O pinion
for people, especially in their
moments of pain.

Being there for someone
— whether they expect you,
whether they know you well,
no matter how far the distance
— matters. It was clearly a
lesson Ilan himself had already
learned, being there in the
Surfside building in order to
pay his respects to a fellow
member of his community.

Especially after our last
year and a half, when so many
have been separated from the
people we care for, unable to be
physically present with them in
their joys or in their sorrows, I
couldn’t stop thinking that just
being there, even for a brief
moment, mattered.

And I hope it did. I saw Tali
for the first time in seven years.

I got to give Ilan’s parents and
his other sister, Mica, a hug,
and say something about how
special Ilan was, how much of
an impression he left on me.

And I got to walk to Surfside,
to see the empty space where
the building stood and the
memorial to the victims now
is. It was a lot. It was intense.

And it was important.

Let me be clear: I’m not the
protagonist in this story. Ilan
is. This is about Ilan and the 97
other victims who were in the
Champlain Towers. It’s about
his sisters, Mica and Tali, his
parents, Carlos and Ronit, and
all the other families who had
to endure the horrible limbo
of not knowing if they’d see
their children or their parents
or their husbands or their
wives or their brothers or their
sisters alive again. Who held
onto hope when not much
remained, and who, at least
now, have some closure and the
ability to properly mourn their
loved ones.

What can we take away
from this unthinkable tragedy?
I hope we can be a little more
grateful for what we have, that
we can hold onto our loved
ones a little tighter, that we can
give our grandmothers another
call, send our friends another
text to see how they’re doing.

So many have lost so much this
past year, and it’s important
to put it in context. The fact
that I missed out a year of
going on dates or traveling to
new places or going to movies
is tiny compared to losing a
person, especially one so
young, forever.

So let’s be there for each
other, through the good, and
especially through the bad.

And let’s remember Ilan, a
shining star taken from us way
too soon. l
A version of this article originally
appeared on Alma.

Rabbis Are Supposed to Offer Hope on the High Holidays.

What if I Can’t?
BY RABBI RACHEL BARENBLAT
I WAS A WRITER before
I became a rabbi, and High
Holiday sermons usually come
easily to me. Some years I
have so many ideas and teach-
ings and hopes to share that
I accidentally write more
sermons than I need to give.

Not this year. This year
I haven’t felt able to begin
writing at all.

The enormity of what’s
broken in the world feels
paralyzing. In recent weeks
we’ve seen unprecedented
heat and wildfires in the
Pacific Northwest, a flaming
oil spill turning part of the
Gulf of Mexico into an inferno
and extreme flooding across
Europe. “Who by fire, who
by water,” the words of the
Unetaneh Tokef prayer, land
differently this year. Dayenu,
that could be enough to still
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM my pen — but there’s more.

Last year, leading High
Holiday services via Zoom
from home, I spoke about our
obligation to take care of each
other by staying apart. I turned
to the rabbi of the Warsaw
Ghetto for his teachings
about hope during adversity.

I imagined Rosh Hashanah
5782: Surely we would be vacci-
nated and safely back together!
The past 18 months of
pandemic were hard even
for those of us who have it
easy (a job, a place to live, no
illness). For many the isola-
tion of sheltering in place was
crushing, or numbing. For
many without stable income or
a roof overhead, the pandemic
has been unimaginably worse.

So, too, for frontline workers
and those whose jobs are
“essential” and often unseen.

When vaccines became
available, my heart soared on
wings of hope. But I hadn’t
reckoned with the power of
social media influencers lying
about the putative risks of the
vaccine, or claiming the virus
is a hoax or “not that bad.”
The simple truth that vaccines
save lives became perversely
inverted — and weaponized.

Now vast numbers of my fellow
Americans are refusing vacci-
nation, claiming “personal
freedom” at the expense of the
collective good.

I keep thinking of the parable
of the guy in the boat drilling
a hole under his own seat. He
doesn’t seem to notice that his
personal freedom is going to
drown everyone else. As a
parable, it’s tart and a little bit
funny. In real life, it’s horrifying.

Dayenu: that too could be enough
to spark despair. But there’s more.

The governor of Texas
recently made it illegal for
municipalities to require
masks. To many, masks have
become a symbol of govern-
ment control. A mask is
literally the least we can do to
protect the immunocompro-
mised (and all children under
the age of 12). Refusing to wear
a mask during this pandemic
is like leaving your lights on
during the London Blitz.

Combine the anti-maskers,
and the anti-vaxxers, and
the new delta variant (more
contagious than chicken pox,
and vaccinated people can
spread it), and cases are rising
again. We’re facing another
long winter of isolation and
mounting death counts — and
it didn’t have to be this way.

Between what we’re doing to
our planet (which disproportion-
ately harms those who are most
vulnerable), and the impact of
JEWISH EXPONENT
anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers
on public health (ditto), and the
persistence of the Big Lie that the
presidential election was “stolen,”
and the lack of accountability
around the Jan. 6 insurrection,
it’s hard not to despair. How can
I write sermons from this place?
I’m pretty sure no one comes to
High Holiday services to hear
their rabbi admit that she’s given
up hope.

I poured out my heart about
this to my hevruta partner,
who reminded me that in
Torah even God sometimes
despaired of humanity. When
God despaired of us, it was
our ancestors’ job to push back
and remind God of reasons
to hope for humanity’s future.

This is part of why we live (and
learn!) in community: to help
each other find hope when our
hearts despair.

Indeed, the Torah readings
most of us will encounter on
Rosh Hashanah cue up that
inner journey. On the first day
we read about the casting-out
of Hagar and Ishmael. On the
second day, the stakes may feel
even higher with the binding
of Isaac. Yet these same Torah
stories also remind us of the
hope to be found in tough
times. An angel opens Hagar’s
eyes to a flowing spring, and
she and her son are saved. An
angel opens Abraham’s eyes to
the ram caught in the thicket,
and Isaac’s life is spared.

Our task is to see the
traumas of this moment clearly
— and also to cultivate the
ability to look beyond our own
despair. The Days of Awe open
the door to new beginnings,
even when (or especially when)
we can’t see our own way back
to hope for change. We just
have to be like those biblical
angels for each other: helping
each other see the hope we
can’t find alone. l
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat is a founder
of Bayit: Building Jewish and rabbi
of Congregation Beth Israel in
North Adams, Massachussetts.

Since 2003, she has blogged as
the Velveteen Rabbi.

STATEMENT FROM THE PUBLISHER
We are a diverse community. The views expressed in the signed opinion columns and let-
ters to the editor published in the Jewish Exponent are those of the authors. They do
not necessarily reflect the views of the officers and boards of the Jewish Publishing
Group, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia or the Jewish Exponent. Send
letters to letters@jewishexponent.com or fax to 215-569-3389. Letters should be a
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published. AUGUST 12, 2021
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