Last week, I had the agonizing privilege of visiting Kibbutz Nir Oz. It is impossible to look in any direction and not see the devastation.
Shlomo Margalit, at 87 years old, knows this place better than the back of his hand. He should. He was among the founders of the kibbutz who came in the mid-1950s. He remembers that when he arrived there were only four trees on the arid land.
Nir Oz lies on the border of the Gaza Strip. From the birth of the State of Israel, this land lay within the “Green Line” designating the new state’s borders. They pioneered low-water agriculture, and over time, became known for their asparagus exports, experiments in draught-resistant plants, and their idyllic pastoral life.
Living on the border with Gaza has never been easy. The original founders almost abandoned the project due to sniper fire from Gaza. Shelling was not uncommon, and residents got used to having just seconds to find a shelter or safe-room from Palestinian rocket-fire.
“Our life here,” Shlomo said, “is 95 percent paradise, and 5 percent hell.”
On the morning of October 7, 2023, Shlomo and his wife Hanna awoke at 6:30 in the morning to the sound of the “Red Alert”. They followed their well-practiced routine of closing the door of their safe room, a den just steps from their bedroom. But this morning would be different.
They had never before experienced the torrent of rockets fired from Gaza. And then, they heard the sound of terrorists invading the kibbutz. Most families have no locks on the doors to their safe rooms, so Shlomo moved the desk to block the door and used his stamp albums to hold the handle shut. Despite their efforts, the terrorists were unable to pry open the door.
Shlomo described how hundreds of Palestinian gunmen rampaged through the kibbutz, massacring men, women, and children in their homes and in their beds, burning families alive. He related how throughout the morning, waves of Palestinian civilians would travel back and forth over the open border, ransacking and looting the kibbutz of anything they could carry. Dozens and dozens of people, including elderly men and women and small children, were abducted and brought to Gaza as hostages.
One in every four members of the kibbutz was either kidnapped or killed that morning. Only six apartments were not destroyed.
A year has passed since that catastrophic morning. And still Shlomo comes regularly to escort visitors through his beloved kibbutz and to share his story. I asked how painful it must be for him to be there, to walk past the homes where so many of his closest friends were killed, to walk through the devastated community he built?
“My wife and I asked ourselves why we survived,” he reflected. “And we decided that the meaning of our lives now will be in telling the story, in bearing witness and testifying to what happened here, and to the spirit of this community.”
In this week’s Torah portion, Abraham is also considering his mission for the rest of his life. “V’Avraham Zaken, Ba BaYamim, V’Adonai Berach Et-Avraham BaKol – And Abraham was now old, advanced in years, and God had blessed Abraham in all things.” (Gen. 24:1)
The phrase “Ba BaYamim” is an idiom typically translated as “advanced in years”. But the Zohar suggests that we should translate the phrase literally: “coming with the days”.
Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger, known as the Sefat Emet, teaches that Abraham brought with him all of the collective wisdom and insights that he had accumulated from the totality of his lived experience day to day.”
So often as we look back over the course of our lives, there are moments and experiences we wish we could erase and forget. There is a natural longing to “unlive” the moments of agony and trauma that left such deep gashes in our souls and our spirits.
So many in Israel today carry the trauma of October 7 and all that has transpired in the more than 400 days since – the wounds you can see and those you can’t.
But what inspired me was how the society was leaning into the pain, not washing it away. Visiting with wounded soldiers in the rehab unit of Tel HaShomer Hospital, many who have suffered grievous injuries, these brave young men, just 21 years old, wanted to show us their scars and to tell their stories. People now speak openly of their challenges with Post Traumatic Stress. Survivors from the Supernova dance festival and other border communities near Gaza want to share their experience.
Like Abraham, they want to bring us their days. Through them we hear an echo of what they heard. We see a glimmer of what they saw. By listening and bearing witness, we help to shoulder their burdens, so they do not live their memories alone.
One asks how the Torah could suggest that Abraham was blessed in all things, considering the challenges he faced and the trauma he endured. The blessing was found in the sharing of his story. His journey is a gift he gives to us. The wisdom and insights borne from the experience of his pain and trauma are the lights that guide us who carry his days forward.
Shlomo and so many others blessed us by coming with their days. And if we carry their days with ours, then we can be the blessings that carry the light of their insight and wisdom to illuminate our darkened world.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Dan Levin
Temple Beth El of Boca Raton
