Posted on November 17, 2023
A month has passed since October 7, but it feels like much longer. On the other hand, I feel like only a moment has passed—the days are jumbled together into a blurry stain.
And despite that, after a month, a kind of emergency routine begins: We make plans, knowing that any moment they might change—because of a telephone conversation from a partner that informs you that he was granted a surprise leave [to come home], or God forbid because of a bad notification, or simply because, by mistake, you see a horrifying video clip that sticks with you, and now you don’t have the strength to leave your bed.
I went back home to live with my parents. My husband has been on reserve duty since Simchat Torah. I pass my time between reserve duty in the Tel Aviv military base and visits with my partner’s family (both my sisters-in-law live there now, each of them alone with a small child), and the rest of the time I try to fill with small activities that give me strength: meeting up with friends, writing, and going out for walks in the community.
This week on Monday, I was at my cousin’s bris [ritual circumcision]. His father is on reserve duty now, he came out on leave for the birth and on the evening after the bris he already had to return to the army. The bris was held on a gorgeous farm. I met up with my extended family and all of us in a celebratory and unburdened mood. We were excited to see the new baby and emotional about the name that they chose: Neta Oz [seedling of strength, “Oz” specifically references the communities near Gaza that were targeted on October 7th]. All of the men at the bris were walking around with their guns, some of them also wearing uniforms—they just got out and they were already about to return [to their bases].
When they sat to eat after the bris, my aunt told the story of a friend of hers from a kibbutz in the Gaza Envelope, who survived hell and started to describe what she’d been through, and my uncle signaled to her to stop, and whispered to her that this wasn’t the time [for that story]. It turns out that some of the guests who sat with us at the same table were themselves survivors of Kfar Aza.
We returned from the bris with air in our souls, full of the beauty of the farm, with the sweetness of family, and in wonder at the new life.
That same night, I saw in my friend’s Instagram story that the soldier who I heard was killed this morning in Gaza is her brother-in-law. It scared me a lot. She’s my age; like me, both her husband and brothers-in-law are conscripted, we’re so similar! It suddenly turns out that this name, that in my head and my heart had joined the endless list of people killed since October 7th, to which I’d almost become indifferent: he’s someone’s brother-in-law, the brother-in-law of someone who could have been me.
A few moments later, it was publicized that the soldier Ori Megidish was freed through military action and Instagram stories filled with photos of her, with emotional words, joy and pride.
I don’t know how to explain why this, specifically, suddenly broke me.
Everything is so mixed up together. After October 7th, it will take a long time until we’ll be able to once again be happy with truly all of our hearts. Now, even what makes us happy is so diluted with sadness.
On the very same night that the entire country is celebrating a small, miraculous victory, one family just got awful news. At the same time as lives are beginning, so many lives are ending. I don’t know what’s truer—all of this death or the throbbing life. And sometimes it’s so hard to hold both of them at once.
It’s true, there’s still beauty in the world, babies like our Neta Oz are still born, I’m still holding tightly onto the love of my partner, to our life. But I sometimes feel like holding tightly to one another is closing our eyes to the horror and suffering, to the hurt and broken hearts, to the cries of the families of the hostages. Sometimes I feel guilty for my desire to make things better for myself, this desire that compels me to close my eyes briefly, and to just pray that I never endure the suffering of those suffering now.
The mind works overtime; pressure in the chest does not relent. When I am successful, I try to focus only on what is happening now: on my breath, to inhale, to hold it, and then to release. I focus on the knowledge of what is correct now: my partner being in a safe space; my coffee; my mother’s hug; my nephew’s sweet baby scent.
It’s all true: the death and the life, the evil and the beauty. But I don’t have time to involve myself with it now, now I’m just living, day after day, moment following moment.
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