With the rockets falling on Sderot all week, with the deaths on the border, with the politics at an all-time low for me, I suddenly can’t remember a seder in Israel without some danger. I’m sure it will come back to me – since seders are always a great place to remember the self in relation to society, and are the basis for a reintegration, an ordering of life. But right now I can only think of a recurring dream in my childhood in which Hitler breaks into our house on Remington Street on the night of the seder and murders us all. Of course I hide under the table, but eventually he finds me.
Having said that, today was full of profound personal relations – revelations and connections enough to fill a lifetime. Babies, romantic loves, a hospice – All was experienced with equanimity. But when I came home, and found that “Waltz With Bashir” was on tv and there was only a half hour left, I sat down immediately. I came in at the point in the film where the reality of Sabrah and Shattilah was becoming clear, and I anticipated the move from animation to reality with bated breath. And when the old woman appeared at the end, indicating the absolute destruction around her and screaming in Arabic, “film this, film this, film this” I sobbed. It was not a displacement or a sublimation of the emotions I had experienced: The more intense my own life becomes, the more I feel for every single life. And I’m glad of it.
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