A LETTER

     This letter will not follow in the footsteps of the letter of Elvis Presley. It will not be stamped: Return to sender; Address unknown; No such person; No such zone. There is, in fact a known Being, a known location, and rather than a plaintive note from an aggrieved boyfriend, this is a letter soaked in tears. Red with blood. Alive with the agonized cries of pain, of confusion, of desperate need of relief. Replete with a montage never ending of the violated and butchered, the innocents who faced monstruous beasts, the grieving faces of those left behind to mourn the unfathomable.

Dear Lord,  

This letter demands an answer, though, in fact, will any answer be forthcoming and even if so, will it be sufficient for our purpose, for our desperate needs?  How dare I demand anything of You, a mere blip on your radar, if even that? Because we are desperate, tested beyond limits unfathomable and unable to  survive and remain intact and whole of heart and soul. We must have an answer. 

We must have a response. We cannot wait much longer. There is a limit to the ability of humans to withstand horror.  There is a limit beyond which it is impossible to maintain sanity and hope and even faith, that someday, one day, soon, quicker than soon, there will be an answer. Responsive. So we hope, so we pray, so we plead. That there is a limit. That there is a line beyond which none can safely navigate. Unless we have an answer that makes sense.   

Answer, Lord. Answer indeed. With inspiration. With paths leading to a renewed hope. With an explanation that approaches human understanding. That will alleviate some of the unbearable pain we are carrying so deeply, within our broken hearts and souls. Answer, Lord, answer. Remind us. Assure us that you are indeed here with us, feeling our pain and striding alongside us as we navigate horrors beyond comprehension. As we face unfathomable Evil in the form of Beasts beyond description. 

Answer, Lord, answer. Now. For we are at the end of our capability to continue this way, our suffering overflowing its vessel.  Your creations are in need, deep and immediate need, a need which only You can meet. Rescue us from ourselves, if that is the case. Be the Lord you tell us You are, as we read in the Torah portion on Saturday. "Ki chanun Ani" - "For I am compassionate." Please show us that compassion. Please. 

How are we to understand, to comprehend even in limited manner, the intolerable? How are we to react, to survive, understand and accept that 80 years after the almost successful attempt to wipe us out we are facing the very same existential danger. How, Lord? You tell me just how are we to walk through vicious never-ending hailstorms of hate and murder and evil beyond comprehension? What are we supposed to do when we are told that two of our babies and their mother, the same one whom You gifted with these two boys, were brutally manually strangled. 

It is intolerable. It is a picture which our minds reject. We shake our heads violently to lose it. To shatter it. And yet, there it remains, whole, intact dripping with danger and challenging an ability to retain sanity. The tears of our people, not only of the Bibas family, not only of the nation round the world, are combined with the tears of those from time immemorial. Of never-ending cycles of apparent safety culminating in spasms of blood and murder and cries to the Heavens.

 Their cries wake the dead, those who have come before us in a straight line, from Abraham Avinu to the aggrieved cries from the enslaved in Egypt to the painful cries of those burnt in the Tower of York. In the human bonfires of Spain and Portugal, the slaughtered during the Crusades, the victims of pogroms and the savagery of the Nazis. From the victims of terror and from those brave soldiers who lost their lives. And from the confused cries of those once waiting to be born, waiting in vain as the parents to be slain. Of the victims of the Amalek of every generation. 

Swamps of overflowing toxic waters of hate, of murderous intents, never ending.  Toxic antisemitism. Lord, how much more can Your people absorb yet remain hopeful? Numerous times You promised to heed the voices of the slaughtered calling out to you from the blood soaked grounds upon which they fell. Keep those promises, Lord. Avenge the innocent slain. Extend a hand of hope and help, of inspiration and trust. We so desperately need it.

 And today, Lord, not force us to wait for 

On the morrow.

Your ever obedient, despairing servant.

You know who I am.