Where does so much loneliness come from?

“Will there be a presumption of innocence for Israel?”

Paulo Rosenbaum

Today we will not see what we used to see. There is a perplexity that doesn’t come from the fronts. I know it’s an exaggeration, but I woke up in 1939. In a world declaredly divided. My astonishment is not reflected in other faces, it does not invade other people’s profiles. I walked in a trance until I found a friend and I was as shocked as the others and I detected how impassive they were. For them, the world remained untouched. I envied them. It’s like a scare without defined limits. Blurred by surprise. By selective silence. By the inertia of the world. For the useless incessant appeal for help. Today, day one of mortification, of a falling asleep that hit us with disproportionate shadows. Even though today is our darkest hour, I made efforts to pray for arks of salvation today.

Today, they say, victims can be blamed because they were not victims enough. Today, we read that victims have not behaved appropriately for victims. Today we experience the inexorability of defense wars and avoidable suffering. And what is fair? Today we have lost the measure: leaders who do not lead and people who do not know their value. Today our sense of history has been corrupted because, unforgivably, our memory has collapsed.

Today the only unanimity is to pray for the hostages, for children who do not know that they are participating in a story in which they did not act, and for innocent people who are losing what they never had. Today life has been raffled off in inaccurate rocket markets. We watch the misinformation, the calculated media, the adjustment to synchronized inaccuracy. Or did you not witness the double news? The half-words issued in suspicious notes? Today the word that defines massacres prefers to bypass the word “terror”. What are you afraid of anyway? To call the name by name? Or to change the name of what defines the unacceptable.

Today we will allow ourselves to be carried away by alienation. For a state in which we seek unmotivated joys. They talk about Gog and Magog. They talk about a chronic inflammation of the world. They talk about the 70 nations. They talk about an unpredictable end. But how do I do it? I don’t believe in prognoses. I could never believe in predictions. As someone announced: the difference between the Greek oracle and the Hebrew prophets was that the first prided itself on its accurate predictions, the other tried to prevent them by persuading the audience that decrees from heaven can be rectified. Today, the refined mysticism expounded by Gershon Scholem seems to have been replaced by pasteurized mystifications.

Today, I saw one after another speak. Permanently and systematically. I watched the broadcasts, the speeches, the rhetoric and nothing, absolutely nothing convinced me. There is a fog that drowns the sensations. And I decided to dive into one of these clouds.

Today you don’t see tomorrow. But he is there. Its intensity was temporarily extinguished. I didn’t come to talk about tragedies. Not even to say who is right. I know who is right. I came to say that all this suffering would not be necessary. I came, naively, to talk about the temporary nature of everything. I came to show that evil is not an abstract entity. (as I agreed until yesterday). I came to announce a kind of end. It is not eschatological. Not the end of times. It is an end of a term that contains another ending. An outcome that does not belong to reason. The end will continue towards the end of the night until we are all guilty or innocent. There is an end. What is unacceptable is an end without a purpose.

Today I didn’t see the point. In nothing. Everything seemed irrelevant to me. And no matter how many reasons I see, the meaning was captured. There must be reasons in the hearts that the intellect is unable to grasp. These are what I’m looking for. And where are they?

Today I don’t know about rest. Today is Shabbat, but it is the wine, the challah, the braided bread, that are resting from us. There is a rebellion of objects, and nature will be an accomplice. There is no pessimism. It’s an intrusive reality that brings me to another destination. Freud wrote: the most peculiar thing about Jews was their ability to go forward. Forward? Who knows. Not today Freud. Today will be immersion in the day. Today will be a nutcracker suite. Today will be one day after another. No tomorrows, no forwards. No ties. It will be a hundred years of solitude concentrated in one.

Today we will not see slogans. Today we will not write “never again”. And you know why. Today we hear silences that forever, yesterday and today, seemed like betrayal to us. But what about just solidarity suffering? What if it is just the perplexity of those who cannot express themselves. What if societies themselves had become meaningless? Who can’t reach other people’s pain and justice? In this order: the pain of others and what is fair. The attacker and the attacked. Crime and legitimate defense. We are estranged and it felt like we were never united. I admit it, I admit it, I admit it. I will not assume anything other than the moment.

Today we live on the edge of a knife that descended in perfidious flights. Not just about us, but about all the lives that were lost. The abomination is against everyone. We hear that we are not alone, so tell us, where does so much loneliness come from? Where does the isolation that took away our illusion come from? Where does unsharable pain come from?

Today we know, we are meticulously divided. People are indivisible. Not destinations. And from this sharing we are left with the part that crumbles. Listen, Oh Creator: today we are inconsolable. It’s just that we no longer accept inspiration without clarity. Those who speak for us no longer speak for us. And those who govern cannot see us as we are. Today there is a ritual wine left on the tables. And we don’t even know where the enemies are anymore. The internal weapons are missing batteries.

Today, the fight is against what will never be human. What was never humanity.

Today we can feel that there is a collective ruse. And whoever speaks has a voice. Today we are countable and this testifies to our fragility. And what was subtle today is just lack of protection.

There is a vulnerability that runs after Jews. And today it reached us. It’s not that the world turned its back on us, but it didn’t hold hands or a conclusive hug. As Kafka wrote: “There is hope – Not for us.” Even in the most generous relativization of the world there are absolutes. Limits we can support.

Today mistakes are confused with self-deception. Today peace seems like a lost mirage.

An image that no one can pursue unless, or until, some justice descends upon everyone.

Ad Matai? Until when?

Tishri 22, 5784

October 7, 2023