Joining Klal Yisrael

Now, with more than a name, I felt like I was meeting them for the first time. Amelia wasn’t a woman, old or young. She’s a girl. A sweet little girl no older than my own children. Heat rose to my face as I thought of the unspeakable horrors she’d seen and the hardened beasts who could look into the terrified face of a mother and her child, remaining cold as stone. I resisted the urge to push the thoughts away; instead, I brought them nearer.

That night, and every night since, as I learned my halachah, I cradled Amelia in my mind and whispered to her. Buried wellsprings of emotion burst open, and I shed tears for her and her mother, begging Hashem that they be alive and get through this together.

It was a reminder that for every name, hostage, soldier, victim, there is a face. They have families, identities, lives that have been brutally and irreversibly altered.

Suddenly, I couldn’t learn enough. My earlier denial was replaced by a desire to connect to these people, to Klal Yisrael.