By Rabbi Lana Zilberman Soloway

 

As my family and I were debating whether we should leave Israel in order to come here, friends who embarked on similar missions in the past, encouraged us to do so, while reassuring us that Israel will remain exactly the same, nothing will change, and we will be able to pick up exactly where we left. Seven-plus weeks after the Black Sabbath of October 7th, we all know that everything has changed and Israel will never be the same again.

I was planning to go back to Israel during the third week in November, for my second Rabbinic ordination from the Hebrew Union College, but of course the nature of my trip was completely different from what was planned. After watching closely the horrors of the last weeks, learning what happened to so many people in my beloved country, having friends who were murdered, kidnapped, missing, and family members of close friends who were killed or injured in the army, a sixteen-hour flight finally brought me home. 

My biggest goal was to hug as many people as possible, and so I rented a car at the airport and started traveling the country. As I was driving, meeting loved ones, and looking at people on the streets, I was reminded of a book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. The story takes place in Prague in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It explores the artistic and intellectual life of Czech society from the Prague Spring of 1968 to the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union. The book described the very surrealism I felt throughout Israel.

On one hand, a war is going on. Close to one million Israelis are currently drafted to the army, either on their regular mandatory service or being called up as reserves. One can see weapons everywhere and all the time. In fact, I have never seen so many weapons on the streets of Israel before. Multiple funerals are happening daily; hospital beds are filled with injured civilians and soldiers. Over 250.000 people are evacuated from their homes, staying in hotels throughout the country. Entrances to Kibbutzim look like a war zone. There are multiple checkpoints on the roads. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis are volunteering daily for numerous causes. The country is in the midst of a war. 

On the other hand, people sit in cafes and restaurants, as if business as usual. Surreal! Or maybe normal?

Milan Kundera describes this incomprehensible dichotomy of life, by saying that: 

The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of heaviness. We say that something has become a great burden to us. We either bear the burden or fail and go down with it, we struggle with it, win or lose. What feels like a burden is really the unbearable lightness of being.

Maybe sitting in a cafe in the midst of a war is not surreal. Maybe it is normal, and even necessary. People don’t need a constant reminder of their burden: their loss, their pain, their trauma. The war is there all the time. Perhaps people need to find little moments of joy, a cup of coffee, a good meal, meeting a friend, conversing about a different topic, celebrating simchas, yes yes, celebrating. This may be the most important lesson I learned on this trip.

My Ordination felt completely surreal to me. Celebrating in the midst of a war felt strange. That feeling became even more so after I learned that a dear friend who was known to be taken hostage was actually found dead. I was devastated and felt very sad that I could not attend her funeral. At the same time, I knew that so many people worked very hard in order to create a meaningful ordination ceremony for me and my two friends, in the midst of a war. So I took a deep breath, dressed up and showed up. It was a beautiful day, filled with friendship, community, and belonging to a movement. It was sad and joyous all at once.

I cried the entire time, and so did everyone else around me. We all needed to cry, and we all needed that simcha, that joyous moment, to remind ourselves that we are alive, and that in the unbearable lightness of being, there is room for all the sorrow and all the joy, all at the same time. 

Sometimes, we just need to show up. Be. Breathe. Most likely, someone will be there to help us carry our burden so we can celebrate the simple fact of being alive.