When I heard the news of a deal to return the hostages and end the war, I shed tears of joy and relief. This is a day we have been waiting for literally for years — hundreds of days without hope.

I worried the words of our prayer for the hostages, “they will come to Zion with joy,” would never come true. But now I dare to dream about a return of joy to Simchat Torah, which we hope will mark not only the anniversary of murder and captivity but also a deliverance and return.

But if I am honest, my tears were not only of happiness. I also cried for so much that was lost, for so much pain and suffering, for so many killed in Israel and then in Gaza, for so much healing that still needs to happen.

To make sense of this mix of intense emotions, I found myself going back to a story in my family from hundreds of years ago: the saga of Rabbi Yom Tov Lippman Heller (1579-1654). Known as the Tosafot Yom Tov (after his commentary on the Mishnah), Rabbi Heller was the chief rabbi of Vienna, and later Prague. I am descended from him through my mother’s side; when I was growing up, he was famous in our family for declaring that turkey was not kosher, and asking his descendants to refrain from eating this bird from the New World (I still........

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