In your moment of greatest peril, we were eons away from that shining vision of unity

To our six brothers and sisters,

You’re in a better place now. As Hersh’s mother Rachel Goldberg-Polin put it, “Finally, finally, finally, finally you are free” — free of the crushing darkness, the never-enough air, the constant hunger and fear. From your elevated place on High where there are no questions, you have finally found an end to those months of terror, loneliness, and suffering.

And you might be wondering: Those of us on the other side, the safer side — what did we do all these months as you waited in the darkness?

Your captors told you that we didn’t care. They taunted you and said we had moved on, we weren’t interested in your return. You know now — you probably knew even then — that it wasn’t true. For close to 11 months, we searched for the keys to release you. We expended so much effort and emotion looking for that magical talisman that would spirit away your captors, force open your prison cell, and lead you back to the waiting arms of your families.

The thing is, we couldn’t agree on what that key looked like. So we searched in different places, envisioning different solutions. And I’m sorry to say that those conflicting visions seeded our search with anger, accusations, and ugliness.

Some of us thought the key was military prowess. Real leverage, we knew, comes from a show of strength. After a mighty military effort that brought devastation and destruction to your captors, they’d come to the negotiating table a lot more humble.

But tragically, when your would-be rescuers got tantalizingly close to your underground prison, leverage turned into liability. Sometimes you have so much leverage that the other side has nothing left to lose. And then, we learned, you have no leverage at all.

Some people sought a different key. Give the captors some of what they want, they begged, and they will give us our precious children back. Even if we pay a price in blood later on, that bloodshed is a future nightmare that may or may not materialize. Right now, we are dealing with reality, and it’s nightmare enough.

Some hoped international pressure could unlock the doors. We watched your courageous families as they traveled the world rallying presidents and prime ministers, politicians and pundits to the cause. They found allies and advocates in high places and led crowds in impassioned chants, pleading for your release.

Some of us hunted for a spiritual key to unlock the reservoirs of Divine mercy. We took on new tefillos or infused our regular ones with more fire. We took challah, gave tzedakah, and committed to extra kabbalos, all for your sake.

All the while, we knew that you were waiting beneath the ground not too far from us — but it may as well have been galaxies away, for all the short distance — and your plight was always there in our consciousness.

But also…

During these 11 months, we had our moments of joy and light. We savored family celebrations, Yom Tov meals, trips abroad, leisurely afternoons in the sunshine, brisk walks in the moonlight. We welcomed new additions to our families, we lit Chanukah candles and set Seder tables. We lived life.

Your smiling faces were there, reminders, on highways and bus stops and billboards across the country. Your eyes followed us in Ben-Gurion as we guided our suitcases toward the departure gates. But we were able to leave, to put the pain behind us. We were able to move on and focus on other things. We were able to forget sometimes.

You were never able to forget. You had no distractions. No escape from the misery and horror.

Eleven months is a short window to save six lives, but also a long time to stick to a single pursuit. It was a short enough time that we couldn’t forget the day your existence became a horror film, but also a long enough time that we could, and sometimes did, flick to a happier channel. It was less than a year’s worth of tefillos said while envisioning your faces and mouthing your names, but enough repetitions that those tefillos weren’t always so inspired.

After day after week after month of fruitless searching for a key that remained stubbornly hidden, the initial determination faded into despair, the unity into discord, and the shared toolbox of resources into splinters of accusations and outrage.

You’re up there now in that sphere unbounded by time or borders or negotiating tactics. You’ve gotten a glimpse of the bigger plan, the clarity that eludes us down here. And you know more than ever our frailty and incompetence.

You know it wasn’t like your captors said. We didn’t abandon you, we didn’t forget. But you also know that we could have done better. Many of us were able to put your plight on the back burner, likely more often than we should have.

The Shabbos following your burials, we read of the soul-searching that must ensue when a vulnerable traveler is murdered outside city limits. Yes, all mortals have a preordained time to leave this world, but still: The people who saw a traveler venture out into the hostile environment without lending him the proper protection can’t claim “our hands did not spill this blood.” Knowing what you were facing in that very hostile environment, did we do our absolute best to encircle you with every possible protection?

We hoped and we prayed but we also bickered and name-called and passed the buck and the blame. We devolved into the old fights and familiar conflicts that had brought us to the brink just a year before. We pointed fingers instead of locking arms and we hurled the most painful barbs instead of offering succor and solace. In your moment of greatest peril, we were eons away from that shining vision of unity.

And maybe that was the missing key all along.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1028)