Bitter Heshvan Living Up to its Name & Light in the Darkness

The Hebrew month of Heshvan is more properly known as Bitter Heshvan, Marheshvan, מַרְחֶשְׁוָ, so-called because there are no holidays during this month.

It follows a month of deep introspection, joy, and then…nothing.

As I write, the moon reaches its fullest, greatest light.

Yet there has been nothing but dark and bitterness.

Bitter Heshvan has lived up to its name.

Israel, Gaza, the Jewish and Palestinian worlds (or should I say “world”?) are in the throws of fear, terror, destruction, death, despair.

I feel unable to speak.

I feel, deeply, the inability of the world to hold each other in love, grief and despair across tribal lines.

What remains is rage.

“They will destroy us!”

Followed by, “We will destroy you!”

“Senseless killing,” is repeated again and again.

Is killing ever senseful, I wonder?

“Overkill” is the word that comes to my mind.

And does killing in the name of killing ever turn out okay?

A young Jewish Orthodox woman quietly whispers, “Am I crazy, or does it seem like Israel is going too far?”

She feels unable to speak.

She feels silenced by her family and community. Her tribe.

And because I begin to doubt my own sanity, I say, “Oh, please, tell me I’m not crazy, too.”

I hear the mantra: “Of course I care about innocent Palestinians.”

Only the innocent, I want to ask?

What about the Jewish tradition that says, if you kill one person, it is like you are killing the whole world?

Or does that only apply to Jews?

And I want to say, “Show me someone who is innocent.”

“Hamas doesn’t care about its own people!” others repeat.

And I want to say, “Show me a politician or political group that is not self-interested, and really cares.”

I grapple, painfully, with my need to be cautious in my speech and my obligation to speak up and speak out.

Who will listen?

Who will not shut me down?

Returning from the wedding in South Carolina two weeks ago, I buried myself in a book just as the Jewish and Palestinian worlds were beginning to rage.

The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd, is a historical novel set in Charleston in the early 1800’s.

It follows the life and evolution of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, two sisters from a prominent slaveholding family.

Sarah is widely considered to be the founder of the Suffragist Movement, yet her name is mostly unknown.

Together with her sister in the 1830’s, she fought to bring the Abolitionist Movement to the forefront in American minds.

Their beliefs came from their direct experience of witnessing the horrors of slavery.

They were strengthened by religious conviction.

While others said, “Pray and wait,” they said, “The cruelty and suffering must end today!”

But as women, men tried hard to silence them.

And there was a constant effort to shame them into loyalty to their own people—their family. Their tribe.

Yet they did not give in.

“Not in our name!” was their cry.

To everyone’s dismay, the fight became as much about women’s rights as it was about slavery.

The famous quote, “I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright …” comes from Sarah Grimke.

Well-meaning men went to great lengths to get them to back down. To separate the movements.

The fight for women would hurt the fight to end slavery, they claimed.

Slavery was the greater evil in these men’s eyes.

And people wouldn’t be able to hold the two at the same time, they said.

But Sarah and Angelina insisted that they were one and the same.

Because justice for one is justice for all.

While any is oppressed, all are oppressed.

I also feel the pressure to defend “my tribe.”

So when I hear Jews shouting in the streets of New York, “Not in our name!” I break down sobbing.

Not in our name.

While the cry has been, “This was our 9/11!” I ask, did we learn nothing from the twenty years that ensued?

Did we learn nothing from the excuses used for killing innocent people “caught in the crossfire”—because of hidden weapons of mass destruction.

Tunnels.

Hostages.

The whole country united—for war.

“Pure evil” is the other mantra.

And it was a “beautiful coming together of all Americans across the divide.”

Was it?

Those who questioned our war cry were screamed at: “You are anti-American! You hate your own people!”

But I love my country—my people, my tribe—enough that I want us to be better.

So I say, “Not in my name!”

Like the Evangelical pastor who dares to speak for all, in the name of Jesus Christ “Our” Lord and Savior.

The arrogance.

To speak for others.

To speak for Jews.

For some Jews to speak for all Jews.

To silence those who question.

Instead of speaking, I find myself listening.

Listening to other people’s pain.

Just listening.

Because they can not.

Their pain is too deep and too great.

It is too fresh.

And I understand their pain in a way that is hard to explain to others who are not Jewish.

But I, too, have that pain.

I, too, am horrified by the slaughter of Jews.

I can’t explain my nuanced point of view to other Jews any more than I can explain Jewish trauma to those who don’t come from it.

How can I ask people who are worried about family and friends to think of someone else’s?

To think of other tribes when it’s their tribe that’s being attacked?

How can I ask people not to choose?

“What else are we supposed to do? What would you have us do?” people ask in frustration.

If the answer is, “I don’t know,” then maybe we haven’t thought hard enough.

“You feel helpless?” says a Chabad rabbi and his wife on Instagram; “Do a mitzvah. If you’re a man, lay tefillin. If you’re a woman, recite psalms. That’s how Mashiach (the Messiah) will come!”

I lay tefillin daily.

I am a woman.

Does that count?

I hear a sermon in shul that makes me recoil, that leaves me deeply disappointed in my very progressive Jewish community:

“As horrible as everything is, so many beautiful things are happening. Look at how Jews are coming together! In Tel Aviv the restaurants are giving away hundreds of meals to soldiers, and they’re making their kitchens kosher to the degree that anyone, literally anyone, no matter their level of Jewish observance, will feel comfortable eating there. They’ve reached out to the rabbinical authorities to put a rush on their kosher certification. And it’s happening! Isn’t it beautiful? Jews coming together across divides. Maybe Mashiach (the Messiah) really is coming!”

Everyone laughs.

Because we normally make fun of those who speak that way.

Now we’re talking like them.

I cry.

I cry because this is our Progressive Left giving into our Religious Right.

I cry because the progressive Jews of Israel have been forced to sideline their fight against the Extreme Right due to war.

Because they’ve been forced to put aside their fight for democracy.

“Oh, it’s only temporary,” says someone.

But I fear not.

I fear it will be lost in an ongoing war of death and destruction.

And it feels strangely coincidental.

Strangely intentional.

Instead, we give in to the primal need to defend our tribe and survive.

Once again.

“The Jews need a home. A safe place to go.”

Yes.

But not like this.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Where is Mashiach now?

Then I have a dream.

I dream that I become the owner of a building.

It has a beautiful, grand, arched entrance with carvings.

But the entrance is strangely in the back, blocked from sight.

I am afraid to go down to the basement.

Dark. Dank.

I imagine cockroaches. Waterbugs.

A friend suggests I block off half the building, the dark half, from usage.

But I don’t want to. That’s also where the beautiful entrance is.

I need the whole thing.

Then another friend says, “It’s actually not so bad. Don't be afraid. You should go down and see for yourself.”

So I go.

And there are hundreds of rooms.

Like in a university, they are classrooms where I imagine animated discussion, learning, growth happening in the future.

Hope.

I see hope.

And, actually, there is light.

Though it’s the basement, light is flooding in.

And I see on the windows, the dirty windows, that someone has wiped away the grime and drawn peace symbols with their finger.

The light shines through.

And within the grimy spaces inside the symbols, there are little feather wings, like angels’ wings.

And I am filled with immense joy.

There is light in the darkness.

But I notice that the peace symbols are not visible all the time—only from a certain angle.

As we come towards the month of Kislev, the darkest time of the year, when we intentionally bring light into the world with the candles of Hannukah, may we hold on to the images of light and hope.

May we open our hearts so we can listen to and hold each other in our grief and pain beyond our tribes.

May we raise our voices above the silencing, and stop blaming each other.

May we invent wings that can carry the destruction and death away.

May we find an entrance into a grand new era of peace and love.

May we see not “worlds” but one world.

May we look from a different angle.

May we find another way.

And please say Amen.