Reflections from May 24, 2024

Let me be clear. Our perspectives are different. Really different. We are not a group of people who are holding the same beliefs and narratives and ideas about Israel and Palestine. This is what makes it so profound.

And as the days pass and people speak their beliefs, which can feel like an existential threat on both sides, we find the cracks. The openings we can slip through. Cracks where the political meets the personal and a story unfolds. A story of someone young, being hurt badly- a story of heartbreak, despair, aloneness and no protection, a decision being made. A heart being protected, a way we survived. And miraculously, because that is the way this world truly is at its essence, this story, found in the crack, breaks something open. And the fight, the fight that was about beliefs that are so different, suddenly becomes the story of a broken heart. And pain is unearthed, and pain is held, and pain is howled and wailed and witnessed. And in that mysterious way that the sacred has, the person on the other side is reached, and now we see the crack in them. And someone who was before an enemy is now unlocking their own broken heart which fits like a key in this story.

Oh, this world. To see enemies, people whose core beliefs are diametrically opposed and so threatening to each other, bowing their heads together in shared grief. To see the personal story at the foundation of the political. To see hands reached out, and tears that were never allowed to flow together, creating this union. What can we call this? Could it be that this really is the essence of humans?

And when the tears have ended, and hearts are soft- we look at each other differently. Now in this moment, can we change our hearts and minds? Are we willing to see more than we saw before? Can we then hear each other, can we listen to each other’s fears and hopes? Can we decide to take action from this place? Action as simple and as difficult as setting down our narrative and listening, truly listening to the other side.

כן نعم YES

Ann Bradney