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Letter from the Rabbi

Dear Friends,

This morning we awoke to the longed-for news that the 20 living hostages in Gaza have been returned. Two years ago on the Jewish calendar, our joyous celebrations of Simchat Torah were shattered with news of the shocking cruelty on October 7th. Today, on the day before Simchat Torah, and on the last day of Sukkot called Hoshanah Rabbah which means the great prayer of rescue and salvation, our pain has turned to joy. Twenty families have welcomed back their loved ones into their arms. We celebrate with those families, crying with them in their joy and in their pain. And we mourn with the families who are waiting for the return of the bodies of their loved ones, twenty-eight souls, who will be returned in the coming days.

On Passover, our holiday of freedom, we sing a famous song from the Haggadah that speaks to the complexity of this moment—Dayenu, which means: “It would have been enough for us.” The song details in 15 verses the miracles God performed for the Israelites in the Exodus story, exclaiming that if God had just done one thing but not the next, it would have been enough. “If He had given us the Egyptians’ wealth (as reparations) and not split the sea for us, it would have been enough. If He had split the sea for us, and not brought us through on dry land, it would have been enough…”

This is a strange idea, for true freedom requires all these steps. Being stuck in the middle of the parted sea hardly seems like something we should be grateful for.

And yet, I think there is a profound truth here that speaks to our situation. There are so many steps yet to be taken. There is so much healing of deep trauma to be done. There is so much cooperation needed to rebuild Gaza. And there is so much faith and courage needed to build a shared future, one in which security and freedom can come to all Israelis and Palestinians on the land they call home.

And yet, when we face a task with so many steps, we must be grateful for the miracle of each one. Dayenu. Today, we focus on the momentous step that has been taken, and say with all awareness of the paradox of the poem, it is enough. It is enough that there is a ceasefire and that the violence has stopped. It is enough that families can welcome back their loved ones. No, we don’t want to be stuck in the middle of the sea. But if we don’t sing praises as we are marching through, we will never taste redemption.

On this Hoshana Rabbah, this day of prayers for deliverance, we thank God for this miracle. We thank everyone who helped make this sea of hardness and cruelty part, everyone from leaders of countries to people whose names we don’t know who have marched on the street and in squares. We thank journalists and aid workers and first responders and everyone who prayed or marched or negotiated. We thank God for courage, and faith, and the determination to seek freedom.

Today we say Dayenu. Tomorrow we take the next step.

In joy and in hope,

Rabbi Caryn Broitman