The earth grows still
the lurid sky slowly pales
over smoking borders.
Heartsick, but still living, a people stand by
to greet the uniqueness of a miracle.
Readied, they wait beneath the moon
wrapped in awesome joy, before the light.
A girl and boy step forward,
and slowly walk before the waiting nation:
In work garb and heavy-shod
they climb
Today is Yom Ha'Zikaron, Israel Memorial Day and 24 hour tribute to its fallen soldiers and victims of terror. At the end of this Memorial Day the flags are raised from half-mast and Israel's Independence Day immediately begins.
Below is a clip of the way every Israeli citizen remembers.
When I was a child learning to swim, I had a hard time floating. I was too afraid of drowning, and I knew that by thrashing my arms and legs I could usually manage to keep my head above water. Learning to float is learning to trust the world, and oneself. Paradoxically, though, it is by floating, by not being afraid, that the wave carries us highest. Sometimes when I floated, the wave covered me, just as it did when I thrashed about. But in between waves I was no longer afraid, and when the wave washed over me, I knew I would soon again ride the crest.
This Shabbat falls on that powerful week between Holocaust Memorial Day and Israel Independence Day. Made more powerful by world events, consider this prayer:
O Life and Hope, Holy One. Today we breathe a sigh.
A sigh of relief for the death of a violent and brutal man.
A sigh of resignation that the work and danger have not passed, only changed.
A sigh of hope that we may know peace. Peace.
We pray for peace.
More than the absence of violence, of terror, of danger, of bloodshed.
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest in the window-sill gardens of the poor, though perhaps only a geranium slip in a broken cup, as well as in the carefully tended rose and lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent National parks... no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart...
