Suddenly Real

IF your shul is like mine, then toward the end of the Yamim Noraim davening, you recited the supplication “Avinu Malkeinu zechor rachamecha,” which delineates a very precise list of terrible trials from which we beg Hashem to spare us. You probably enunciated each one slowly, agonizingly, with a slightly choked voice and seething emotion.

Over the years, we’ve learned to visualize the terrible implications of these trials. Mageifah: We still remember those first few months of Covid, the masses of victims — healthy just a week before, now silent — waiting for rushed levayos. Machlokes: Be it a family rift, a yeshivah ripped apart by warring factions, or a communal controversy, all of us have seen these destructive claws mar and maim. Cherev: We knew that families in Bnei Brak and Elad were entering Yom Tov without fathers, after brutal stabbings had robbed them of their dear ones.

Can I confess something I’m not very proud of? When I got up to the word shevi, I just couldn’t summon up the same emotion. I know that there are Jews in jail whose children count the days to every visit. I’ve read of Jews imprisoned in third-world countries. I know that the term might metaphorically refer to precious Jews imprisoned by addiction. But this year on Yom Kippur, the category felt less immediate to me. So much so that I even made a tiny mental note to myself — why doesn’t this feel real?

By Simchas Torah morning, I’d already heard dribs and drabs of chilling news. Border breached. Many killed. Soldiers’ bases overrun. And hostages taken. Now it was very real.