It is impossible to read this week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, without thinking about the hostages. The portion is dedicated to societal rules for warfare, beginning with the case of a woman who is being held captive. She must be offered new clothes and given a month to mourn her family. After that she must either be treated as a wife or released. Under no circumstances is she allowed to be held as a slave. As a modern reader, it is uncomfortable to see these rules in our most sacred texts, but for our ancestors just having rules at all must have been revolutionary.
There are currently 101 hostages still in captivity in Gaza. Of that number 64 are still believed to be alive. This Friday marks the 342nd day since October 7. For the remaining hostages, that means almost the entirety of a year living in tunnels, being shuttled from place to place, tortured, beaten, and left for dead. The pain is unimaginable. We, in the Jewish world, hold their memories as sacred, reserving seats for them in our sanctuaries, wearing their names on necklaces over our hearts, and sharing their stories. Hamas does not follow their own sacred texts, let alone the rules in ours.
Reading the portion, I feel the pain of captives from thousands of years ago. How much more so, those suffering today. Every second, every hour, every day, we pray for their release, and we will continue to do so until they are home.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex
P.s. – I recently purchased a book called Shiva: Poems of 10/7 whose proceeds will go to the Israeli Trauma Coalition. One of the poems included is from Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh was murdered in the tunnels after being held captive for the better part of the year. The poem is called “One Tiny Seed”:
There is a lullaby that says your mother will cry a thousand tears before you grow to be a man.
I have cried a million tears in the last 67 days.
We all have.
And I know that way over there
there’s another woman
who looks just like me
because we are all so very similar
and she has also been crying.
All those tears, a sea of tears
they all taste the same.
Can we take them
gather them up,
remove the salt
and pour them over our desert of despair
and plant one tiny seed.
A seed wrapped in fear,
trauma, pain,
war and hope
and see what grows?
Could it be
that this woman
so very like me
that she and I could be sitting together in 50 years
laughing without teeth
because we have drunk so much sweet tea together
and now we are so very old
and our faces are creased
like worn-out brown paper bags.
And our sons
have their own grandchildren
and our sons have long lives
One of them without an arm
But who needs two arms anyway?
Is it all a dream?
A fantasy? A prophecy?
One tiny seed.