By Rabbi Dvir Cahana (Base Miami)

 

I spent my first 2 months as the Rabbi of Base Miami convincing locals why they need to have Base Miami in my life, I am now convinced that “I” need Base Miami in my life too. On August 31st, my heart sank when I heard that Hersh Goldberg-Polin was among the dead hostages that were recovered in Gaza. An aching feeling lingered throughout the night as I hopelessly tried sleeping. The ache persisted as I doomscrolled through social media, wallowing in my emotions and couldn’t be shaken as I started getting ready for my day. I needed to somehow find a way to process this sadness. It dawned on me that I have a special community of emotionally intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive souls that I can lean back on in Base Miami and, I could only imagine that if I was feeling terrible, than how must my Basers have been feeling.

My wife and I created a program for a candlelit vigil and, in the turbulence of the preparation, we briefly forgot about the sadness that had consumed us the night before. As soon as we began welcoming in the hurting hearts into our home and the program began, the grief returned and washed over us all at once. I began to cry, but differently this time. It wasn’t accompanied by an ache in the pit of my stomach, instead, I felt connected with my Basers. My tears were cathartic tears, tears of healing. When grieving together, I felt the comfort of someone else saying, “I am here with you. We are feeling this melancholy together.” it felt so important to hold each other in this space together. A combination of songs, tears and words from the heart created a sacred atmosphere. People shared their experience of being in Israel on October 7th and their personal relationships to the hostages, South Florida District Dr. Christine Del Portillo shared words of comfort from Senator Rick Scott himself, we heard a rousing message from Israeli Consul General Maor Elbaz-Starinsky. It felt vulnerable to feel so emotionally raw in front of my Basers, but with this genuine community, it didn’t feel wrong.

When the program was finished, and our home was silent once again this realization came over me. I had created this program, in some ways because I knew that it felt important that our community have each other when times get hard, but also, equally as important, that I knew that I had them when my spirit felt clouded and I needed their grounding. I feel so blessed that this community who shows up at the right moment, is the community that I can call Base Miami.

The Poem that I wrote in response to the events:

Permission To Cry – By Rabbi Dvir Cahana

When Joseph was in the womb did he feel Rachel’s yearning tears shape his being; her every whispered prayer carving dreams into his bones? Did Rachel know her dream child would galavant on the stage of the celestial moon – mingled in the Lord’s room but color coated to play the groundling to a captive audience, navigating his shimmering fate beneath the gaze of angels and the judgment of stars? As the babe’s eyes awoke…

עכשיו יש לה הַרשָׁאָה לבכות

When Joseph was in the pit alone could he feel the prayers of his father woven into the wind? Did a shofar blow hope into that crater, or did it breach Jericho once more, the contours of Sisera’s mother wails, encircled until they dissolve into the hot air of waiting despair? How long could she last in her grovel as her battery depletes. Did Jacob’s speckled fear of feckled sheers detain his bleeting gloats? When the shadows hid away, was there anyone but he, who could unshatter a morsel of divine vim a victim to the corporeal whim? A stiff neck holds his tunnel vision. Disarmed from the source when put afar, a hostage to fate. Before the fingers point, could his breath catch sail with the hem and haw of unbequeethed light? As the lad was taken away…

עכשיו יש לו הַרשָׁאָה לבכות

When Joseph wailed so deep that all of Egypt could hear, did his forever pitch pierce the stripped heavens and stir the silent Sun to weep? Could Jacob, sloshing between the flotsam and refuse of his hollowed grief, feel the tremors of that sound, a son’s broken heart reaching across the chasm of lost time? Disheveled, they begged Joseph’s verdict to bend. Without a turning of tides or a flint rock poised to ignite, forget the swelling debates, the apologetics, the harsh hope and the misplaced spite. The fissures were etched in the frame of ammunition. Not on a morose morrow, but so long as the tragedy is extant…

עכשיו יש להם הַרשָׁאָה לבכות

When Moses found his bones at last, did they take to the streets? We brought them home. Unbounded for once, shackled no more but just a dram too late. Not one whole heart could even bark. Tumbling between the tablet shards and the dust of the earth. Joseph was reunited at last with the unsown tears of Rachel’s bitter cry. Between the sobs of a raging river the current ceases to flow. On the day the city flooded, we never felt so alone. All halts when laid bare, Mother Earth on her hind legs. Deer Joseph, Holy Rachel. We watch as you embrace and expel a lifetime of unrealized console. And as their forms emerge from the debris…

עכשיו יש לנו הַרשָׁאָה לבכות