Rabbinic Reflection: Rabbi Eliza McCarroll

The news of last Motzei Shabbat (Saturday night) hit hard, upon learning of the deaths of Hersh, Carmel, Eden, Ori, Alex and Almog at the hands of their captors in Hamas captivity. 

Among them was a beautiful Israeli-American young man who had made aliyah with his family at 7 years old, a yoga teacher and student of occupational therapy at the Hebrew University, a young father who will never meet the newest of his two babies … 

As our Talmud teaches us, to save a life is to save an entire world, and it is crushing to think that these six universes have been snuffed out. 

This is especially in the midst of our tradition commanding us “u’v’charta b’chayim”, to choose in life, these famous words that we will hear chanted at Yom Kippur in just a few weeks. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about this injunction this week as we process the pain and grief at the loss of the hostages. 

One moment comes from Sunday evening when Cantorial Soloist Lindi Rivers and I were both at the community vigil at Earl Bales Park. It must have been close to a thousand people, who’d only been given a few hours of notice to gather. We sang, we said Kaddish, and we heard from a young woman called Ma’ayan, whose cousin was Carmet Gat z”l, and who was getting on a plane to Israel later that night to be with her family. Perhaps, I thought, this is what it means to choose life: to be in community, to be in relationship with other people, and to find comfort and compassion in being together and acknowledging each other’s tzures and stories. 

Another idea is from a poem I read at Shabbat services, just that very Saturday morning before the news crashed over us like a wave. It comes from a book called “BaZman: From Time to Time – Journeys in the Jewish Calendar” by Rabbi Professor Dalia Marx, a friend of our congregation. It is her kavanah, intention, for the Hebrew month of Elul we now find ourselves in. It reads: 

In moments of great stillness, 

When we contemplate things which no mouth can utter, 

At that hour, let us deepen the insight that we have. 

Let us look inward. 

Let us lift up our lives as if we were lifting a bucket from a well. 

It is incumbent upon us to strive for self-understanding. 

It is incumbent upon us to balance the forces working in our souls.” 

As we enter Elul, let this be what it means to choose in life: to choose introspection, reflection, and contemplation of a better future. May it mean that we can always find wellsprings of hope, the bucket from which we can refresh our souls, even when they feel broken. 

May the memories of Hersh, Carmel, Eden, Ori, Alex and Almog be for a blessing.