Words can betray us. I learnt this from the philosopher, Dr Tanya White, as she introduced her series on The Work of Becoming: Jewish Resilience through Biblical Narrative. 

We are blessed with language to create order from chaos, to express the inexpressible. But words often cannot fully portray the depth of what we feel or what one has experienced. 

When family and friends in Israel share about their current reality, they sometimes use the words “tough”, “challenging” or “very challenging”.

To those of us living over 2,000 miles away, these words cannot convey the depths of their painful reality, which I will betray with the following two dimensional sentences:

The sons, husbands, fathers, called for duty yet again

The wife waiting for his call

The mother and father worrying about their babies

Hiding in a bomb shelter

The children restrained from their outdoor play

The patient awaiting surgery while sirens alarm

The inability to work

Hiding in another bomb shelter

The teachers teaching throughout 

The multiple midnight wakes

Today, our brothers and sisters in Israel are carrying heavy bags for our nation, enduring the physical and emotional hardship of this existential war. 

“When one Jew is injured, all Jews feel the pain” Rabbi Sacks wrote, quoting Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai. And as Mihal Bitton put it “Our task is to channel this pain into unwavering and committed action, to either join the battle in our own way or to hold up the hands of those who are fighting”.

It is written in the Talmud  that כל ישראל ערבין זה לזה – All of Israel are responsible for one another. So, how can we, Jews in the Diaspora, thousands of miles away, practically and meaningfully support our extended family – who are carrying the bags not only for our nation, but for the world, during this great war? 

“The question is not how to pretend the distance isn’t there. The question is how to build something strong enough to hold us together across it.” Mijal Bitton writes.

There are small things that we can do each day to bridge the physical distance between us. Here are some ideas, inspired by conversations with people........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)