I forgot what it is to breathe

I’ve struggled to articulate some of the feelings these last few days, and months, two years. This was written by a dear friend in Jerusalem, and with her permission, I am publishing it here in the hope that it gives an insight into not just how she’s feeling, but the repercussions on our inner souls of everything that’s happened in the last two years…

***

They all had faith but I didn’t. They crowded in the streets and the squares, happy, celebrating, their  joy exuberant, their faces  glowing. But they weren’t free yet, they were still at the hands of their tourmentors, the same ones who destroyed  and played with our minds, with our hopes, with our sense of decency; they made us question our own morality, they made us confront a landscape of depravity hitherto unimagined - but in them we put our trust.

The pundits smiling, lighter somehow, the crowds  dancing, singing, hugging, as if peace had spread over the globe, as if they were already home. And then it came on the screen -

20 Living Hostages in the hands of the IDF.

And suddenly I could breathe.

I mean really physically breathing.

I hadn’t noticed that I hadn’t been breathing, I hadn’t noticed the weight that had become me. In a moment it lifted - I’m breathing.

My son screams “the war is over, no more bombs”. All I can tell him is that I hope that is true,

I pray (to whom I’m unsure) that that is true.

My cynicism about the staging of all these events - Trump's appearance right as the first pictures of hostages are released, the under-the-table deals that must have been going on, the general feeling of being in the dark and my future being neither clear nor in my hands, disappeared in a poof.

Maybe an emotional response that will give way to logic any minute, or maybe not. Now, in the course of writing, it’s announced that Bibi is going to the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh; he will sit with some of our sworn enemies, but maybe there are new horizons, maybe the landscape is really shifting in seismic ways and the fault lines are falling differently, maybe this truly is the beginning of a new era as Trump wrote in the Knesset visitors book.

I want to believe.

Is that what it felt like in the past? When wars ended did everyone celebrate and trust immediately - clearly not, obviously not.

Can we trust? What’s REALLY going on? If I can trust, can they trust? Why would they trust?

How can it be that Bibi will sit at that table - unless it’s a positive step. Or maybe someone will blow up the whole building. These two years have shown us that the unexpected often happens, that we can’t know what is coming next, so why would that be different now. Maybe we really are all part of a movie - surely these things don’t happen in real life. Bibi and Abu Mazen will sit at the same table. Could this be the beginning of peace????

Two years ago I watched the BBC

Two years ago sirens were a rarity and explosions over my head were unknown.

Two years ago my son was not obsessed with shipwrecks and plane crashes - I don’t remember what he was into, but it definitely wasn’t that.

Two years ago I was shocked to discover that there was a prayer for hostages in our prayer book.

Two years ago I heard HaTikvah - “To be a free People in our own land” with different ears.

Two years ago, I had never heard of Hirsh, or Carmel, or Rom, or any of the hundreds of hostages and victims who’s names have become household names and we talk about them as if we really know, or knew them.

Two years ago a yellow ribbon was for Sarcoma.

Two years ago, we had barely been in bomb shelters.

Two years ago, there weren’t’ guns everywhere.

Two years ago the only spare place we had was a cup for Elijah at Passover - we didn’t hold a space at every meal, and every bus stop and lamp post wasn’t plastered with photos of those who are missing, those who had been stolen from us.

Two years and six days ago feels like an innocent age.

Of course there is no way back, but what will the way forward look like? I’m looking at the crowd and they exude an innocent trust, a faith. The people in these crowds are not fools, and neither are they naive.

What do they know that I don’t - maybe nothing, and they have just chosen to enjoy breathing, at least for today.