In the second week since the end of the war within the war - when too many names of fallen soldiers are now permitted for publication, when the death toll of civilians in Gaza reaches incomprehensible numbers - more fragments of our torn hearts continue to be ripped away.

In this second week since the end of the war within the war, we begin to grasp (if we hadn’t before) that an entire country is hostage number 51, while the remaining 50 hostages still rot in the tunnels of Gaza—suffocating from lack of oxygen, starving for bread, their souls crying for eternal rest. The remnants of our hearts burn with rage and frustration.

In this second week since the end of the war within the war, we search for hope. It is elusive, hiding in some lonely and desolate corner. We’d like to hide there with it, disappear, slowly return to the routine of war-after-war. But all at once, the emergency regulations were lifted. Home Front Command declared a bruised country to be back to “normal,” and we were left dazed - gathering the fragments of the week before the war within the war - into the war’s new routine. We try to remember what we were doing before the “Twelve-Day War” (as they were quick to name it, because “637-Day War” just doesn’t sound good). Who were we before it? Who will we be after it?

We lost our way. We lost our memory. We were flung into a reality trying to cram into a few short days everything that had been lost—graduation ceremonies, performances, events. Ceremonies crashing into ceremonies, a virtual event suddenly turned in-person. Once again, we are breathless.

What does hope look like?

In such chaos, I return to my cultural anchors, to my spiritual mother—Miriam. This week, in Parashat Chukat, Miriam dies.

The closeness of her death to the announcement that there was no water in the wilderness highlights Miriam’s essence more than anything else.

Miriam was the spring of life, the trailblazer. Her death should have shattered the final remaining strength of the wandering Israelites. Yet her image - who she was, and what she became in the wilderness - marks more than anything else continuity, culture, difference.

The song of hope.

I wrote:

Miriam believed we would once again sing a new song—one that links the songs of all generations, those before and those to come. She knew she would never be who she once was. But she would still be. And she would sing.

The parashah continues to describe the Israelites’ wandering.

Like us - emotionally shifting from place to place, from existential fear to the joy of routine - so to, the people moved from region to region. Until they arrived at the well, camped around it, and sang.

In Bamidbar Rabbah 1:2, the midrash connects Miriam’s death, the absence of water, and the appearance of the well:

This is what hope looks like.

In a harsh, unstable place - when great leaders die, when Moses remains alone and in his isolation makes mistakes that cost the entire people, when there is no water, no life source, no joy or ability to sustain familiar rituals - an ancient well rolls in. It draws its waters from the four rivers of Eden, mixing ancient water with new. And it rises - not through speech, not through striking, but through song. The song of all Israel.

This is what hope looks like.

Our culture runs deeper than the everyday chaos. It is filled with life stories, traditions, customs, and diverse voices from Jewish communities around the world. It is the well from which we draw meaning for the present moment - our sense of justice, our understanding that we are living in a difficult time, but like all times, it is temporary.

Culture teaches us that the one who writes the path - the one who composes it - is the one who shapes the moral, free, and peaceful values of her time. These are the new waters, mixing with the ancient ones.

Every act of social activism, every work of art that responds to our impossible reality, every post on social media, every performance of olive harvest protective presence, standing alongside of families wishing to work their land, every insistence on allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, every stand beside a woman pushed to the back of the bus or from the public sphere, all of these are culture. Culture written in the spirit of liberalism, equality, and Tikkun Olam.

Hope is taking responsibility for the space in which I live.

Hope is seeing the cracks - and like a sprout forcing itself into bloom - chiseling with bare hands into rock, not striking it. It is insisting on seeping through the cracks, insisting on seeing the well rolling to the entrance of the Tabernacle. To our spiritual center, where there is water and soul, where there is room for many voices, for loving people as people. And then, only then:

Shabbat Shalom

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