Digging Deep
Abraham, to whom we are introduced in this week’s portion of Torah, dug wells. His son, Isaac, did so too. Digging deep is what this perilous hour calls for. I find the following words, written by Daniel Swartz, who grew up in Newton, attending Schechter and Maimonides, to be utterly compelling.
“If there’s an earthquake, an avalanche, a rockfall, and you believe someone is trapped beneath the rubble – you dig them out…You keep digging until you have exhausted yourself, until your fingers are raw and bloody, and you’ve violated the laws of the Sabbath fifty times, a hundred times, a thousand times over. And then you dig some more.
“You keep digging until you know for certain that the person is dead. You dig and you dig until you’ve looked them in their unblinking open eyes, listened in vain for their heartbeat, and exhausted every possible avenue. You dig until you’ve cradled them in your arms and until you know in your heart of hearts that there is truly nothing further that you can do for them.
“And then you start trying to save the next one.
“Around me, an entire nation is digging frantically. We are digging because there are nearly two hundred of our own – grandparents, parents, friends, nieces, nephews, siblings, cousins, babies, toddlers – held incommunicado in cruel and inhumane conditions by a genocidal death cult. We are digging because tens of thousands of Israelis have become refugees in their own country…
“The funerals also defy imagination. More than one thousand Israeli civilians have been massacred, along with hundreds of soldiers. Each one of them had a name and a face, hopes, dreams, stories, and a smile.
“But even as the families’ shrieks shake the very foundation of the world, the mourners – wracked with sobs – somehow find the strength to sing. They sing to the body of their child; their brother or sister; their mother or father; their niece, nephew, or cousin; their grandparent or great-grandparent. A favorite song. A favorite hymn. An anguished prayer. They sing as they bear their loved one’s body to the grave. And they sing as they put them in the ground.
“But then there’s a moment of silence. And the assembled mourners pick up the shovels and fill in the grave.
“We are digging because we are broken-hearted. We are digging because we are not broken. We are digging because we must dig a new foundation for our homeland. Around us, the nation is being born again. The State of Israel is being re-founded and rebuilt before our very eyes.
“The Israeli future, the Jewish future, and nothing less than the future of humanity itself, depends entirely on our ability to sustain these efforts and to keep on digging – no matter how painful it is and no matter the condemnation we receive.
“Because that’s what this moment demands. Bring a shovel or use your hands. There are lives that need saving. And we need you to dig.”
How can you and I dig deeper? Lots of ways have been included in prior posts.
The digging Abraham began must continue as never before.
Am Yisrael Chai
Rabbi William Hamilton
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