I’d never met Medo Halimy. But for the past few months, he had been a constant presence on my TikTok for you page. In between ridiculous videos of dogs and laugh inducing videos of toddlers doing silly things, Medo would pop up documenting what life in Gaza was like on a daily basis.
As a Zionist that believes strongly in Israel’s need to take swift action in Gaza to both root out Hamas and free the hostages, I appreciated Medo’s videos in that they gave me an insight into what life was like for regular folks in Gaza. There were ways he described the situation in Gaza that rankled me but he was there and I was here and I appreciated the window into life.
Medo died last week. The circumstances of his death have not been fully verified. He had been at an internet cafe which was in a tent near a refugee camp when a car in front of it was bombed. The bomb’s impact sent shrapnel flying and Medo was killed. Israel claims it was unaware of such a strike.
I had never met Medo but I felt deeply saddened by his death. He was a face for all the unnamed, innocent Gazans we speaks about all the time. Sure, I disagreed with him at times but he was a real human, barely an adult, whose life was taken way too early.
Then, at the end of that same week, the tragic news broke about the 6 hostages killed by Hamas, just as Israeli forces closed in on their position. While many of us do our best to familiarize ourselves with all the hostages that remain, Hersh felt painfully familiar. In part because of the tireless campaign his parents took to keep him in the spotlight, his face as a believer in peace amid this horrid time, and his identity as a dual citizen, Hersh felt so known to many of us.
As the news slowly leaked out about what had happened, that deep sadness came once more. The hardest part about it for me? I felt anguished about Hersh than I did Medo. When the Talmud asks “Who says that your blood is redder than his? Perhaps his blood is redder than yours,” it’s always reminded me that a base level we’re all made from the same stuff. But that wasn’t how my heart was responding. I didn’t know either but there was an intangible connection with Hersh as a Jew that caused me more grief than learning about Medo’s death.
To be honest, I have not been quite sure how to deal with it. I’ve long been a believer in our tradition’s ability to speak to our requirement to be seekers of equity when it comes to our work in the world. This text is often in my head:
We support the impoverished of the non-Jews with the impoverished of the Jews and we visit the sick of the non-Jews with the sick of the Jews and we bury the dead of the non-Jews with the dead of the Jews because of the ways of peace.”-Babylonian Talmud Gittin 61a
To write something like that in the early part of the common era meant that people were grappling with what it means to be a Jew living in a world with larger circles of responsibility. We have us and them and we do our best to be responsive to both. And clearly, there are plenty of references where our sages championed Jewish superiority. I’ve struggled with those and struggled with being in spaces where those types of voices are legitimized. After all, are we really better than anyone else simply because of our ethnoreligious inheritance? Yet, there I was voraciously reading the news of what happened to Hersh, Carmel, Ori, Almog, Eden, and Alex and realizing that my sadness was of a different severity than my sadness for Medo.
We’re now almost a week from that terrible tragedy and I am still not quite sure of how to deal with it other than to embrace that there is a part of me that feels deeply connected to world jewry. Maybe that’s how it’s always been. Perhaps I need to remind myself that it doesn’t mean I hold us superior but that I am intrinsically linked to my fellow Jews of all stripes and types. It reminds me that there could be something to the Rabbis’ belief that all of us were at Sinai, at the moment of revelation, trampling the space-time continuum because as Jews our souls are linked.
It got me thinking about the blessing we say when we take an aliyah at the Torah. Right after we thank God for giving us the Torah, we also offer gratitude at being gifted “חיי עולם נטע בתוכינו- eternal life that has been planted among us.” I’ve often wondered why the language of planting is used and what that has to do with eternal life. Commenting on that language, the S’fas Emes notes:
Within every Jewish person, there is a sacred point in their heart. This is what it means when it says ‘eternal life planted within us.’ Throughout the whole year, our attachments to physicality obscure that point. That is why on Rosh Hashanah we invoke the language of asking God to inscribe us for life. When we received the Torah, we were on the level such that we’d never be erased from this writing. But because of our missing the mark, we lost this ability. Our job is then to renew this “life” within us every year. The sealing that we seek on Rosh Hashanah is to not let this life force within each Jewish person get lost throughout the year.
When we use the language of eternal life being planted within us, I think the S’fat Emet is talking about that intrinsic connection all Jews have with one another. We all share this gift. It’s so deeply rooted that it has to be there for reasons beyond our own control.
I think that’s what I was feeling as I mourned these people who were so similar and yet, on a core level, different. Hersh, Carmel, Eden, Alex, Ori, and Almog were my people. When they died, that nekuda kedosha, that sacred point was snuffed out. If all of our points are connected, then mine felt that too.
I don’t think that makes me a believer that we Jews are better than anyone else. It just makes this loss like losing a family member in closer proximity to my point. I am still sad for Medo and my sadness feels different for the hostages that were killed.
It reminds me of our shared heritage and of the work we all have to do. This time of year is a fitting time to remind ourselves of the ways in which we can improve both internally and externally. As I continue to grieve and process this loss, I hope to double down on my work of being a better Jew, not just in the sense of improving my spirituality, ritual behavior, or learning but to fulfill the precept of ahavat yisrael, loving other Jews. It’s certainly challenging and I am not sure it won’t come in fits and starts but for Hersh, Carmel, Eden, Alex, and Ori, whose lights shined brightly amid the darkness of the last year of their life, we owe it to them to shed more light, love, and goodness to one another.
Shabbat Shalom
As always, thought provoking! I also think we are, of course, a product of how we grew up. At a very young age, the Jewish way was how I was taught, and to care most about. As I grew older, I cared about all humankind, but I will always have that special love and concern for my people. I don’t question it anymore. What is, is, as my sweet mother-in-law, always said. Shabbat Shalom, and hugs and love. ✡️❤️
Zeta