By Vera Schwarcz

These have been hard days, tough weeks. The Jewish calendar calls them “ben ha metzarim” – the narrow places that squeeze us with fear, worry, and also squeeze the best out of us and the best into us if we are alert to the healing powers of memory and grief. It started with the kidnapping of the three boys in Israel – 18 days of intense, worldwide prayer and hope. It ended tragically with the discovery of the murdered bodies. But the soulful glue endured.

Lt. Hadar Goldin z”l

During the days of the war in Gaza (what in Hebrew is called Tzuk Eitan, literally “Fierce Cliff,” unlike the lame sounding “Protective Edge”), every one I know is glued to the computer or TV. I check Israel news about 4 to 5 times an hour, sometimes every ten minutes. Most of the time, most of us carry on with a heavy heart. The son of a dear friend of mine is a lone soldier in Gaza. We pray for him; pray with her. The day Hadar Goldin was “kidnapped”, emails flew within minutes about his mother’s name. All Shabbat before Tisha B’Av, I did each bracha, each mitzvah with Hadar in mind. At the end of Shabbat, we learned that he too was murdered.

More pain, more grief, more tears. And yet in the deep ache lies the deepest solace: we the Jewish people are truly one. When one part hurts, the whole body shivers with pain. We have so many metaphorical teachings about Jewish unity. As we arrive at the foot of Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah, the medieval commentator Rashi tells us that we were as “one man with one heart.” Nice vision, until you feel the pain of the Goldin family in every pore of your body and see how Rashi’s words are no metaphor. The Tanya speaks of a holy spark in every Jewish soul. We are but facets of one giant diamond. Nice image, until I find myself crying and recording the name of every soldier killed in this war.

Jews are described in our Torah sources as arevim ze le ze – “responsible for one another.” Literally, this means that we are all mixed (like ingredients in a batter) into one another. I try to give tzedakah in the memory of each soldier killed in Israel. I try to keep up with the list of the wounded. I say Psalms as often as I can during the day and night. Not because we are “like” facets of one diamond, but because any diminishment of Jewish life in Israel, every terror filled heart in France or Spain actually takes away my breath here in West Hartford.

We are terribly “privileged” in these days of war to palpate concretely the painful and empowering dimensions of Jewish unity. Our sages teach that each of us holds the key to one small fragment of the Beit HaMikdash – the Holy Temple – that was destroyed and the one that will be rebuilt. The pieces are being gathered. You can feel them in the shattered shards of your own heart.

Dr. Vera Schwarcz of West Hartford is a professor of East Asian studies and history at Wesleyan University. An accomplished poet, she is the author of several books including Ancestral Intelligence, a book of poems published in 2013.

Readers are invited to submit original work on a topic of their choosing to Kolot. Submissions should be sent to judiej@jewishledger.com.