The fourth step of the seder is yachatz, breaking the middle matza. The larger piece will become the afikoman, the dessert of our seder. The smaller half is the reminder that there is brokenness in our world, in our community, and in ourselves.
May our broken world know peace. May the physical and metaphoric walls between people be broken down with cooperation and tolerance. May there be peace.
May communities that are fractured know wholeness. May individuals who disagree find pathways to respectful dialogue and bridge building. May there be kindness.
May this holy night remind each of us that we are precious to God and to one another. May we find strength deep inside to grant ourselves grace and compassion. May our requests for help find loving response.
At this moment of acknowledgment of division, pain, and hardship, we pray that through the course of this Seder night and the days of this holy time, that our ritual observance will provide for a measure of healing. Healing of heart, mind, and spirit. May there be wholeness even amidst the brokenness.
Jewish tradition teaches that each person, each soul is a worlds are gone. Eden Yerushalmi (24) was murdered in Gaza by Hamas terrorists. The IDF found her body, along with Hersh Goldberg-Polin (23), Ori Danino (25), Alex Lubnov (32), Carmel Gat (40), and Almog Sarusi (27), in a Gaza tunnel. Each were shot by the terrorists in recent days.
It is almost too much to bare.
Every morning for months now, I put a bracelet with Eden Yerushalmi’s name on my wrist. Today, the day she will be buried, I will do so for the final time.
Though I never knew Eden, it feels like I do. A bracelet with one name was an attempt to hold the incomprehensible. 250 human beings violently abducted from their homes, a peaceful music festival, their army bases, and brought into the depths of hell by terrorists.
And, through my own tears for Eden and these people I never knew yet I knew so much about, the way they died cannot be the only things we remember.
@bringthemhome posted:
Eden…Tel Aviv, daughter of Shirit and Maor, sister to May and Shani. A vibrant young woman with many friends and hobbies. Eden loved spending summer days at the beach playing paddleball, attending parties, and was studying to become a Pilates instructor.
On October 7th, she worked as a bartender at the NOVA music festival. When the sirens started, she sent a video of the rocket fire to her family group chat, saying she was leaving the party.
On her way to the Nova festival to work, Eden took video of herself dancing. She got to the festival around 2am and was able to dance and enjoy the midnight sets before her morning shift. Eden hid in her car with two friends who were murdered by terrorists. She played dead and remained on the phone with her sisters. After an hour, she found the courage to run and hide. Then the terrorists found her. Her last words were to her sisters, “they caught me.”
According to the Times of Israel, “97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 now remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.”
As it is written in Psalms, “קָר֣וֹב יְ֭הֹוָה לְנִשְׁבְּרֵי־לֵ֑ב, May God be close to the brokenhearted,” (Ps. 34:19). I pray that the Yerushalmi, Goldberg-Polin, Danino, Lubnov, Gat, and Sarusi families can know a drop of comfort from the Holy One at this devastating time as they bury their treasured ones.
May Eden’s precious soul forever be for a blessing.
Here is my sermon from this Shabbat I which I cite the deep wisdom of Daniel Tiger. Unfortunately, there was an internet outage at the temple so a livestream link is not available and I’m sharing it while it is still Shabbat.
Rabbi Eleanor Steinman 