Hostage Releases: A flood of emotion

 A MESSAGE FROM RABBI ALIZA

We are living in absolutely impossible-feeling times. Here in the US, across the whole globe, and in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. These times are overwhelming, exhausting, terrifying, and in many ways feel completely unfathomable. We must be intentional to fight isolation. When the world is scary, it is easy to want to put up walls to protect ourselves - and to keep out the pain. But: Community and togetherness - and staying human is our strongest form of resistance to this overwhelm and terror. 

 It has been exactly one month since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement went into effect on January 19th. Over this past month, and since the very first day of the ceasefire when Israeli hostages Emily, Doron, and Romi were brought back home to Israel, every time a small group of hostages has been released and has come home, I have had my eyes glued to the screen, hit with a sustained overflow of emotion. I know so many share this experience with me. I know that in Israel, the whole country is up early in the morning each morning on which there is a hostage release scheduled. Again, we are living in unfathomable times. 

 Amidst all the emotion and the impossibility of words to capture anything at all, one emotion that has been consistent for me each time a group of hostages comes home has been the feeling of a full-body "out-breath" of total relief. To see the hugs and embraces of families reuniting, to sob with them over here from the US, has offered my own body a moment of release in the midst of enormous tragedy. Part of it is the sheer humanity of those desperate hugs. Part of it is the specific and particular identification I so often feel with those families. This relief comes with the great grief, of course,that the healing from trauma will take lifetimes. 

 We are in the midst of a terrifying week in terms of the news around hostage releases - and the public nature of it. My heart goes fully, wholly, and completely out to the Bibas family: Ariel and Kfir Bibas, the two youngest Israeli hostages taken to Gaza, have come in so many ways to symbolize all of the Israeli hostages, and the Bibas family is in the midst of a horrifying and tragic week. The family has publicly said that, despite all of the public attention and deep anguish, they have not yet received any official confirmation of the fate of Kfir, Ariel, and Shiri, and until they have, their "journey is not over." I am sending deep, deep, deep prayers to Yarden, husband of Shiri and father of Ariel and Kfir, who was released from captivity in Gaza earlier this month and whose pain I cannot possibly begin to imagine, and to the entire family. 

 All of us at HBT have different relationships to everything going on here in our own country, in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, and globally. Some of us are immensely, immensely close to the pain. Some of us are further away from it. This week with this news, the Jewish world as a whole is shaken to our core, yet again. 

 I invite all of us, this week and in all weeks, to lean into three types of care: First, taking care of ourselves at the foundation: This means eating well, sleeping, drinking water, and exercising. It means connecting with and staying grounded with our own selves, in the ways we know how, so that we are in a better position to face the overwhelm. Second, reaching for support. Specifically, reaching for support from those further from the pain than we are. Asking for what we need - and trusting that people deeply want to show up for us. Third, checking in on others. Specifically, checking in with those closer to the pain than we are. Remembering what is going on for people, tracking what is happening in their lives, and texting or calling to check in. We can support ourselves, check in on others, and ask for support all at the same time. We must. 

 Each morning, in the very first part of our davening (prayer), we recite the following blessing: 

 בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם מַתִּיר אֲסוּרִים

Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha'olam matir asurim. 

Blessed are You, Adonai our Gd, Ruler of the universe, who frees the captives. 

 Pidyon shevuyim (פִּדְיוֹן שְׁבוּיִים) - the redemption of captives - is a key Jewish obligation with hugely significant weight in halakha (Jewish law). 

 Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, one of Judaism's most influential teachers) writes in the Mishneh Torah:

 "The redemption of captives receives priority over sustaining the poor and providing them with clothing. There is no greater mitzvah than the redemption of captives. For a captive is among those who are hungry, thirsty, and unclothed and he is in mortal peril. If someone pays no attention to his redemption, he violates the negative commandments: 'Do not harden your heart or close your hand' (Deuteronomy 15:7), 'Do not stand by when the blood of your neighbor is in danger' (Leviticus 19:16), and 'He shall not oppress him with exhausting work in your presence' (Leviticus 25:53). And he has negated the observance of the positive commandments: 'You shall certainly open up your hand to him' (Deuteronomy 15:8), 'And your brother shall live with you' (Deuteronomy 19:18), 'Love your neighbor as yourself' (Leviticus 19:18), 'Save those who are taken for death' (Proverbs 24:11), and many other decrees of this nature. There is no mitzvah as great as the redemption of captives. (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Matanot Aniyim 8:10)

 The Shulchan Aruch, likely the most significantly consulted code of Jewish law, teaches about pidyon shevuyim, "Every moment that one delays unnecessarily the ransoming of a captive, it is as if he were to shed blood." (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 252:3)

 All of the hostages must be freed and must come home immediately. A ceasefire must hold. Escalation of violence must end. Those who stay human and prioritize humanity must lead us out of this horror. 

 I am sending enormous, enormous care to you all,

Rabbi Aliza

RABBI ALIZA SCHWARTZ BLESSED TO BE JOINING THE HBT COMMUNITY

A Message from Rabbi Aliza

Rabbi Aliza Schwartz believes that the work of creating connection and belonging is sacred. She strives to always be a part of bringing people toward one another and toward larger containers of “home.” She feels certain that when we are embraced for our whole selves, we are able to bring our whole selves to everything we do, and communities and worlds deeply benefit. 

In this particular world moment, and always, Rabbi Aliza fights for a deeply-rooted Judaism that stands loudly against racism, loudly against antisemitism, loudly against Islamophobia, and loudly against the systems that allow for dehumanization and that pit humans against one another. She fights for a Judaism that embodies at its root the knowing that all of humanity is sacred, is divine, is made b’tselem elohim, in the image of Gd. 

Rabbi Aliza was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2024. She is a board member of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. During rabbinical school, she worked for two years as a Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Intern at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (CBST) in New York, the world’s largest LGBTQ synagogue. Additionally, she served as an interfaith hospital chaplain and interned at Lions Gate Continuing Care Retirement Community. She spent one year of her rabbinic training in Jerusalem, both studying at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and doing protective presence and solidarity work, especially in Masafer Yatta, an area home to several Palestinian villages in the South Hebron Hills of the West Bank.

Before rabbinical school, Rabbi Aliza was in leadership for many years at Kavod, a multi-ethnic, multi-racial community led by young Jews that lives out its values through vibrant Jewish ritual, transformative social justice organizing, and collective responsibility. Rabbi Aliza served on Kavod's board for four years and as Board President for two. Rabbi Aliza worked for about 3.5 years at the New Israel Fund as Assistant Director for the New England Region, and she has been a strategy coach and trainer for IfNotNow, especially in its early years. An alumna of AmeriCorps and JOIN for Justice’s Jewish Organizing Fellowship, Rabbi Aliza served as Community Organizer at Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters. Before that, she spent a year in South Tel Aviv, working with Sudanese and Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers.

Rabbi Aliza is absolutely thrilled, and considers herself deeply blessed, to be joining the HBT community. She also considers herself enormously blessed to be following the rabbinic leadership of Rabbi Emerita Barbara Penzner, after Rabbi Penzner’s 28 years of inspirational leadership of HBT, and she is deeply grateful as well to Rabbi Noyo, for their interim year serving the community. Rabbi Aliza is so excited to build together, pray together, act in the world together, learn together, and be with one another. She cannot wait to get to know each and every person at HBT.

Rabbi Aliza’s quote to live by: “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.” -Cornel West