Breaking the heifer’s neck

When I talk about "the day after," I don’t mean the day after in Gaza. There, it seems, things will probably continue to be bad, mainly because there isn’t a single power around that can put an end to it. So for a moment, and unlike what’s common here, I want to turn my gaze inward, to us, the Israelis, in Israel. I want, just for a moment, to pause the thoughts about how right and victimized we are, about what’s being done to us, how much we’re hated, how everyone is antisemitic against us, how much we want good and everyone else wants bad, and all that terrible music that plays nonstop on all the propaganda… sorry, media… channels.

Ayala Shalev, Editor, That’s About Us

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Breaking the heifer’s neck

Thoughts about the day after

What have we got here

Let me start with the obvious – the massacre Hamas committed on October 7th was a severe, horrific, and shocking event by any measure. As with any crime, everyone who took part in what happened there deserves to be punished. I have no compassion for murderers, and I believe that’s exactly why we have legal systems – to deal with and punish accordingly.

What’s less obvious is how the Israeli response to the event developed, and where it has brought us today.

Israel was badly hurt and responded immediately. Maybe things would look different today if Israel’s response hadn’t been immediate revenge, but a more planned reaction that took into consideration more parts of reality. For example, what if, after we all realized what has happened, the decision-makers had declared a week of mourning, a national Shiva, to let us all process and digest? What if, before anything else, we were allowed to bury the dead, comfort the mourners, and honor the victims’ memory? What if that week had been used to build a real action plan, with real goals, measures of success, and forward-thinking about the political change we want from this war – a change that would truly end the ongoing mutual aggression? What if the media had presented this attack as it really is – a part of the endless cycles of violence and blows between Israel and Gaza, and that this time, we were the ones hurt, unlike previous rounds?

But that’s not what happened. The Israeli leadership launched an attack immediately, stormed Gaza with all its might—and it has a lot of might—blinded by pain and a desire for revenge, and hasn’t stopped since. Even the ceasefire declared in January was broken by the government, after all the agreed upon hostages had been returned. The media followed along, constantly echoing and amplifying the government, bringing more and more generals into the studios, and not giving any space to even consider alternative paths. With all this power influencing Israeli public opinion, the result is clear—an overwhelming majority of Israelis support unprecedented killing of innocent civilians and the total destruction of their physical world.

Some data

On October 7th, between 3,000 and 6,000 attackers entered Israel, killed about 1,200 people, and kidnapped around 250 to Gaza. Since then, Israel has killed about 57,000 people in Gaza according to official numbers – but these don’t include those buried under rubble, people who never reached hospitals, or others who died from hunger or poor sanitary conditions. Estimates speak of 100,000 dead. All the data on the destruction in Gaza can be seen here.

There’s no point in recounting everything that’s happened in these almost two years. We’ve all read, watched, written, spoken, shouted, protested, demonstrated, gotten angry, cried, cursed, and followed every twist in this bloody story. And now, exhausted and confused, we’ve reached a place where maybe, just maybe, we’re nearing the end – some kind of end. And if and when that end comes, when the waves of incitement calm down, and the thirst for revenge is declared over, when the army takes off its uniforms – at least most of them – we, the Israeli society, will be left with a lot of blood on our hands, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll start to realize what we’ve done, and have to figure out what to do with it now.

Breaking the heifer’s neck

In Deuteronomy 21, this story is told, and from it comes a commandment – one whose core is taking responsibility. In my sins, I studied for several years at the Kolot Beit Midrash, and this story caught my attention and occupied me quite a bit.

“If someone is found slain, lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who the killer was, 2 your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. 3 Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke 4 and lead it down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer’s neck. 5 The Levitical priests shall step forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the Lord and to decide all cases of dispute and assault. 6 Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, 7 and they shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. 8 Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, Lord, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent person.” Then the bloodshed will be atoned for, 9 and you will have purged from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the Lord.”

Basically, this story is about the value of human life and the responsibility of chosen public officials and leaders to ensure that even when a murderer isn’t caught, there’s still soul-searching and thought about how it happened and how to prevent it from happening again. In my view, what’s happening in Gaza and Israel can be seen through the lens of the “Egla Arufa” story, and there’s much to learn from it.

The temptation is great to define the event as “not our problem,” to skip over it, avoid it, and move on… but in reality, the past two years have torn a huge hole in the familiar fabric of our society. If there’s no one to blame, who will be held accountable? Can we really move on as if nothing happened?

Even a single body found in a field has consequences for its surroundings, even if there’s no finger to point at the guilty party. That’s just how the world works – when something happens around us, it affects us all, and it’s foolish to look away and say, “This doesn’t affect me.” The very act of saying “it’s not our problem” already hints at a connection to the event. That connection clearly exists, and now it’s up to us as a society to define it, name it, and examine who we are in relation to it. Even those who think we’re not to blame, who say “there are no innocents in Gaza,” don’t deny what we’ve done – they just justify it in different ways. So it’s better for us to address what happened than to leave the wound open, bleeding, and untreated. It’s better for us to do something we’ve never done as an Israeli society – to pause, take responsibility for what happened, recognize it, acknowledge it, and not just ignore it and move on, throwing these almost two years into the same pit where we tossed the Nakba, the occupation, ingrained racism, militaristic education, and glorification of death as heroism. We’ve already seen that this leads nowhere good.

Within Israeli society, there are different positions regarding the genocide in Gaza – and for those who struggle with the term “genocide,” feel free to substitute it with “the killing and wounding of hundreds of thousands of people – men, women, and children – starvation, displacement, flattening of the Strip, and making it unlivable” – and regarding the abandonment of the hostages. Some pulled the trigger themselves, some set the policies that allowed it, some gave direct orders. And then there’s the vast, almost total, majority who supported this relentless aggression and gave themselves the usual excuses listed above. Even those whose hands didn’t directly shed blood did much so that “their eyes would not see”. Maybe the end of the violence will simply allow them to open their eyes and look back at the terrible reality they helped create.

Facing reality and taking responsibility are statements about what was and what will be, and this is one of the most meaningful ways to process and give meaning to what happened – in order to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Only when that happens, only when we recognize what we’ve done, can we begin to fill the terrible void that remains, start to heal, and find a new path forward—hopefully one that doesn’t include more killing, and does include seeing the good in everyone who lives here. What a blessed change that would be!

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