​About pain (Feb 2nd, 2024)

Growing up in Israel, whenever I asked someone:
‘How are you?’
The answer was always:
‘Yihiye Beseder’… (It will be ok…)
This was the automated response, as far back as I can remember.
When my cousin from South Africa came to visit, both of us barely adults, I asked him one day, ‘How are you?’
His answer was: ‘Great, really good!’
(Or something to that affect; it was a long time ago).
I remember it to this day, because it took me by surprise.
No one had ever answered that question that way.
‘What do you mean good? No one is ‘good’!
And that is how it was, growing up in Israel. Even in times of peace, of some sorts, things were never quite ‘good’.
My cousin, who I loved dearly, despite the brief acquaintance, died of cancer at the age of 26. A true light in this world was taken from us then.
Now days, when I ask friends and family in Israel and elsewhere, how are they coping, the answer is usually something like:
‘Ok, not great. But it could be worse.’
Of course it could be worse! Especially within Jewish life, in Israel, and abroad. But that is not what I asked. I asked: ‘How are YOU?’
Pain is pain, it is not relative. One’s pain it is not negated, nor is it legitimised, by another’s. There is no lesser pain!
People in Israel struggle to express their pain, because they will not permit themselves the right to acknowledge it. How dare I complain when so many have suffered more. How dare I hurt when so many are subjected to unimaginable brutality as we speak?!
They feel undeserving of their own space to hurt, to fear, to grieve, when so many others suffer.
We owe it to ourselves, our families, and our people, to be kind to ourselves, just as we are supportive and kind to our fellow beings. Israelis and Jews worldwide are good at that, at supporting each other. But how can we look to the future, each and every one of us, separately, and as a nation, if we do not allow ourselves the space within ourselves, to heal?