Of all of the post-October 7 Israeli poetry I have had the honor of reading in these brutal 12 months, perhaps none has a more painful opening than Kaddish by Asaf Gur. A journalist by trade, he draws on perhaps the most-recited words of our tradition to offer a scathing theological commentary.

Yitgadal V’yitkadash Shmei Raba
And no one came
Many thousands called Him on Shabbat morning
Crying His name out loud
Begging Him with tears just to come
But He ceased from all His work
No God came
And no God calmed

Reading these words even now—maybe especially now—takes my breath away. He draws such a painful picture of the shock, the devastation, the total abandonment. If the opening of the poem was not enough, he closes with these words:

And there is no government
And there is no mercy
Just the screaming and the pictures
That will never leave the mind
The seventh of October
Two thousand twenty three.

And while I am often loath to draw such comparisons, I cannot help but think of the post-Holocaust theology I have studied, all seeking to answer the question Gur is asking: Where was God? How could God have allowed such a thing?

I am humble enough to know that generations of scholars wiser than me have tried to answer the question, and I also think I have learned enough to know that there is not one single answer. So, today—on this one year anniversary of this horrific day—I offer the theological lesson to which I have turned time and again, taught to me in Waveland, Mississippi in September 2005.

I was there with the Union for Reform Judaism, who was operating a massive supply depot out of their Mississippi-based Jacobs Camp in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And while distributing supplies in the decimated town of Waveland, I met Pete—a conservative Christian from Texas who was doing the same with his church group. As we stood, standing facing a sea of desperate humanity, he said something I have carried with me ever since: “When God shows us the worst that He [sic] has got, we humans step up with the best that we’ve got.” For me, it also means that when humans are at their worst, and we cannot imagine that God could possibly be present, we need to be the Divine Presence.

You heard me reflect on this on Yom Kippur, talking about all of the ways Israelis, and American Jews and our community, showed up in the immediate aftermath—and beyond. I have seen this in the tears of pain—and occasionally joy and hope—we have shared in these 365 days. In many ways, it is a part of our Wise School theme for the year: hishtadel l’hiyot ish, strive to be a mensch. While the Mishnah teaches about a place where there is no humanity, it feels even more urgent to show up when it feels like God is distant, or missing.

Today is a painful day, a terrible reminder of all we lost and are still missing. But,I want to offer a small bit of what our tradition calls a nechemta, a comfort. We should have, even today, a note of hope. If Asaf Gur’s Kaddish breaks our hearts, this poem—God, Full of Compassion—by Ido Ganiram is a thread with which we can begin to stitch it together. Based on El Malei Rachamim, the memorial prayer, he dedicates his poem to the soldiers of the Search and Identification Unit, who showed up day after day for their terrible task:

O God, full of compassion,
Who dwells even in the refrigerators
Grant true rest
To those carriers under the stretcher
With the virtues of patience, vigilance, determination…

He writes of the people who showed up and showed the best of humanity in the worst of circumstances, whose work provided God’s presence and God’s comfort to families who could not find that anywhere, who granted dignity in death to those who were denied it in life. And his final words offer, perhaps, a vision for all of us—a way to bring Divine love into a space filled with human hatred:

And stand side by side when the crises arrive,
And You will say Amen

May we always stand side by side when crises arrive, and may we—together—know joy. May the souls of those murdered be forever a blessing. And let us say: Amen.

We hope you will gather with us tonight for a ceremony of memory, comfort, and even hope.

—Rabbi Sari Laufer