The news was slow to reach me. Whereas I don’t switch my phone off on Shabbat, I also don’t check it or use it. Which is why as I walked past it on the morning of Shabbat as I prepared for synagogue, I noticed it flash something about rockets and Sderot. So accustomed are we to that occurrence, I thought nothing of it. And truthfully forgot about it until later.
We were in the middle of reading the book of Ecclesiastes when the news started to filter through. Slowly at first. Just a trickle. And then more information began to flow. And then a tsunami of horror that threatened to drown us in its force. With such intensity that it literally took our breath away.
“There is a time to tear apart and a time to sew together; There is a time to be silent and a time to speak; There is a time to love and a time to hate; There is a time for war and a time for peace,” said the reader.
But we weren’t listening.
Rabbis, unsure of the accuracy, debated appropriate behaviour. Continue with celebrations or limit them? Was it the duty of diaspora Jews to celebrate because our brothers and sisters couldn’t, or to cancel completely out of respect for a situation that we weren’t certain about.
What was this the time for?
There might not have been a wrong answer. But there didn’t seem to be a right one either. And in a conversation with an Israeli correspondent, I was assured that that was indeed the case. Chaim Smeirc lives in Ashkelon and was woken on Shabbat morning to the sound of explosions. He and his family, like many across the country, spent the day in the “safe room” waiting for news. There they made sure to dance the hakafot. (I imagine in small circles.)
As a family, they chose to “sew together”.
Another story was of a community in the centre of the country which was about to cancel everything only to be told by a Holocaust survivor that they had “celebrated” in the camps, and they should do the same on that day.
In South Africa, each community found ways to be true to their faith and to their brothers and sisters. All made the right choice. And all made the wrong one.
At the time of writing, the magnitude of the events, the barbarism, the heroism, the failure, and the success aren’t fully understood. Thousands of our young men and women are standing tall against a monster. Hundreds of thousands of men and women have been drafted or volunteered.
Since Shabbat, it’s unlikely that one has discussed a public mechitza, and unlikely anyone has argued passionately about judicial reform. Whereas that time will come, now isn’t that time at all.
Because there’s a time for everything.
It’s hard to imagine that last week’s column was about people who leave closed doors open. And that I could devote 600 words to something frivolous and cute in the spirit of the festival that we were about to celebrate
And yet it was appropriate then. This week, writing on anything other than the events that shifted the Jewish world would be unimaginable.
This is a time to tear apart those who have harmed us; and a time to sew together our people.
There’s a time to be silent in prayer and contemplation; and a time to speak out against those who define us. It’s time to love our fellow; and a time to hate those who wish us harm.
There’s a time for war against our enemies; and a time for peace among ourselves.
May the good news be quick to reach us.
