There are sentences that do not remain in the past but circulate quietly within a society, as if they were waiting for the moment when they will again be heard in their full weight. One of them is pronounced by the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, read in these Paschal days in the Orthodox Church: “Master, I have nobody to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up” (John 5:7). It is a simple sentence, almost factual, without revolt, without accusation, and yet it contains an entire world: years of waiting, of watching others move ahead, of being present without truly belonging.

The inhabitants of the State of Israel can appear rough, abrupt, even cutting at times; one speaks of the sabra sharpness, this directness that does not take detours. And yet, in the same movement, there is a gentleness that surfaces unexpectedly, a readiness to help, to carry, to intervene without calculation. A child is often treated as a yeled melech (ילד מלך) – a king’s child – and youths can show a generosity that is disarming.

Still, beneath this density of relations, something paradoxical unfolds: people are rarely alone, yet many feel left to themselves. Seniors, youths, families, soldiers, immigrants – within a society that is intensely connected, almost over-connected, the experience of “I have nobody” can take root in a quiet, almost unspoken way. It is not always visible. It does not always correspond to a measurable absence. It may arise precisely in the midst of presence, when something essential does not pass between persons.

It appears with particular clarity in the presence of those who are disabled, whether from birth, through illness, or as a consequence of war. They are everywhere: in offices, in shops, in the streets, in the ministries. The law protects them, infrastructures have improved, and there is a real respect, especially for those wounded in combat, who continue to live and work among others. They are of all backgrounds. One cannot deny this dignity, nor the effort that has been made.

And yet, something new has entered the landscape, something that is both astonishing and disquieting in its own way. One sees not only wheelchairs, but exoskeletons that allow the paralyzed to stand and walk, artificial limbs that respond almost like living members, faces reconstructed with a precision that seemed unthinkable only a few years ago. There are devices that accompany movement, technologies that attempt to restore not only function but also a form of wholeness.

Psychological first assistance has become almost immediate, widespread, open to all; trauma care, counseling, support networks are available with a rapidity that reflects both necessity and innovation. In some cases, even the possibility of preserving or restoring fertility after severe injury is being explored and implemented. There is, undeniably, a creative urgency, a refusal to abandon the wounded to their condition.

And curiously, this high-tech future unfolds alongside something very ancient. The shelters – underground, enclosed, protective – become places where all distinctions are momentarily suspended. There, one sits together: religious and secular, Jews, Arabs, Bedouins, Druze, foreign workers, sometimes people who have never spoken to one another and may never meet again above ground. True, in some sectors these shelters scarcely exist for social reasons; the inhabitants (e.g. Arabs, Christians and Muslims in East Jerusalem) have not developed them to the same extent. But in these miklatim (מקלטים), one waits, listens, breathes the same confined air. In those moments, the society returns to something almost primordial – an age of stone, of caves, of bare survival, not unlike the images seen in other wars, for instance in the Ukrainian subways turned into refuges, where life continues in its most essential and ordinary gestures.

We are thus held in a tension that is difficult to articulate: between the most advanced technologies, capable of reconstructing bodies and extending possibilities, and the most elementary forms of existence, where one descends underground simply to remain alive. Between silicon and stone, between the laboratory and the shelter, between a future that seeks to repair and enhance, and a present that exposes fragility in its rawest form. It seems we move between the Gehinnom (the valley of desolation) and the Gan Eden (the primordial garden). The same world that develops systems capable of striking from afar also builds devices that allow a broken body to rise again. Precision in destruction, precision in repair –  side by side. We have learned not to miss a target, and yet we still miss one another.

And still, the Gospel does not speak of absence from society. The paralytic is there, within the system that promises healing. He is visible, counted, included in appearance – and still he says: “I have nobody.” His condition is not only physical; it is relational. He is not excluded by decree, but by a subtle distance that no law, no technology, no structure can fully bridge.

This distance extends across the social body, and in times of war it becomes both more visible and more complex. One thinks of the wounded soldiers, of course, whose bodies bear the marks of violence, but also of those who return and must find a place again in a life that has shifted. One thinks of the widows – young or older – left with children, sometimes many children, without sufficient means, without the one with whom life was shared. One thinks of mothers who must continue alone, of fathers who carry the absence of sons, of families across all communities – Jewish, Arab, Bedouin, Druze – each marked in their own way. It also leads to overcome mourning and accept new marriages. One thinks of foreign workers, of Thai laborers caught in violence, of volunteers from Ukraine who have come to fight and who carry another history within them. One thinks of Gaza, of South Lebanon, of Syria, of the West Bank – places where suffering is not abstract, where loss accumulates in ways that words can hardly contain.

There are also moments that shock more deeply because they touch symbols rather than bodies. When a soldier hammers a crucifix in South Lebanon, the gesture is not only an act; it reveals something broken within. It wounds, and it rightly provokes outrage. And yet, if one remains only at the level of accusation, one risks missing something more troubling: such gestures do not arise in a vacuum. They emerge from exhaustion, from a hardening of perception, from a point where the other is no longer encountered but reduced. In different ways, and in different contexts, Christians themselves are not always free from similar distortions toward Jews and Israelis within Israel. This is not a matter of equivalence, but of a shared human fragility. When societies are strained over time – by war, fear, loss, and unresolved tensions – something gives way. Burnout does not only affect bodies; it reaches minds, perceptions, even the capacity for reverence. What should be recognized as holy, or at least as belonging to the other, becomes exposed to gesture, to reaction, to desecration. It is another form of “I have nobody” – where the absence of relation leads not only to indifference, but at times to violence against what one refuses to understand.

And yet, even here, something must be said that is not always easy to express: there are moments when help exists, when people are present, when structures function – and still, one does not feel accompanied. Something does not pass. Something remains closed. The sentence “I have nobody” can then be spoken not as a factual statement, but as an inner truth. It cannot be corrected from the outside. It cannot be dismissed by pointing to what is objectively available. It belongs to that place in the human being where presence must be received as well as given.

This is why the Gospel remains so precise. The paralytic does not say: there is no one around. He says: I have nobody to put me into the pool. The lack is not numerical; it is relational. The man had been there thirty-eight years. One cannot help but hear an echo of the binding of Isaac – a moment where a son is carried toward death and unexpectedly preserved. Here, the paralytic waits not for a ram, but for someone who would carry him into life.

The Scriptures already discern the distortions that can affect perception. The Book of Proverbs warns against the ishah zarah — אשה זרה (Prov. 2:16), the “strange woman,” whose smooth words lead away – not because she is other, but because perception itself has been altered. The Hebrew zar (זר) carries both estrangement and vocation; the same tradition speaks of a goy kadosh — גוי קדוש (Ex. 19:6), a “holy nation,” where difference is not exclusion but calling. It cannot become a pretext for segregative or arrogant forms of belonging.

Jesus Christ does not remain at the level of analysis. He enters the situation. He approaches the one who has waited for decades and asks: “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:6). The answer comes, not as a request, but as a statement of condition: “I have nobody…”

At that moment, healing is detached from the system. It is no longer dependent on access, timing, or competition. It comes through presence. “Rise, take up your bed, and walk” (John 5:8) echoes the proclamation of the resurrection.

This movement questions every society, and it questions each of us.

For some, it unfolds not in a moment, but over years, over decades. When a child is born with a severe, undiagnosed condition, time stretches, fragments, reorganizes itself. It took ten years to identify the nature of the disease, ten more to understand how she could live within society, twenty years of daily accompaniment – of learning, often from others who could reach her differently, of discovering forms of communication that do not follow ordinary paths. My daughter, now over forty, went to the gates of death and returned with a resilience that defies categories, almost “death-proof” in a psychological sense. The future may bring medical advances – perhaps – but what has already been revealed is more fundamental: presence cannot be replaced, cannot be postponed, cannot be delegated entirely to systems, however necessary they may be.

This experience does not isolate; it opens. It makes visible what is often hidden: that every human being, in one way or another, stands at the threshold of this sentence – “I have nobody.” The Talmud teaches: “Do not reproach your neighbor with a defect that you yourself have” (Bava Metzia 59b). The distinction between the “able” and the “disabled” becomes fragile. The Hebrew nachut (נכות) suggests a diminishment – but who among us is not diminished, reduced, dependent at times?

The Apostle Paul writes: “The weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25). Hillel teaches in the Pirkei Avot: “Do not separate yourself from the community… Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place” (Avot 2:5). To reach his place is not to imagine – it is to be displaced.

In the Gospel, this displacement is not symbolic. Jesus of Nazareth does not remain outside the condition of the one who is left aside. He enters it.

In doing so, He reveals something that concerns every society: the measure of our humanity is not only in what we build, but in how we are present.

This is where the cry “I have nobody” meets another, more ancient cry: Eykha? (איכה) – “How?” (Lam. 1:1). How has it come to this? And perhaps also aykana (איכנא) – “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9). Between these two cries and permanent mottos of survival, between the lament over what has become and the search for the one who is missing, a space opens.

It is within this space that the Gospel is spoken. The paralytic waited thirty-eight years. We do not know how many passed by him. But the Gospel records that one did not pass.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)