Yesterday, my family --- the ones who are geographically available -- gathered to celebrate. The reason? Our newest member had attained the ripe old age of six months. We passed her around. We took pictures. We traded stories. We were, in ways somewhat different from the usual, acutely aware of how lucky we are.
And we cried. Some of us outwardly, some of us just on the inside. Some of us are Jewish, some are not, but know what it's like to love somebody who is. Some of us are angry, some scared, some both. We all mourn for the innocent civilians massacred last Saturday, not simply because they are Israeli or Jewish but because they were massacred so savagely that it calls to mind the atrocities of Nazi Germany almost a century ago. "Never again" -- the words I have taken for granted my whole life -- turned out to be a lie.
We mourn, too, for Palestinian civilians, and we hope they can be spared. We hope they will heed the warnings to evacuate, and ignore the orders of Hamas, their captors, who view them as dispensable, who will happily turn them into human shields. A Palestinian woman complained, on the news yesterday, that it's unfair she has to pack her things. Yes it is. I'm guessing the dead Israelis, and their surviving family members, would have loved the chance to pack their things before their homes were burned to the ground. I can hold two thoughts in my head at the same time. Even three.
For the first time in their lives, my daughters have seen that people can turn against them, simply because they are Jews. Black Lives Matter, a cause for which we marched and would march again, has turned on us. Students at elite colleges have turned on us. Even close friends have revealed deep seated biases and resentments, even hatreds, suddenly brought to the fore. We have all been lulled, over the years, into a feeling of invincibility, or at least security, and that has been shattered.
My future son-in-law told me yesterday that he loves how our family just finds a reason to get together and celebrate, even when none exists. Was he saying that a baby's six-month birthday was a pretense? Point well-taken. But there is a reason to celebrate, every day, just because we are so lucky -- to be alive, and together, and safe.
And we will continue to celebrate, but with an asterisk. We mourn, this Shabbat and going forward, for those whose lives have been forever destroyed.
