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The spiritual risks of lingering in the place of our pain
This article originally appeared in My Jewish Learning’s Shabbat newsletter Recharge. To sign up to receive Recharge each week in your inbox, click here.
(JTA) — How often have I sat in my tears over these last weeks? How many minutes have I spent in the ruins — the ruins of people’s lives, the ruins of fixed ideas, the ruins of hope. I keep my eyes on my inbox and watch as people jump to the doing, the rallying cries and the articulation of positions. Some of these seem sensible, some are frightening. But even when I agree with them, the words don’t change the feeling. Because I am not there yet. I am still crying in the ruins.
A story from Talmud comes to mind. In the course of a conversation about the proper circumstances for prayer, we are told about Rabbi Yosei ben Chalafta, who is visiting Jerusalem when the time comes for the afternoon prayer. So he ducks into a ruined house. This was the century following the Roman conquest of Jerusalem. Ruin was the landscape.
Rabbi Yosei begins his prayer but notices that he is being watched. It is the prophet Elijah, standing guard. When the prayer ends, the prophet scolds the rabbi for praying in a ruin. He should have prayed on the road, Elijah says. Rabbi Yosei explains that he was afraid of being interrupted by travelers and would have been unable to concentrate. But Elijah says he should have done it anyway.
Why? Why not pray in the quiet privacy of the ruin? The Talmud explains that there are dangers there. Demons may attack you. There is a risk of prostitution or lewd behavior. And there is the obvious fear that the physical structure could simply collapse on top of you.
The Talmud articulates this as a worry about physical risks. But I think the sages might have been just as concerned about the spiritual risks of lingering in the place of our pain. They are worried that we might be further harmed, or we might fetishize our trauma or become trapped in it altogether and unable to escape. So keep moving, the prophet seems to say. Let your prayer practice bend to the momentum. If you have to, offer a short version of your prayer to be done quicker. Just don’t linger in the memory of destruction.
Grief on the scale of the fall of Jerusalem ultimately requires a vessel that both honors and contains it. This vessel ultimately came to be the fast of Tisha B’Av, when we gather as a community to mourn. We pull the Book of Lamentations from the shelf and weep and chant our way through it. This is the frame that both expresses and contains our ancient grief. How long did it take our ancestors to reach a place where containment of that grief was possible?
A couple weeks ago, I attended an event for an AIDS service organization that I ran in the 1990s. Four decades have passed since its founding and the HIV epidemic is no longer an unceasing hammer of destruction. I walked into the ballroom and saw the faces of people I knew back when and I pictured the faces of people who are now long gone. Almost instantly, I was back in the ruins. I listened to the speeches and nibbled the hors d’oeuvres, but I struggled to contain my grief. Elijah might have told me to hit the road, but I didn’t want to run. The sadness was breaking my heart, but it was sweet too. Feeling the absence of old friends and colleagues was akin to feeling their presence; my grief was another flavor of love.
The Talmud also has mixed emotions about that sad place. Elijah reprimands Rabbi Yosei ben Chalafta for praying in the ruin, but in fact no actual harm befell him. So while this story is a scold, it is not clearly a cautionary tale. And more, the Talmud admits that there is a sweetness to praying in the ruin.
After a beat to change gears, Elijah asks the rabbi, “What did you hear while you were praying?” Rabbi Yosei responds that he heard a bat kol, a heavenly voice, and it was cooing like a dove. Elijah leans in further, and the rabbi tells him that the heavenly voice spoke words, saying, “Alas for my children, because of whose sins I destroyed my house and sent them into exile.”
Elijah excitedly tells Rabbi Yossei that such a voice cries out those words three times a day, every day. But the fact is that it was only here, in the brokenness of the broken building, that Rabbi Yosei was able to hear God’s own lament. In the ruin, he felt a divine companionship that was not obvious to him elsewhere. As Psalm 34 says, “God is close to the brokenhearted.” Perhaps that is the attraction of the ruin, that in our deepest grief we most clearly hear tza’ar hashechinah, the sorrow of the divine, cooing like a dove.
So when we find ourselves in the ruins, in the place of deep brokenness, we must remember to get out. And also to stay. For it is in the ruin that we and God cry together.
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The post The spiritual risks of lingering in the place of our pain appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.