Let us begin by marking the news on Thursday of the first phase of a hostage-release and cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas. After two years of suffering since October 7, this moment, as that suffering might begin to end, is a moment beyond words. All that this moment means for the hostages and their families, for all Israelis and for all of us in the shared Jewish family, and for the Palestinians in Gaza — it is beyond words. We have kept an empty chair on the bimah representing the hostages since October 7. In the poignancy of seeing this empty chair every Shabbat, we sense a minuscule fraction of the agony these hostages and their families have endured. 48 hostages remain in Gaza, of whom 20 are thought to be alive. Now, a deadline is set for Monday for them to be released, and brought home to their families again. The cease-fire has come into effect. The IDF has withdrawn to an agreed-on line. About 200,000 Palestinians have already returned to northern Gaza.
As Ruth Margalit wrote in The New Yorker about the deal’s announcement, “It was as though Israelis drew in a collective breath and then exhaled. At… Hostages Square… [f]amilies of hostages, who have until now been restrained in their public reactions to a prospective agreement, allowed themselves to break down in tears of relief.” No words can capture this moment, only exhaling and tears. We began the fall Chagim, the holidays, with the wordless primal cry of the shofar. Now we are ending the Chagim coming full circle, with news that lets out the shofar cry of our souls. Yitzchak Herzog, the President of Israel, posted online: “As the prophet Jeremiah wrote: ‘They shall return from the land of the enemy… and children shall return to their borders.’” For Herzog, too, this moment is beyond words, at least beyond any modern words — only a verse from the Bible can evoke the stakes of this moment of truly Biblical proportions. Here as well, our season of the Chagim comes full circle. We chanted these words from Jeremiah in the Haftarah for the second day of Rosh Hashanah. Now as we conclude the Chagim, these verses of prophetic poetry are coming true.
The final outcome of this process is not yet certain. We may be feeling this uncertainty. So we pray that this first phase of the agreement will be honored, that the phases ahead will come to fruition, and that we may begin to heal from all the loss and heartbreak that began on October 7: the deaths of the 1200 who were murdered simply for living in the modern Jewish homeland; the suffering of the hostages; the soldiers who have fallen defending our modern Jewish homeland; and the Palestinian civilians who have fallen, who are children of Abraham as we are. May we soon be able to say, as Yitzchak Rabin said, “Enough of tears and blood,” “Dai le-d’ma’ot u-le-dam.”
To express all that is beyond words within us, let us sing together an excerpt of the classic early modern Hebrew song, “Ani Ma’amin,” “I Believe,” also known as “Sachki, Sachki,” “Laugh, O Laugh.” Its words are a poem that the great Russian-Jewish poet Sha’ul Tchernichovsky wrote in 1892. In the third stanza here [see below], the poem prophetically describes a new generation of free Jews in the Land of Israel by saying, “Their iron fetters removed, / eye to eye, they shall see light” — uncannily evoking the experience of these hostages, who have been trapped in tunnels in the darkness, who will now again see light in every sense. In the song’s title, “Ani Ma’amin,” “I Believe,” words that recur throughout the poem, Tchernichovsky evokes the traditional Thirteen Principles of Faith drawn from the writing of Rambam, also known as Maimonides, each one beginning, “I believe with a perfect faith,” “Ani ma’amin be-emunah shleimah.” Tchernichovsky draws on this language to imbue the resonance and depth of Jewish tradition and history into his faith in humanity, in the future, and in the Jewish people. He suggests that there is an inherent goodness in humanity that nothing, no matter how hard, can cancel out. There is more goodness in life than what the status quo may show, and we can make our world match that goodness more closely through the work we do.
Tchernichovsky offers a prayer for freedom both for our people and for all humanity. He envisions in the second stanza here a future of peace and blessing, shalom u-vrachah, from nation to nation, le’om mi-le’om. Tchernichovsky’s words encapsulate the original vision of Zionism: As Jews, we are a people, like the Irish people, the Italian people, or the Korean people, and we deserve “to be a free people in our land,” in the words of “Hatikvah,” precisely in the way that all peoples deserve to be free. When we have peace with other nations, we too enjoy peace, and vice versa.
Tchernichovsky’s beautiful early modern Hebrew, inheriting traditional Hebrew’s spiritual imagery and giving it personal, modern twists, exemplifies the best of Israel — just as President Herzog exemplifies the best of Israel when he quotes the prophet Jeremiah to describe the impact of this week’s news. Tchernichovsky is one of the poets on the shekel bills, as we have discussed when we have read poems by Leah Goldberg and Ra’hel who also appear on bills. When Israel faces conflict against those who would kidnap or destroy us, let us remember that this vision of Israel is what we are fighting for: the vision of being “a free people in our land,” in safety and peace, and with the Jewish cultural flourishing that makes Israel unique and enriches the whole Jewish world.
Perhaps above all, the song’s melody [listen here], by Tuvia Shlonsky, is so full of neshamah, soul, or more literally “life-breath.” This song lets us breathe out all the emotions that are pulsing within us. It lets us exhale in every sense. As we sing, may we, together, let out the cry of the shofar in our hearts.
Verses 1, 5, and 6 (out of 8), my translation; Hebrew original below:
Laugh, O laugh at the dreams
that I the dreamer tell you,
Laugh — but I believe in humanity [adam],
As I still believe in you.
I believe, too, in the future,
Though distant be the day,
Yet will it come — with peace [shalom]
And blessing [u-vrachah] from nation to nation.
Then will my people, too, return and flourish,
And in the Land [u-va-Aretz], the rise of a generation [dor, as in “le-dor va-dor,” “from generation to generation”]:
Their iron fetters removed,
Eye to eye, they shall see light.
שַׂחֲקִי, שַׂחֲקִי עַל הַחֲלוֹמוֹת,
זוּ אֲנִי הַחוֹלֵם שָׂח.
שַׂחֲקִי כִּי בָאָדָם אַאֲמִין,
כִּי עוֹדֶנִּי מַאֲמִין בָּךְ.
אַאֲמִינָה גַּם בֶּעָתִיד,
אַף אִם יִרְחַק זֶה הַיוֹם,
אַךְ בֹּא יָבֹא – יִשְׂאוּ שָׁלוֹם
אָז וּבְרָכָה לְאֹם מִלְאֹם.
יָשׁוּב יִפְרַח אָז גַּם עַמִּי,
וּבָאָרֶץ יָקוּם דּוֹר,
בַּרְזֶל-כְּבָלָיו יוּסַר מֶנּוּ,
עַיִן-בְּעַיִן יִרְאֶה אוֹר.