המלכים הקדוש ברוך הוא טבע כל אדם בחותמו של אדם הראשון ואין אחד מהן דומה לחבירו לפיכך כל אחד ואחד חייב לומר בשבילי נברא העולם.

I spent a lot of time this week looking at my children and thinking of their futures. I like to laugh that Big Kid will be a broadway director one day because he’s so dramatic and bossy. And that Baby will be an actor, or maybe an opera singer, because she sings these loud shofar-esque songs all day.

But who knows what they’ll become? Maybe their lives will be filled with ideas I can’t even imagine yet. Maybe one of them will be the first to walk on Mars, or lead expeditions into the rainforests, or write the Great American Novel? They’ll invent their own lives as they grow. Our job, as their moms, is to foster their creativity and support their endeavors as much as possible.

When I look at them, at the other children in their respective classes, I think the Mishnah is right. Each person is a whole world. Actually, our children will be the world. They each have the potential to make or break other people’s lives.

Not one of them is like his or her fellow. For each one of us the world was created. Every human life is an entire world.

As I write these words, millions of people in Israel and Palestine are beset with grief, and rage, and terror, and disbelief. Tens of thousands of worlds have been destroyed in the Holy Land this week. What would the world look like if we stopped killing each other long enough to realize the inherent value of human life? Is there a future in which we can beat our swords into ploughshares, our spears into pruning hooks, as Isaiah prophesied?

A lot of people talk about the cycle of violence. I’m not sure we talk about the cycle of squander enough, though. Each person lost is a whole world. How can we be so wasteful?

—

I realize I’m being ambiguous about who I mean when I say all people. And I should be more forthright — the original text from the Mishnah says that all people of Israel are a whole world. I took that word out because I believe all people everywhere have inherent worth.

Which is why I cannot fathom how the murderers stormed through homes, slaughtering everyone they saw.

How can they have strayed so far? How can anyone be filled with such seething hatred? Even though they would have killed me, or worse, I want to understand them. I want it to make sense.

I see the panic-stricken face of the mother carrying her children into the unknown, captured by men with rifles who want her dead.

I see the tears carving rivulets in the ash on the woman’s face, sitting among cinderblocks and rubble in Gaza City and clutching her baby.

I don’t understand anything.

—

Tomorrow, I’ll stand in the synagogue as a young person becomes a Jewish adult. They will read the story of Noah, which is this week’s Torah portion by some strange twist of fate. We’ll read about how G-d — omniscient, omnipotent G-d! — was too torn apart by the evil of humanity. Nothing to do but drown everything and everyone. Well, almost everyone.

The story of Noah ends on a hopeful note. A rainbow across the sky and a divine promise never to destroy the earth again. It’s a covenant between G-d and humanity — we’ll try not to be so evil, G-d will not drown us all in endless torrents. To this day, when you see a rainbow you’re supposed to say “Barukh atah Adonai zocher habrit,” (Blessed are you, Lord, who remembers the covenant).

After the flood, the earth fills with goodness and growth. People flourish. They create new societies, nations, ideas.

I don’t know if we’re keeping up our end of the bargain anymore. Will anything grow here? I’m scared.

If you have any hope to offer, I’d be glad to receive it.

In the meantime, I’ll be praying for shalom, that word which means both peace and wholeness. May we find a way to be whole, somehow.

Go hold the people you love.

Shabbat shalom,

Mikhal

---

What I’ve been reading

• Apples and Women’s Work is a stunning essay by Lyz Lenz (

  lyz
  ) in
  Men Yell at Me
  . Lyz is a wonderful writer and an incredible journalist doing important work reporting from the middle of the U.S. and you should follow her Substack.

• My beloved cousin

  Rabbi Josh Weiner
  wrote wise words about Noah and the current situation in Israel-Palestine in his Substack,
  'Darosh Darash' - some Torah thoughts
  .

• Gershom Gorenberg wrote an Op-Ed in the NY Times called “Netanyahu Led Us to Catastrophe. He Must Go,” a sentiment I could not agree with more.

What I’ve been listening to

• Anaïs Mitchell’s 2022 album, especially Bright Star, which is a perfect song.

• Paris Paloma’s song It’s Called: Freefall

• A song called Rocket Ship by an artist called Nep

What I’ve been writing

• An essay for this here newsletter about how words matter. Also, heartbreak in the face of the war.

• A new series for this newsletter about the lesser known symptoms associated with ADHD. It’s called I Am Chaos. Next week, look out for an essay about rage and dysregulated emotions.