(Sweet)
Why cry about a building long ago destroyed? Why mourn and weep about events clouded in the mists of folded centuries?
Why sit on the hard floor, lament in earnest, fast waterless under the baking Yerushalayim sun?
Why march in hundreds around the walls of an ancient city many times expanded and outgrown, why declare with broken hearts the desolation of a city that thrives and throngs and pulses with vibrant life?
How can I cry for the deathly silent city, when its mourners flock about me, and raise a great noise heavenwards with their concentrated mourning?
How can I lament destruction of a built city, fossil revived, miracle to behold and touch and live?
How can I cry for the slaughter of my people when we teem in heavenly-directed harmonious purpose, in our very crying?
The answer?
(Bitter-sweet)
The answer is the difference between is and could be.
Between concrete and dreamstuff, between what we grasp in our hands today, and what we stretch and yearn for for tomorrow.
(Bitter)
The sadness in me burst forth on the Ninth of the Fifth, when I saw people who, for all their beautiful dedication, were not touched by the sorrow of loss and pain for what we are missing, for what has been taken from us, for what has not yet been returned to us.
My sadness swelled when I saw through the outside, and into the inside, of what we have here as a nation, and what we are so sorely lacking.
My sadness grew when I was reminded of what our enemies have done to us, in the Holocaust, in Chevron in 1929, in our very Holy Land all these years, and in Gush Katif and Northern Shomron. The echoes of the Holocaust ruffled the pages of my Tanach as I read Eichah.
"O G-d, why will You forget us forever, abandon us for so many long days?"
Our Temple is not yet rebuilt; our children torn from their homes and gardens and towns and lives; enemies from inside and from outside plan and plot our destruction every day. Eichah is still so bitter, the screams are still so fresh.
So many of our dear brothers and sisters still remain closed-eyed, distant from themselves, from G-d. We don't know who we are, we don't know what we have to do. The jarring pains of childbirth start to shake us from our lengthened slumber, and we blink and begin to take our bearings, to find our feet, to shake off the dust and shackles of foreign ideas and people, to be truly free to G-d.
(Forwards with courage and hope)
We have work to do. We have many people to awaken. Don't forget the bitterness in the bitter-sweet.
The fight is not yet over. The Redemption is not yet complete.
We cannot settle for just a wall; we want a complete, beautiful building of harmony, love, tranquility, and perfection of the world.
We cannot settle for half, when we know that we will never be complete until we have the whole.
We cannot settle for mediocre, when we cannot exist without total achievement of our holiest goals and dreams.
Dear friends, we cannot allow ourselves to settle for anything less than everything we've been promised by G-d, everything we've dreamt of for thousands of years.
Not now; not now that we've come so far...
Why cry about a building long ago destroyed? Why mourn and weep about events clouded in the mists of folded centuries?
Why sit on the hard floor, lament in earnest, fast waterless under the baking Yerushalayim sun?
Why march in hundreds around the walls of an ancient city many times expanded and outgrown, why declare with broken hearts the desolation of a city that thrives and throngs and pulses with vibrant life?
How can I cry for the deathly silent city, when its mourners flock about me, and raise a great noise heavenwards with their concentrated mourning?
How can I lament destruction of a built city, fossil revived, miracle to behold and touch and live?
How can I cry for the slaughter of my people when we teem in heavenly-directed harmonious purpose, in our very crying?
The answer?
(Bitter-sweet)
The answer is the difference between is and could be.
Between concrete and dreamstuff, between what we grasp in our hands today, and what we stretch and yearn for for tomorrow.
(Bitter)
The sadness in me burst forth on the Ninth of the Fifth, when I saw people who, for all their beautiful dedication, were not touched by the sorrow of loss and pain for what we are missing, for what has been taken from us, for what has not yet been returned to us.
My sadness swelled when I saw through the outside, and into the inside, of what we have here as a nation, and what we are so sorely lacking.
My sadness grew when I was reminded of what our enemies have done to us, in the Holocaust, in Chevron in 1929, in our very Holy Land all these years, and in Gush Katif and Northern Shomron. The echoes of the Holocaust ruffled the pages of my Tanach as I read Eichah.
"O G-d, why will You forget us forever, abandon us for so many long days?"
Our Temple is not yet rebuilt; our children torn from their homes and gardens and towns and lives; enemies from inside and from outside plan and plot our destruction every day. Eichah is still so bitter, the screams are still so fresh.
So many of our dear brothers and sisters still remain closed-eyed, distant from themselves, from G-d. We don't know who we are, we don't know what we have to do. The jarring pains of childbirth start to shake us from our lengthened slumber, and we blink and begin to take our bearings, to find our feet, to shake off the dust and shackles of foreign ideas and people, to be truly free to G-d.
(Forwards with courage and hope)
We have work to do. We have many people to awaken. Don't forget the bitterness in the bitter-sweet.
The fight is not yet over. The Redemption is not yet complete.
We cannot settle for just a wall; we want a complete, beautiful building of harmony, love, tranquility, and perfection of the world.
We cannot settle for half, when we know that we will never be complete until we have the whole.
We cannot settle for mediocre, when we cannot exist without total achievement of our holiest goals and dreams.
Dear friends, we cannot allow ourselves to settle for anything less than everything we've been promised by G-d, everything we've dreamt of for thousands of years.
Not now; not now that we've come so far...
