We’re back

That’s what the headlines say, the news anchors, Home Front Command, the dads and the moms. We’re back. And we are all so busy with what we’ve returned to, and far, far less with what we have returned from.

And we returned from quite an ordeal. For a month we bombed and were bombed; we were in life-threatening danger; we ran to sheltered spaces at all hours of the day and night; we counted the thundering booms, echoing from far or near. Our systems and routines fell apart, and with them, homes, lands, people, and the basic sense of security were torn asunder. Blood was spilled; civilians and soldiers were killed. And honestly? Nothing has truly changed. All of this happened, and the only "achievement" was the opening of a strait that had already been open before this round of violence began.

But the officials won't tell us that. They will invest all their power into returning us to "routine." The regime needs this return because a pause and critical thinking are an existential threat to them – but the truth is that it is also convenient for us to escape. We cooperate with this rush forward because it is too frightening to equalize the pressure, to breathe, and to process what was going on here just a second ago. It’s easier to jump from zero to a hundred, from "everything is wrong" to "everything is fine," than to admit that we are still broken.

And perhaps now is the time to remember that when things fall apart, it’s an opportunity. An opportunity to linger and hold ourselves accountable: where exactly do we want to return to? What do we prefer to change instead of recreate? Haste, as they say, is from the devil, and so is our internal command to act as if nothing happened.

And since the man who can stop time has yet to be born, and since the calendar is indifferent to wars, we return from the latest round of violence straight into the sequence of "National Days." This is an opportunity to stop for a moment and ask if the reality we knew before is truly the reality we want going forward; to look at the exposed foundations of our home and try to build different structures upon them.

For example, the National Days.

We are used to three: Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day, and Independence Day. In practice, there are two more national days marked by our partners in this homeland: Land Day and Nakba Day. In the "normal" reality, the one where we are led like a herd so we won’t notice that all the destruction of the last month was in vain, most people don't even know when these days occur. And those who do know are commanded to ignore or deny them.

Imagine a reality in which all five of these days are respected. Not as a distant ceremony, but as an internal recognition. When we take responsibility for our part in them and stop closing our eyes like an infant who believes that if they cannot see, then what is before them no longer exists, the air in the room changes. Something opens. This is the building of recognition instead of denial. Incorporating the Palestinian national days into the Israeli consensus is not a "concession", it’s simply a new beginning of a new breath.

For example, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

For years we have been nursed on this terrible trauma; and for years the message distilled into us has been "we will never let them do this to us again." This message grants us a sense of moral superiority that authorizes us to do everything – everything! – to prevent a recurrence of the horror. When this fear manages us, it is easy for leaders to use it as a tool to justify their ends, exploiting it to dispossess and destroy in our name.

But there is another possibility. If the message were to change slightly: from "Never again to us" to "Never again to anyone."

 Rabbi A.J. Heschel at the third Selma march in Alabama, with Dr. M.L. King, John Lewis and others

But there is another possibility. If the message were to change slightly: from "Never again to us" to "Never again to anyone." Instead of being the first to crush out of fear, we would become the first to warn against the loss of humanity wherever it occurs. This is an entirely different essence for a people: a reality in which we are committed to peace out of our bitter experience, rather than to a war of eternal darkness.

And these are just two existing, fundamental examples that can remind us that the return to routine is not a decree of fate, but a choice. And there are more. Every time we agree to "return to ourselves" without asking who this "self" is that we have returned to, we forfeit the opportunity born within the ruins. Change will not begin in speeches in the Knesset nor in state ceremonies; it begins with our willingness to keep our eyes open even when it’s frightening, and to breathe deeply even when the air is thick with the dust of lies. Ultimately, the question is not whether they will let us build something else, but whether we will allow ourselves to be led down predetermined paths of lies, fake news, and gaslighting into more of the same, time after time, losing a little more of ourselves with every turn.

---

Ayala Shalev is the editor of That's About Us.