The Unrelenting Pain

Israel is in the corner, alone. She has suffered in darkness for a year,

Waiting for the world to come around, to offer a pittance of light.

But there is no one, so she must be alone, fight alone—-exist alone.

Not a shred of my people’s pain has been shared by nations who should have stood up,

Spectators to the loss of so many precious souls.

We have been witnesses to this madness, stretching our belief until it shreds.

But those there, close to the pain, deserve so much more after October 7th,

Their memories of loss and pain—-borne without the world’s conscience making an opening into their darkness,

Days upon days, weeks and more weeks, then months and more…

Their year was mountainous—created by the burden of pain on their backs, suffering unimaginable losses.

Me, thousands of miles away, trying to escape in my weekly Shabbat bubble of pretending-the-world-is-perfect,

The guilt pervades through my war-free life—

But I am changed, an irreparable tear pierced through my soul.

And I am not able to hide from it,

Because I am part of my people—

Part of the dream that I pray for.

My prayers testify to the very existence of this horror.

There’s no denial in prayer— I open my heart and the grief floods me

This prison of poison has been for a full year,

But I am here, while my people are there, on the front lines,

So I can bear this.

They have been abandoned by those who said they were vested in the truth,

But truth has been hijacked, no longer a reliable way to judge the real.

We have only one way to turn—-for solace, for the promise

We will prevail. We are the testifiers, who stand as witnesses to the One Who Loves.

It is One Truth, and it is Eternal.