I am writing this on 11 October, 26 of Tishrí 5784
Living Kol Nidrei e Yom Kippur in London at my beloved West London Synagogue of British Jews, I experienced the Yizkor service remembering my dead. Gramma Lucia, granma Dirce, Michele, auntie Maria, Paolo, auntie Giannina, auntie Cenza, Mama … The synagogue provided us with a beautiful booklet that would inspire our prayers, thoughts, reverence for their blessed memory.
It was last September the 24th, and I was reading those poems. Never would I have imagined, Our God, that a few days later I would look again for that little book among my things.
Immediately after Yom Kippur we built our huts, gathered our Lulav for the seven days of Sukkot, then on the eighth day we lingered that tad longer, at Shemini Atzeret, to be with You a little more, intimately, after all those days of loud joy. Quietly, but already reveling in the celebration of Simchat Torah, coming up after Shabbat to wrap up the period of our expression of joy and gratitude to You, to dance together at the beginning of a new cycle of Torah reading. I was looking forward to writing something for Simchat Torah and voicing my joy!
On Shabbat morning October 7, 2023, from the youngest child to the elder person in Israel was savagely assaulted. Our fellow Jews in the Land of Israel, and all those who were with them, were horribly assaulted, humiliated, tortured, raped, kidnapped and murdered by terrorists, criminals who have been sowing death and destruction inside and outside their neighboring territories for so many years, but only now have been given the direction and the means by those who hate us and are more powerful than they are.
Never would I have imagined that I would still be looking so soon for the Yizkor booklet, but for such a different grief. I am shocked, you know, God, Blessed Eternity. So please help me loosen the freeze, because we Jews are strong, we are resilient, we are united and we need to do the work that You have chosen us to do.
In prayer for Klal Israel with the words of Rabbi Debra Smith “Yizkor Kavannah”
Source of All Life
Welcome home those we have lost.
They have come to dwell in Your House and slumber in Your cradling arms.
Their paths are Your paths now.
Your footsteps guide their journey.
They live on in our cherished memories.
We honour their legacies.
Source of All:
Comfort them, hold them close.
They have been .. [No sorry I can't say "they have been called”]
They have been separated from us. I pray for them to be with You in an eternal embrace.
Amen