We cannot allow the fear of loss to rob us of the greatest depth and joy that life has to offer
Grief only exists where love lived first.
—F. Cox
Grief has taken center stage in our collective lives over the last few weeks. Hope, fear, loyalty, pride, faith, and unity all join hands and form a circle around it, but still it looms large. The losses we have sustained are staggering and not yet completely known. We are the Tzion that we read about in Megillas Eichah. We are living the loss in real time, and we wear the grief like a cloud draped around us.
At the same time, a fierce love is poking through the haze. A passionate awakening of our deep ties is emerging. What we have lost reminds us of what we have. The loss burns deeply in our souls, but it only hurts so much because we love so much.
Elie Wiesel pointed out, “The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.” Sometimes we confuse our difference of opinions with hatred, when in fact they are just evidence of how much we care. Our nation beats with one heart, albeit with different chambers, and our fiery feelings originate from the same source.
The connection makes the loss unbearable. Be it on a national level or a personal level, love is the backdrop of grief. It flows in both directions. Feeling grief is evidence that love exists. And feeling love makes us vulnerable to the ravages of grief. If we didn’t care, it wouldn’t matter. To grieve is to actually hear our own heart breaking. And it means that whoever and whatever we are mourning was actually living in our hearts. If this war has taught us anything, it is how genuinely we love every Jew.
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