Soldiers Lost in First Days after the October 7th war by Hamas
[MS: There is a profound sadness among the Jews in Israel, in the USA and perhaps all over the world, among all decent peoples. How shall we live and not die from such despair?
The “normal sadness” of this day is eclipsed by the total sadness of combining recalling the Holocaust with October 7th, its unspeakable, barbaric atrocities; the ongoing war against Hamas and Iran; the hostages murdered or not yet rescued from Hamas hell in Gaza; and the fears for the IDF soldiers (our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, on and on, our families and friends, not some distant faceless professional army). The toll of this terrible time is not yet known. Our Tradition says: We shall prevail over the Amaleck of this generation. Shall we really - and at what terrible and terrifying costs, we do not know.
Can we bear the sadness of Remembering the Holocaust as we endure and fight on to stop the madness and evil suddenly unleashed on October 7th, that spawns global Jew hating which we thought would never again arise because we and the world continued to recall - and teach about - the lessons of the Holocaust. Our faith in decency in the world is shaken.
Our hope for a period of post Holocaust calm or at least civility, is shattered. For some Jews and especially for many Israeli families, the faith that the IDF, or Tradition or both will be enough to protect us, our children and our grandchildren is wavering. How shall our hearts carry such sadness, nightmarish worry and raw anxiety that pervades every hour of every day, given no end in sight yet?
There is no answer to this sadness. But we as Jews, as a People, as the nation of Israel reborn, we shall bear it.
The purpose of this Sefaria Sheet is not to answer the incomprehensible, never-ending horrible questions of how we must live.
A better challenge is this: how shall we as Jews and as a People, a nation reborn after the Holocaust and continuing wars of 1948 - 2024 continue to live with all of it, with Amalek, from generation to generation.
Yehudah Amichai saw war before 1948, during the 1948 War of Independence and afterwards in the wars and terror against Israel. His family perished in the Holocaust. He speaks from all those experiences in his poems, as the greatest poet of Israel in his generation.
How did Yehudah Amichai endure all of the heartbreak, the sadness and the despair? How did he keep going through wars after the Holocaust? How could he observe all of those days of Holocaust Memorials - plus the wars? His answers are likely not going to be exactly ours in 2024, but his wisdom and his profound love of living and for the Tradition, may help us on this Day of Holocaust Remembrance in 2024.
Yehudah Amichai poems expresses passions and ideas, or points of view, that we can examine, and perhaps we can expand upon them this day to find healing and strength as he did. Or not. It’s entirely personal. There are no answers. Every generation has coped. He did and we can. If we do not give up, lose hope, fight against each otther.
Thus, in my view, talking about all of this - the sadness and the irresistible desire for hope - is our duty and our strength. That is the goal of my Sefaria Sheet comments.
Robert Alter is the preeminent translator of Yehudah Amicha's poems and a lifelong friend. In the video below, Alter brings together others who knew and loved Amichai and took strength from him. The poems highlighted when they recall him are shown below. Each one presents a personal way of "partnering" with Amichai to overcome despair.
Some panel participants are non-believers. Some have pious beliefs. Some seem to mix both belief and cynicism. Some say Amichi's poems about lived experiences are so filled with references to the Bible and to pious life rituals that they are a start toward a new "humanist Midrash". Some feel uplifted by the intense loving passions for family or for lovers, or by the full sensual love and erotic passions on display in his poems; they reveal a counterforce for us against sadness ad terror. Listen to distinguished scholar and translator Chana Kronfeld: "Reading his poetry daily was my emotional sustenance," she shared, as if this was a secret to getting through life. (at 28:58)]
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Poetry in Israel
"Israelis, it turns out, still read poetry. (Some of the major weekly papers print new poetry in every Friday edition.) Why? Perhaps because the ambiguity and uncertainty that lie at the heart of poetry have always been better at capturing Israel than has the clarity of prose."
Its title, משיב הרוח (Mashiv HaRuach), is a double entendre. The first word, mashiv, can mean either "to cause to blow” or “to restore.” HaRuach can mean either “the wind” or “the spirit.” So the phrase can mean either “who causes the wind to blow,” which is what it means in the daily liturgy, or “who restores the spirit,” which it means in many other instances.
Here, I assume, it was the second meaning that was intended. Though who knows? These days, it’s not very clear what anything means....
It is, the subtitle says, “The Holocaust in poetry of subsequent generations.”
One of the poems is by Yotam Barsheshet:¹
I remember nights
when I painted the doorpost with blood
But You did not pass over
You, and not an angel
I remember how a river of blood flowed through the street
quietly.
Red doors remind me
The scents of hyssop remind me
Sounds of silence ignite in me
exhausting vigilance.
There are days when I wait for the wall to collapse
Perhaps on me
Perhaps within me
and gone will be
the doubt of memory. "
Israelis, it turns out, still read poetry. (Some of the major weekly papers print new poetry in every Friday edition.) Why? Perhaps because the ambiguity and uncertainty that lie at the heart of poetry have always been better at capturing Israel than has the clarity of prose.
Because the meaning of a poem can be unclear, as is, these days, the very meaning of this place we call home. And never more so than on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2024. What does it mean to live in a place whose motto is “Never Again,” when it did happen again? And it happened here. And is still happening....
This Yom HaShoah is different, for everyone I know, because now we’re not looking back into history, remembering the past. Because this year, the past became the present. We’re not remembering what life was like over “there” until we got here. Because this year, on October 7, “here” turned into “there.”
Here is still there."
[MS: Above, for the Gordis post. formatting and editing are supplied.]
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- "The Gaza war has inspired prominent Arab media outlets and statesmen to come up with vile new forms of Holocaust denialism, but other voices offer a glimmer of hope." - Robert Satloff
A Yom Hashoah Message, from Disgust to Hope
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The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, edited and translations supervised by Robert Alter is available for purchase here, for under $30. [MS: Formatting, additions and edits of poems or quotations are added, as indicated.]
Amichai was awarded the 1957 Shlonsky Prize, the 1969 Brenner Prize, 1976 Bialik Prize, and 1982 Israel Prize. He also won international poetry prizes, and was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Yehudah Amichai : Celebration and Poetry Reading by Robert Alter and a panel of distinguished translators. The full video is here.
[MS: "There is a great sadness in Amichai which you can see in many of his poems" - Robert Alter
Amichai's career as a poet is summarized by the Poetry Foundation here.
In the Robert Alter - MS Sefaria Sheet Collection, there are over 55 Sheets about Alter's work, in particular about Psalm 23, Amaleck, Purim and military self defense, the sadness in Israel now and the warnings against baseless hatred among Jews, Sinat Chinam.]
Alter reads the poems and the Panel adds comments plus stories about Amichai's long life. What was he like? What values helped him live with his sadness of the Holocaust and the wars?
Infinite Poem
Within the brand-new museum an old synagogue.
Within the old synagogue
me.
Within me
my heart.
Within my heart a museum,
within the museum
a synagogue,
within ime, within me
my heart,
within my heart
a museum.
(p.303)
Rain Falls
Rain falls on the faces of my friends;
on the faces of my living friends who cover their heads with a blanket— and on the faces of my dead friends
who cover no more.
God Full of Mercy
Were God not full of mercy
there would be mercy in the world, and not just in Him.
I, who plucked flowers on the mountain and looked in all the valleys,
I, who hauled from the hills dead bodies, can say that the world is empty of mercy.
I who was Salt King by the sea, who stood indecisive at my window, who counted the steps of angels, whose heart lifted the weights of pain in the terrible competitions, I, who use just a small part of the words in the dictionary.
I, who must solve riddles despite myself, know that were God not full of mercy,
there would be mercy in the world
and not just in Him.
In the Morning I Stand by Your Bed
In the morning I stand by your bed.
My shadow falls over your face
and deepens your sleep
and makes for you extra night.
Like a smoker's fingers, our soul
has been darkened, addicted to love.
I love you
with all my might and with all my life.
The Diameter of the Bomb
The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead
and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won't even mention the howl of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making
a circle with no end and no God.
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May 5, 2024
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212 Days Captivity of Hostages in Hamas Hell in Gaza - May 5, 2024
Revised May 5, 2024
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