Transforming War into Bread
Yaakov Godo, (standing to the left) whose son Tom was murdered on 10/7 in The Families' Tent. Bereaved family members have vowed to remain in the tent in front of the Knesset until the Netanyahu government falls.
Dear friends,
The Hebrew word for word for war, Milchamah, comes from Lechem, bread. A war might front as military engagement, but it manifests in food, education, housing, social services and family. Despite the ceasefire, I arrived on Monday to a country at war. Even though the devastation here is minor next to that in Gaza, being here has reminded me of the upside down day to day reality and psyche of being at war. Before we disembarked, the pilot added a prayer for the release of the hostages. Then we walked by the signs pointing to the airport bomb shelter, and then the pictures of dozens of hostages, some of whom were freed this week, thank God.
Yesterday my brothers and I joined twenty other volunteers in sorting cabbages and working in the broccoli fields of Nir Mosheh, one of the villages just around Gaza. Most of the agriculture of the country comes from this area, but because of the war they now have almost no workers. Some were murdered on 10/7, others kidnapped. The Palestinian workers who used to come in from Gaza to work the fields will probably never come back. The Thai government flew back all of its citizens that had come to Israel to work the fields. So in order to save the crops, hundreds of Israelis are volunteering daily as they look at the houses where Hamas terrorists roamed and murdered, and at the Gaza strip beyond the hills to the east, where thousands have already been killed.
"Were they here," I asked the Yemenite farmer who gave us our assignments. "They killed my brother." "And your parents, are they okay?" "My parents are finished," by which he meant alive.
When we arrived back at my brother's place in the Jerusalem Hills a sign is plastered on the wall with the various places you can hide in the house and nearby in case of a siren. Every evening the family gathers to light a candle for the hostages, and everyone on the land who needs light. Sitting around that evening waiting for news about the hostages released that day, my sister in law fretted over the daily lives of the Palestinians she works with but hasn't seen since the war began. "The electrician, the contractor, the carpenter, all of their work is here. They must have no money at all now," she fretted.
My friends from high school are in some alternate reality. One, whose wife is French, took the four kids and flew back to France five weeks ago. He hasn't seen them yet. Another is in the Reserves and his wife is taking care of the children so she can only work limited hours at her job running a bank. Another friend of mine's mother and sister who live up by the Lebanese border were evacuated and told they shouldn't expect to return home before March at the earliest. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fill the hotels all over the country.
Kids here are experiencing serious disruptions, fears and difficult information to process. My seven year old nephew needs his mother more these days, with the knowledge of the kidnappings that can't be escaped since their faces are posted on walls everywhere you go. My friend's teenage daughter kept running to the safe room whenever she heard a loud noise. Like everyone else here, she knows about the widespread rape and other sex crimes that occurred all over on that terrible day. The kids all describe the frightening booms of the bombs falling in Gaza, which they can hear all the way to the Jerusalem Hills. And this, of course is nothing next to the reports of trauma among kids in Gaza sleeping in tents, not knowing what's left of their homes, and sometimes of their families. There are many new orphans on this land.
One of the scariest things for me on this trip was the amount of civilians with rifles I see on the streets, and the fact that most of them walk around with the magazine inserted. When I was a soldier in Southern Lebanon I was strictly forbidden to walk around with the magazine inserted into my rifle. Now that Israel's criminal racist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir has handed out thousands of (American) rifles to Jews, and the level of fear has sky-rocketed, those precautions have been abandoned. They will be hard to roll back. The extreme right has been well armed. My 18 year old nephew put it this way: "We have two options: ongoing war with the Palestinians, or civil war." If the country tries to reach a peace agreement, the Israeli right will explode against the center, and the Palestinian right will explode against theirs.
Believe it or not, despite all of this several people have told me that the war has been "a special time." They describe care and kinship they haven't felt in years. A deep shared sadness, and a a renewed belief in the people of this country. During the ceasefire, (which I pray and hope will resume within a day or two), every evening the entire country would await anxiously for images of the returned hostages. Every person here at around 9 or 10pm sheds tears watching the reunions. I've never experienced such an anguished shared joy on a daily basis.
When I got off of the plane my father took me straight to the Knesset to what's called The Families' Tent. Started by Ya'akov Godo, whose son, Tom was murdered on the Seventh, several bereaved parents, children and grandchildren have vowed to stay in the tent in front of the Knesset until this government falls. One of the people who started the initiative with Godo is David Agmon, a former IDF general who then went on to become Netanyahu's chief of staff in the Nineties. "After three months I told him you don't need a chief of staff, you need to replace yourself, and walked away." On the Seventh, and the following week, Agmon, who's 76 was down south battling Hamas terrorists out of Israeli towns. When the government wouldn't let him help the army any longer (because of his loud anti-Netanyahu position) he joined with Godo to start the Families Tent. So far these two old men have been sleeping in that tent for almost four weeks.
The incredible thing about the brave women and men living in this tent is their forward looking attitude. These are some of the most hopeful people you can meet anywhere, broken though they are by the deaths of their family members. Several of them spoke at today's Kabbalat Shabbat. They described the deaths of their sons, daughters and grandparents. They cried in front of us. They described the police tearing down their signs about the murder of their loved ones, which made government officials uncomfortable. They listed their indictments of the government that failed so completely and has yet to take even the faintest shred of responsibility. And they talked about the future that the country will build once Netanyahu and his despicable government is removed.
This future is inextricably linked with a word that has become something of a joke here: Shalom. The singer Achinoam Nini said at Kabbalat Shabbat that this crisis is so deep that it can put us back onto the road toward "her favorite word: Shalom." She dedicated her song to peace activist Vivian Silver. Another teenager who spoke promised to continue the work toward peace that her murdered grandmother began. One of the signs there read: "There is no such thing as a military victory."
The victory will come when the Milchamah, that massive disruption to food, housing and everything in life that is regular and good, becomes Lechem, bread that people share. No more war. No more extremism. No more senseless violence. No more hatred. Just peace. Let us pray that Achinoam Nini is right. And let us work to make the miracle of the transformation of war into bread come true.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha