Room for Both

Wednesday April 24, 2026/7 Iyyar 5786

Hevre/Friends,

We stood and sang “Acheinu” as they entered—the anthem for the hostages, carried by Jews around the world for 843 days, from October 7, 2023 until January 26, 2026, when Ran Gvili, z"l, the last hostage in Gaza, was brought home. On Monday morning, I was at the Heschel High School for what became one of the most powerful experiences of my life. Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin addressed our students about the unfathomable trauma their family endured when Hersh, z”l, was abducted and later murdered in Gaza.

At first, it felt almost strange to sing a prayer for hostages when, for the first time since 2014, there are none in Gaza. But then Rachel explained: when Hersh was a young child, he had a teacher who loved to sing with her students and taught them many beautiful Jewish prayers, including Acheinu. It became his favorite song, one he sang every day after school in the kitchen with his mother. That story brought the first of many tears that morning.

The hour was breathtaking—both in its heartbreak and in its hope. I will try to share a few moments.

It is important to note that, in our school’s inimitable wisdom, it was student leaders—not the “adults in the room”—who interviewed Rachel and Jon. Our Head of School, Ariela Dubler, charged these young people to grasp the gravity of this encounter, and then entrusted them with guiding us in uncovering, processing, and internalizing Rachel and Jon’s searing, sacred Torah into our broken yet resilient Jewish spirit.

In response to an opening question about their personal Jewish journeys, Jon spoke of being raised in an immersive, traditional Jewish home—one that instilled in him deep pride and an abiding sense of belonging to the Jewish people, a gift for which he is profoundly grateful. Rachel, by contrast, described a largely non-observant upbringing and her later turn toward Jewish practice as a teenager, when her parents enrolled her in an Orthodox high school. She spoke of the value of having to struggle for one’s Jewish identity and commitments. Together, their reflections posed an important challenge to us as parents and educators: how do we balance cultivating deep Jewish connection with inspiring our children to claim it as their own, with sustained devotion?

Anyone who has heard Rachel speak, or read her essays and newly published memoir, knows the quiet power of her voice—one forged in the fires of suffering. On Monday, her words were even more affecting.

Recalling a conversation with another mother who lost her son on October 7—an IDF soldier who had completed basic training just the day before and was killed trying to save others at the Nova festival—Rachel shared the woman’s response to their ongoing struggle of living with devastating loss: “We just have to get used to the fact that we will never get used to the fact.”

Learning to live without ever “getting used to it” is not about remaining trapped in trauma. It is, in fact, the opposite. It is a commitment to remain vigilant—to do the work necessary to prevent such tragedy from happening again, to anyone. Rachel gave voice to that commitment with haunting force.

A courageous ninth grader asked Rachel how she felt when the world urged Israel not to enter Rafah out of concern for Gazan civilians, despite intelligence that hostages were being held there. With striking moral clarity, Rachel affirmed the imperative to protect innocent Gazan civilians. But, she added, the world seemed to forget the other innocent civilians in Gaza—the ones who were dragged there, tortured, and murdered.

We are capable of holding more than one truth at once, she reminded us. Our obligation to compassion is not a zero-sum game. It must extend to all people—not only our own—but never at the expense of our own. “Anyone who mourns only the children lost to war on their own side, and not also the children of their enemies, is operating with a broken moral compass,” she said, with a grace that was both piercing and whole.

The students continued, asking with both respect and courage: “What is your purpose now, after enduring such shattering loss?”

Jon answered with a story.

A few weeks ago, walking in their Jerusalem neighborhood with one of their daughters, he was approached by a man he had never met. The man showed Jon his phone: the home screen was a photograph of Hersh. “Every morning,” the man said, “I reach for my phone, see Hersh’s face, and ask myself: what can I do today to help make the world more like the one Hersh believed in?”

That, Jon said, is now his purpose: to ensure that more and more people begin each day by asking what they can do to heal pain, deepen respect, extend kindness, and cultivate peace. I have taken on that practice. I invite you to join me.

This week, we marked Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha’Atzmaut. We mourned those who have been killed for defending, or simply living in, the State of Israel. And we celebrated—with proud yet heavy hearts—78 years of a modern Jewish homeland whose courage and resilience is astonishing and whose destiny and purpose remain clear, even when its leadership falls short.

We held both truths: disappointment when Israel fails to live up to its founding Jewish values of equality and freedom for all who live there, and gratitude for the miracle of its rebirth and the promise it still carries. As Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah, reminds us, and as Rachel has repeated to herself each day since October 7, 2023:

Hope is not a feeling. It is an obligation.

Shabbat Shalom, 

Dini

Photo by Ronen Avisror