Friday, April 26th, 2024

I think we can all agree that the world is going crazy. What’s happening on university campuses across the USA is simply out of control and not to be believed. The screaming throngs are huge, and getting bigger and more aggressive.  The Jewish students and faculty are scared, and it seems that so are some of the leaders and even some of the police.

What’s really insane, though, is that so many of these kids know only one thing – that Israel is attacking Gaza – and nothing more. And some of them don’t even know that. This morning, I saw a news clip of a student protesting at New York University, and it became apparent that she didn’t even know what she was protesting. When the journalist asked her outright, the girl replied, “I’m not exactly sure. I was at Columbia and we heard that the NYU students needed our help because it was dangerous. It’s Palestine. We have to stop what NYU is doing.” The journalist asked, “What’s NYU doing?” and the girl said, “I’m not sure” and she turned to ask another student who – surprise! – also didn’t know. Oh, and the other student was wearing a keffiah.

This is repeated across the continent. Heaven help us. Are these the leaders of tomorrow? How can we not worry? How can we not be frightened for the world when we see this?

On the other hand, there was something that made me incredibly happy this week. On Wednesday evening after Yom Tov, we learned that Hamas had released a video of one of the hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Throughout our seder the night before (and the night before that), we had read aloud the name of each of the hostages,* and when I read Hersh’s name, I paused for a moment because he is the only hostage that I have had a connection to (via emails with his parents). I now watched the video and my heart did the Happy Dance. He was obviously reading what Hamas wanted him to say, and he looked not great, and he has lost his hand. But he is alive. He is alive! No one knows when the video was taken, but his hand was not newly gone. The skin had healed over so it was not a terribly old video. He is alive. He sent a message to his family. He is alive. He is alive!

In these crazy times, we have to find these moments of hope, and celebrate them. We have to embrace these tiny rays of light that are sent our way, and celebrate them. If all we do is dwell on the insanity, we ourselves will be sucked into that rabbit hole. We absolutely must keep praying, speaking out, correcting the narrative, writing to politicians who can possibly do something to change the situation. We’ll see what unfolds with the university campuses, but let us unite in celebration of anything that keeps us going.

Am Yisrael Chai! 

*There are four categories of hostages:
1. Hostages in captivity.  We pray for their release.
2. Hostages who have been released. We pray for their recovery.
3. Hostages who have been killed. We pray for their souls.
4. Hostages who have been killed and whose remains are still in Gaza. We pray for their remains to be returned to their families.