A Voice is Heard on High

I had the privilege of hearing the remarkable Rachel Goldberg-Polin speak on day 88 of the abduction of her son, Hersh. We invited her to Shalem College to speak at a program over winter break for American college students called “Fear No Evil” and Rachel graced us with her dignity and her words despite living under an uncertainty and pressure no mother or father should have to endure.

It was the first time I had seen anyone wearing a strip of masking tape on a shirt or blouse with the number of days the hostages had been held captive as a way of spreading awareness of their plight. I don’t know when Rachel started doing it, but it caught on here in Israel right around then.

Rachel said many wise and moving and even funny things that day but one of the most powerful was when she told the story of going on some national news program in America to talk about her son and the other hostages and the show’s producer reflexively reached out to remove the strip of tape as Rachel was about to go on air, a strip that at the time had two digits. And Rachel said, “Don’t touch that.” What is it, the producer asked. Rachel answered: It marks the number of days my son has been held hostage in Gaza.” The producer told her that the tape made her uncomfortable. My memory is that Rachel told her, “Good. That’s the idea.”

And she told us that day—day 88—that she hoped that there would not be a day 100. There was nothing especially significant about the number 100 other than its roundness. But somehow, it seemed large, much larger than 88 or even 99. And surely, we would bring Hersh and the other hostages home in the next 11 days. So we all thought. Another 12 days of torment, of uncertainty would be unbearable.

Surely, the count would not reach 100. It had already been too long. Well, Rachel and her family and the rest of us had to wait a lot longer, unimaginably longer. When the news came of Hersh’s death, the piece of tape that people were wearing said 330. The mind reels. 330 days of not knowing, of fearing the worst and not even sure what the worst is.

Today was Hersh’s funeral. He loved to travel. Rachel’s parting words were: “Okay, sweet boy, go now on your journey. I hope it's as good as the trips you dreamed about. Because finally, my sweet boy, finally, finally, finally, finally you're free.” Our hearts broke yet again in this painful week of darkness.

Standing before their son and the crowd that had gathered, the Goldberg-Polins still wear the tape. Now it says 332. There is still some unknown number of living hostages in Gaza held we don’t know where, hostages unvisited by the Red Cross, their captors unpressured by the Red Cross or the UN or Amnesty International or so many other alleged “human rights” organizations. And the world pretends that Qatar and Iran—Hamas’s hosts and patrons, the architects of Hersh’s death—belong among the community of nations. It is hard not to be bitter on a day like today.

A few leaders have said the right thing in the aftermath of Hersh’s death, even if they have struggled to do the right thing, which is much harder. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said mostly the right thing, on X:

Words are easier than actions. Holding Hamas accountable? Coming from a US Secretary of Defense that would normally imply a military operation. After all, Hersh was an American citizen. Holding his murderers accountable would be normal. But we do not live in normal times. The idea that the US would send a group of Navy Seals, say, to capture or kill Sinwar—to hold Sinwar accountable in some way for this murder and so many others and for his cruelty to Israel and his fellow Gazans—it’s implausible in today’s political climate. I wish it were otherwise, but Secretary Austin’s closing line that we need to make a deal with the monsters who executed an American citizen in cold blood also suggests that accountability is not in the cards. It’s hard not to be bitter on a day like today.

It is hard not to be bitter on a day like today but if Rachel Goldberg-Polin can manage it, so can we. She was not bitter on day 88 when she might have imagined a better future or on day 330 when that imagined better future cruelly ended or on day 332 when she had to bury her son. Not bitter over the cruelty of her son’s captors. Not bitter over her fate. Not bitter especially given that her son wanted a world of harmony between Israelis and Palestinians. And as someone pointed out on X, no calls for revenge from this remarkable family. And so I will try to honor their strength and faith and finish these thoughts on a better note.

I see Hersh every day on my walk to work. I see him often. This morning, now that Hersh is gone, I found myself consciously counting the posters demanding that he be brought home. There are at least four—four extra large signs with Hersh’s face, Hersh’s smile. One of those posters is at the top of this page. The neighborhood I walk through is near where the Goldberg-Polins live. It’s near their synagogue. So he has received a lot of attention around here, unsurprisingly

Now that Hersh is gone, perhaps someone will take those posters down. It doesn’t matter. Hersh will always be with us. That he will never grow old breaks our hearts. But Hersh and his unforgettable smile are immortal. I close my eyes and I call up his face and smile effortlessly. All of us alive here in Israel at this time—and others around the world—will carry him in our hearts, carry his innocence, his joy of living, his delight in music, his love of travel, the sweetness. Hersh’s goodness and his purity, persist, frozen in time, in perfection.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin said at her son’s funeral that he was not a perfect son, just the perfect son for her. And of course, she is the perfect mother for her son. She has been the fiercest of lions, relentless in her determination to bring her son home alive. Unbearably, standing over her son’s coffin, Rachel asked for her son’s forgiveness because she and her husband had failed to bring him home alive. Though they had tried so hard in so many ways, seemingly leaving no stone unturned, perhaps she and her husband had failed to think of something, she said.

But they did not fail. They did what they could do and nothing less. That it was not enough was not they doing. And along the way, they taught us all what a mother and father are capable of. Somehow, in the face of tragedy no one should have to face, this remarkable family showed us how to love and endure the hardest of hardships without bitterness.

In Chapter 31 of the book of Jeremiah, when the Second Temple was destroyed and the Jews go into exile, we read that the matriarch Rachel, Jacob’s beloved wife, raised up her voice in lamentation because her children have died:

15 Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard on high, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are gone.

16 Thus says the Lord: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, says the Lord; and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.

Rachel still weeps. We all weep with her.

May Rachel’s work be rewarded.

May the Goldberg-Polin family find some kind of comfort in the years that lie ahead.

And may all those still held hostage, come back from the land of the enemy.