Holding the Center during war and terror

Author:  Rabbi Debora S. Gordon
Date: October 9, 2023

Dear ones,

We can only begin to imagine what it's like to be there.  "Distressed, depressed, and somewhat immobilized" -- which my aunt who now lives in Jerusalem wrote -- is how I feel here, too.   You are in our thoughts, hearts, and prayers.

I keep praying for the safety of *all* people -- no one should have to die because leaders want to enhance and consolidate their power, and that's happening all over the world.  Now it is touching people I know and places I have been.  Ultimately, peace is the only way forward to security.  In the meantime, as war and terror touch people I love and people I don't know, I pray for the fewest casualties and the most compassion. There is so much grief already.

There are organizations working to hold the center -- supporting the most vulnerable people (including Israelis from kibbutzim near Gaza and Bedouin from unrecognized villages in the south), combating violent speech and incitement online, preventing inter-communal violence in mixed cities, providing mental health and trauma counseling, continuing to strengthen ties across boundaries, insisting that there is no way forward except peace, justice, and coexistence:

• Parents' Circle/ Families Forum: Palestinian and Israeli Bereaved Families for Peace: https://parentscirclefriends.org/our-hearts-are-broken/
• Standing Together/Omdim B'Yachad (sorry I don't know how to read the Arabic name yet): https://www.standing-together.org/ and https://www.facebook.com/standingtogether1‍
• New Israel Fund: https://www.nif.org/nifs-emergency-response-plan/

I've been reciting this "Prayer of Mothers for Life and Peace," written by an Israeli rabbi, Tamar Elad-Appelbaum, and a Palestinian sheikha, Ibtisam Mahameed.  The Hebrew contains language from the High Holy Day liturgy, Lamentations, and Psalms, and I imagine that the Arabic has similar resonance with the Qur'an.  This prayer has been included in the newest Israeli Reform siddur which is where I first learned of it.

https://opensiddur.org/prayers/collective-welfare/shalom/prayer-of-mothers-for-life-and-peace-by-sheikha-ibtisam-mahamid-and-rabbi-tamar-elad-appelbaum/

God of Life,
Who heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds,
May it be your will to hear the prayer of mothers
For you did not create us to kill each other
Nor to live in fear, anger, or hatred in your world,
But rather you have created us so we can grant permission to one another to sanctify
Your name of Life, your name of Peace in this world.

For these things I weep, my eye, my eye runs down with water: for our children crying at night,
For parents holding their children with despair and darkness in their hearts,
For a gate that is closing, and who will open it before the day has ended?

And with my tears and prayers which I pray
And with the tears of all women who deeply feel the pain of these difficult days,
I raise my hands to you.
Please, God, have mercy on us,
Hear our voice that we shall not despair,
That we shall see life in each other,
That we shall have mercy for each other,
That we shall have pity on each other,
That we shall hope for each other,

And we shall write our lives in the book of Life.
For your sake, God of Life,
Let us choose Life.

For you are Peace, your world is Peace and all that is yours is Peace,
And so shall be your will, and let us say: Amen.

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