Dear LGA Community,
Just this past shabbat, synagogues all over the world chanted the opening chapters of Bereshit, the Book of Genesis. There, in a famously poignant moment, the Divine asks Adam: “Ayecha? Where are you?” As the commentators point out, being omniscient, the Divine wasn’t wondering about Adam’s whereabouts, but was offering an opportunity for self-reflection. Where are you in the world today? And that is the question I’ve been asking myself all week. Ayecha – is this really happening, the single worst trauma the Jewish people have witnessed in my generation? Ayecha, is my world on fire – between all of my family members and friends in Israel, and in Ukraine? And the world, too, is asking each of us, amid speculation about and analysis of chains of causes and effects, and blame, and the necessity for just the right angle of nuance and caveats – ayecha, where do you stand in all of this?
This week, we called my wife’s grandmother, a 91-year-old Shoah survivor, living in Jerusalem. She said: “I’ve been living through this since I was nine years old.” That, I suppose, is her answer to ayecha, and it’s heartbreaking. And my own answer, of where I am, is witnessing her, and remembering my own grandparents and their stories. I am certain that each of us would do everything, anything we can to ensure that our students never have to say anything of the sort. That they and their world remains safe, and insulated from disaster.
And so, hineni: Here I am, at LGA, welcoming students at the door in the morning, popping into classrooms, singing along at gatherings, exchanging smiles and jokes, and marveling at the intensity of light, radiating from these children. It was so meaningful too, to come together with parents who were able to join us on Monday morning to share and check in with one another. It is incredible how everyone on our staff and faculty continues to be so deeply and generously present for our students and for each other.
It is clear to me, and all of us at the school, that continuing to provide a deeply nourishing, stable, safe, and yes, joyous experience for our students is a top priority. It is also clear that bit by bit, at the right time, we must find ways to teach them about what is happening in an age-appropriate manner by relaying simple facts, engaging in prayerful moments, and doing acts of kindness (this week, for instance, our students are writing letters to children in Israel – thank you Morah Devorah for organizing). We also know that many among us right now are hurting, and need care and attention. Continuing to find ways to gently check in and extend care is extremely important.
As the days and weeks roll along, many of us will find ourselves holding multiple conflicting realities: there’s the ongoing trauma of war unfolding there, and we are largely continuing our everyday lives here, holding space of normalcy for our children, as we can. What is acceptable to do and what isn’t in a time like this? How do you hold both of those realities? Where, again, are you, in between it all?
And, as many of you already know, when I find myself holding unanswerable questions, I turn to poetry – not for answers but for a soulful acknowledgement of the moment’s intensity. And so I want to close off this message with a poem by Ilya Kaminsky. It embodies what the rabbis called heshbon nefesh, a soul-reckoning, the act of taking oneself to task in acknowledging the fractured reality of here and there. Nothing prepares us for the reality of war, even if it happens across the ocean, and yet we cannot allow ourselves to become used to any of this, to numb ourselves to it. Once again, I hope you will join me and our students for Kabbalat Shabbat, this week and every week, in singing Oseh Shalom, the song of peace, with us. May it come, for us and for all people everywhere.
We Lived Happily During the War
By Ilya Kaminsky
And when they bombed other people’s houses, we protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not enough. I was in my bed, around my bed America
was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.
I took a chair outside and watched the sun.
In the sixth month of a disastrous reign in the house of money
in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,
our great country of money, we (forgive us)
lived happily during the war.
Shabbat Shalom,
Jake Marmer
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