Simchat Torah 2023 will be one for the history books...I hope...why, you think, does she hope that such a dark day for Israel...and by extension all Jews...will be one for the books?...because of the unease I have had for years that my people will not be a warm and complicated chapter in this book of mankind...a chapter filled with angst and joy...unfathomable death...and then life renewed in the grasped hands of a hora...feet pounding hard...to stamp out the hate...no, my fear is we will be but a footnote pushed to the margin of a page...I have never been to Israel...it does not matter...there is a sadness about all of this that is quite intangible...the hope of an accord between Israelis and Palestinians is gone...it certainly will never come to pass with Abbas or Netanyahu...Abbas, a raging anti-Semite...and Netanyahu will never be able to erase the memory of rockets and blood from this generation's minds...and in my mind I keep hearing Hatikvah...the Israeli national anthem...it means the hope...when I hear it...it is the little music box that was in our menorah that I hear...we would light it each Chanukah in my childhood...the lights sparkling and the music playing...the light against the darkness of early winter evenings...the hope we would always be together around that menorah...as my heart breaks I try to remember that...that Israelis will sing again...light candles again in peace...until then, we, their brothers and sisters will do it for them...and with that I say amen...
