These are days of war, stress and anxiety, days in which there is also an explicit focus on the essential questions: “Who are we?” and “for what?” Deep questions of identity grow precisely from this space of struggle.
Reckoning with our own identity is essential to establishing peace with the “other.” And what is the identity of that “other”? Is peace a part of his/her language? In this peace, do I accept or assume the absence of the “other”?
These are days of thought and integration, of clarification and illumination—both within Israel and also in the Diaspora, where our brothers and sisters are facing challenges that we all thought and prayed were a thing of the past. But no. Anti-Semitism returns—and in a new way. This challenges us and requires that we rethink the meaning of being Jewish in the world, the meaning of the deep connection between Israel and the Diaspora. The need for love and connection, and the understanding that sometimes war is being revealed as an essential part of our of Jewish lives—both within and outside of Israel.
In Sia’h Shalom, these are days of search and thoughts, creation and reorganization.
And within all of this, we are still visioning, creating dreams. These dreams are not separate from but deeply connected to reality and in conversation with it. These dreams have the power to elevate reality to new places.
May our prayers be heard for good, for joy and for peace.
—Avinoam