“Why I Am Going to Rally for the Hostages,” Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s Shabbat Awakenings (Note: rally cancelled)
NOTE: THE RALLY WAS CANCELLED DUE TO THE WEATHER
February 14, 2025 | 16 Sh’vat 5785
Welcome to Shabbat Awakenings, a weekly reflection, as we make our way toward Shabbat. You can listen to it as a podcast here.
I hope this Shabbat Awakenings becomes unnecessary by tomorrow.
That would mean that more hostages have been released by their Hamas terrorist captors. It would still mean that more than 70 people, either alive or murdered, remain in Gaza.
We have been counting the days since the brutal, savage attack on October 7th when babies to elders were taken into captivity. We have watched and prayed for their release.
Since October 2024, we have used our Wyner museum to honor those hostages with our awareness and hope for their return. Cantor Alicia Stillman has lovingly and mournfully attached the word “released” or “deceased” to the pictures as she updates their status.
Recently, I heard the reaction of one of the released hostages who said that she felt the prayers of the world as she suffered starvation and worse in the tunnels of hell. It gave her the courage to persist.
Last week, the world saw the ravaged bodies and souls of the hostages made to thank their captors before being turned over to Israel.
The horror continues and we can’t turn away.
It doesn’t mean that we turn away from the suffering wrought upon the Palestinians used as pawns by their Hamas terrorist compatriots who hid beneath them underground and subjected the innocents to the war they caused.
It doesn’t mean that we don’t want this war to end. Freeing the hostages has been an option to move more quickly to end it all along.
It doesn’t mean that we don’t long and work for peace, supporting the efforts happening right now every day in Israel between Israelis and Palestinians.
It doesn’t mean we ignore the troubling challenges happening in the West Bank to the Palestinians or the unrealistic and harmful solutions posed by world leaders, including our own, regarding the fate of the Gazans.
I am attending the rally on February 17 near Faneuil Hall at Sam Adams Park at 3:00 p.m. because we cannot abandon those still held against their will.
The Jewish people through the ages have recognized the possibility and reality of how easily freedom can be stolen when our people are taken captive, we pay attention, we work for their release, we pray from the depth of our hearts and souls for their safe return.
In our liturgy, we call upon God to do the same.
Shabbat Shalom שבת שלום
May it be so.
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Rabbi Elaine Zecher