By Tal Bahar

Baruch atah HaShem, Elokeinu, Melech haolam, shehecheyanu, v'kiyamanu, v'higianu lazman hazeh.

So many emotions are gathered within me right now, and so few words.

Everything I write will diminish the holiness of this moment; a moment we have prayed for 843 days, a moment we have waited for since October 7, 2023.

Rani Gvili HYD has returned home for a proper burial in our homeland. Carried on the wings of his return, came the news that there are no longer any Israeli hostages held in Gaza, for the first time since 2014.

Pain and grief burn within me now: for all the souls who gave their lives to protect ours, and a small, fragile consolation, in knowing that only now, has their mission been completed. And yet, alongside that pain, and even stronger, is the pride I feel in the people of heroes that we are. Even stronger still is the deep hope that rise within me as I look toward the Israeli horizon.

In recent weeks, I have been listening again and again to the song “Days of Quiet.” It was written about the calm that arrives after chaos and storm, woven, of course, with echoes of the story of Noah’s Ark.
Today, it feels more fitting than ever.

Now, we can “gather the fragments of the storm. Here they come, days of quiet…”

Days of Quiet / Lola

Here they come days of quiet

After the great and terrible noise

We can rest a little on the balcony

And gather the fragments of the storm

 

Here they come days of quiet

I already forgot how they look

Now we can open the door

And send birds into the wind

 

Here they come days of quiet

We’ll go to the window and see

If the waters have eased

Maybe there’s land on the horizon already

Two by two

We’ll go out two by two

We’ll look up at the sky

And wait together for the dove

 

Here they come days of quiet

After we’ve already lost it all

Sit with me now on the balcony

Cry with me together over yesterday

 

Here they come days of quiet

The two of us together on the mountain

The waters have receded, there’s a rainbow too

We can rise, the end of the world has passed.