Where will you be when the hostages come home?
Yoav Dudkevitch/TPS
Identity

Where will you be when the hostages come home?

Bearing witness is a Jewish moral imperative: I don’t want to tell my Creator that I was shopping at Costco at this historic Exodus moment.

For the next 42 days (we pray), the people of Israel may bear witness to the blessing and curse of being part of the Chosen People. We will have the privilege and the pain of being part of a chapter of Jewish history still being written as we watch the miracle and horror of 33 hostages – some alive, some dead – being liberated from captivity on our television screens, our radio broadcasts, and our social media feeds. We, our children, and our children’s children will one day tell the generations that come after us that we saw a modern-day Exodus as our children of Israel reached the Promised Land in a Red Cross van; that we watched (now in the 24/7 news cycle) the contemporary version of the liberation of Auschwitz or the gates of the Gulag swinging open toward freedom. There is no greater mitzvah than the redemption of captives.

So where will you be as the hostages are released from more than 67 weeks of hell at the hands of Hamas?

To be part of this moment, to feel the joy of the living hostages reunited with their families and their nation, and, also, to not avert our eyes from the tragedy that will befall Klal Yisrael, is, to my mind, a Jewish obligation. This is what “Am Yisrael Chai,” – the Nation of Israel Lives! – is in its most literal form. It also embodies the core precept of “kol Yisrael arevim zeh l’zeh” – all of Israel is responsible for one another. This isn’t just the collective interest, the breath we hold together, the on-the-ground preparations that have gone into this by so many people in both military and civilian life, and the spontaneous street parties of joy we hope to have. It also means forcing ourselves to take in the terrible scenes of coffins returning to Israel, to visit the shiva mourning tents, and most importantly, take stock of the horrific sacrifices for one another that some Israelis will make as the murderers of their dead relatives walk free in order to save the still living and bring the dead to burial. This is what being part of a people is – to pray, to wait anxiously, to smile, to cry, to testify to this moment in Jewish history together.

But if 42 days is a blink in the eye of Jewish history, isn’t that a long time for us to “be there”?

We fervently hope there will be many sequential releases over the next several weeks, so this is not an event that will happen in one sitting. Not only is there no “photo-finish,” but there’s no clear happy ending. At best, the hostages return alive with unknown physical and spiritual injuries, at worst, we must prepare ourselves for a parade of coffins. In between, there will certainly be many agonizing and uneventful hours of psychological warfare with delays, setbacks, and violations of the agreement. You can’t binge watch and there is no popcorn. Our collective hearts will be in our throats for the next six weeks.

There are a mix of reasons, valid and less so, to avoid the spectacle of this hostage release deal. Some of us are essential workers or are tending to emergencies. Some may conclude that taking it all in will endanger our fragile mental health, or have other compelling reasons why we cannot be in community for the next 42 days.

Some feel “triggered” by these traumatic events – although I think we should take care in that conversation to center the hostages themselves who are surely experiencing greater PTSD after 14 months in a tunnel than those tuning in at home.

Some, reminded of the final cruel scenes exacted by Hamas in November 2023 when hostages were forced to wave and smile as they left Gaza, say it is a spectacle they’d rather not see, even if we can be assured that the privacy of the hostages is a top priority once they enter Israeli control.

Others are too desolate over the inauguration of President Trump or don’t want his administration to receive the credit for this agreement. Still more are too angry at Benjamin Netanyahu or at Israel’s conduct of the war, to want to take part. Perhaps a minority feel there is something a little too parochial about these events since the foreign workers among the hostages are not included in the list of those currently slated for release. I even heard it said it was “bigoted” to bear witness!

Then there are the logistical inconveniences of daily life and the decisions about whether this is really important compared to the rest of our schedules.

On Yom Kippur, I don’t want to tell my Creator that I was shopping the holiday weekend sale at Costco when the first hostages came home. For the next six weeks, I will try to be present – including as much as possible physically in front of the television as we await the confirmation that the hostages have crossed into territorial Israel – and prioritize being part of this cosmic 42-day drama of Jewish history. I am going to put politics aside and think only about these people – innocent babies (!), elderly men, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters taken from their homes. Young people who came to dance at the music festival and found themselves in a dungeon. I am going to continue to pray that each and every hostage is released and that the ceasefire also allows Gazans to begin to rebuild their lives. This is a time for me to share this hope and horror of Jewish destiny.

Most importantly, I see this as a Jewish moral imperative: I think back to our ancient text commemorating the Exodus of our obligation to be part of the Jewish story, “in every generation each individual is bound to regard himself as if he had gone personally forth from Egypt.” We are also told of the Wicked Son (or Person) who asks of the Exodus and its commemoration, provocatively, “What does this mean to YOU?” which the Haggadah interprets as meaning “to You and not to Him, thus it is clear he has set himself apart from the community,” and to which we are instructed to respond, “This is done because of what the Lord did for ME when I went forth from Egypt. For me, and not for him, as he would not have been redeemed.”

It does not matter how many millennia we are separated from these events, we must taste the bitter tears and sing the Hallelujah in unison. How much more so for the privilege of being there for a modern-day Exodus we can experience in our own lifetimes?

The Exodus, the liberation of Auschwitz, going free from the Gulag – these were also some of the most important events in defining ourselves as a Chosen People, the realities of our victimhood, and the responsibilities of our power. Just as all our souls stood together at Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, we also must reckon collectively with our contemporary mandates after our children have finally been safely returned to the Promised Land. It has been said that until the hostages return, Israel is like a broken clock permanently stuck on 7 October 2023 – now, maybe, we will be able to move forward, but toward what future?

Throughout the blessings and curses of Jewish history, we have been there together. I’ll be there for the next 42 days as much as I can. Will you join me?

TOI