October 10, 2025

I cannot help but feel a joyful hope as Shabbat begins and we dwell in our sukkah this week. On Tuesday morning, I walked 1.07 miles at 6:29 a.m. with the OSU Hillel Community to mark the two-year anniversary of October 7. That somber mourning, coupled with intense rain that hung over the day, left me feeling sad and detached. But a mere thirty-six hours later, we learned that the long-anticipated hostage deal and ceasefire had been reached and all sides would come together to sign the agreement. In that moment, I felt a sense of relief and optimism, as if the weight of the world was starting to lift off Israel and the Jewish people. Of course, we think of the hostages and their families who have been crying out for this greatly anticipated moment, and the families of the soldiers and reservists who have spent countless days serving Israel. And we must always hold in our hearts the 466 soldiers who died fighting for Israel’s right to exist and bring the hostages home, and all those who died on October 7. May we always remember their names.

And for those who are familiar with our sacred texts, many began to recall the verse in Nehemiah 8:17 which reads, “The whole community that returned from the captivity made booths and dwelt in the booths—the Israelites had not done so from the days of Joshua son of Nun to that day—and there was very great rejoicing.” The captivity referred to here was the Babylonian exile, which took place after the destruction of the First Temple. Upon their return to Israel, they heard the Torah read aloud for the first time, and they took it upon themselves to fulfill the mitzvah of joy with the celebration of Sukkot, what our rabbis came to call zman simchateinu, the time of our rejoicing. The Israelites having not done so since the days of Joshua served as a reminder of the cyclical nature of our collective Jewish story. The Sukkot in the time of Joshua marked a liminal moment between our redemption and our returning home. And now a new generation returned home from captivity and built booths as a reminder of our past. In this moment, we rejoice on Sukkot because we are commanded to, but we rejoice because our people have been broken for far too long, with some of our family held in captivity for 735 days.

Yesterday morning, I decided to Google Hostage Square. I wanted to see if there was anything that would capture the feeling of the moment. I recall on our congregation’s trip in May 2024, I left the airport, and the taxi dropped me at Hostage Square to meet our group, which arrived only hours before. It was a somber place set with a Shabbat table that carried the dust of the tunnels. The clock counting the time from the start of the war was a central marker of this sad place, and the tents representing the communities that had been attacked along the Gaza border represented the potential for human connection and the stories that would now be etched on the hearts of our people for eternity. We sat in the tent and listened to their stories. Every Saturday evening since October 2023, that place has been home to rallies calling on the government to bring the hostages home. It has been a place of prayer, sadness, tears, and hope.

When I Googled Hostage Square, videos played of singing and dancing, and tears of hope. They sang Hava Nagila, Shalom Aleichem, Od Yavo Shalom, and Bashanah Haba’ah. They also sang Shir L’shalom, a song of peace. It was the song that Yitzhak Rabin sang in 1995 before his assassination, whose bloodied words were recovered from his pocket. Rachel Shani Stopper, from our sister city of Kfar Saba, said to the Times of Israel, “This is the most exciting day we have, that we could have expected…It is impossible to imagine what it will be like when we bring [the hostages] to the country, walking on the soil of the land of Israel.” Stopper came for the weekly rallies, but she said she never sang like she did this week. She says it was a reflex, not an active choice. “For two years,” she said, “we’ve held the sadness, pain, and frustration, and now it’s just coming out. You can’t control it.”

Hostage Square is located outside the Beit Ariela Library and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. It sits opposite the IDF Headquarters. Prior to October 7th, it was known as Golda Meir Square. This location was chosen because it sits opposite the IDF headquarters, and it was the hope that the hostages would always remain the focus of the war. Amit Slonim wrote for the Jerusalem Post that former hostage Emily Damari had arrived. We remember her because of her now permanently wounded hand, missing two fingers. She was singing Od Avinu Chai. She hugged fellow hostages who returned from Gaza and says it is a fellowship no one asked for. Former hostage Omer Shem Tov was smiling, but Slonim writes that this smile is different than prior ones. He says, “It is an exhale shaped like joy with the optimism of hope.” Ziv Abud just wants to pull the plug on that remote counting the days.

Danny Moran’s son Omri was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nahal Oz and told SkyNews, “I feel a heavenly sense of joy and overwhelmed with emotion. There is no greater joy than this. It has been like waiting 9 months for a baby, but instead I have been waiting for two years. I feel ecstatic.”

These expressions of anticipated joy and relief, coupled with singing and dancing, brought me to a verse from Psalm 30 which reads hafachta misp’di l’machol. It is traditionally translated, “You turned my mourning into dancing.” Rabbi Richard Levy, in his commentary on the Book of Psalms entitled Songs Ascending, writes that “All of us experienced times in our lives such as illness or depression when we felt like we were living on the edge of an abyss of despair, abandonment or hopelessness.” Rabbi Levy, in his wisdom, suggests that rather than feeling as though God and all other beings have abandoned us, the psalmist encourages us to see this dark condition as an experience of God’s anger or facelessness, rather than God’s absence. Then finally, when our situation changes, our lament turns to joy, our grief to dance. Rabbi Levy says such a response comes because we long for it, we hope for it, we pray for it. It will not come unless we ask for it. The preceding verse reads, “Listen Adonai, show graciousness to me, Adonai, be my help.” We have been praying for the return of the hostages for two years. When they return, it will be a time for rejoicing.

And yet, the joy does not solely reflect the complexity of emotions of this moment. While they are coming home, the physical condition of the hostages will bring us tears of sadness. And for the families of the 28 hostages who are no longer alive, they will cry tears of grief. Rotem Cooper, son of Amiram Cooper, whose father lived for four months in captivity and died there, says in this moment he feels he will be lucky to get his remains and bury them. For Cooper, this is the best outcome. For others like Cooper, they will hopefully be able to hold funerals and observe shiva.

It will be a period of national joy and grief. It seems odd to hold those emotions all together at one time. But the traditional reading for Sukkot, the Book of Ecclesiastes, reminds us, “A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven: there is a time for weeping, and a time for laughing, a time for wailing, and a time for dancing.” While the Midrash teaches us that the weeping and wailing are tied to a period of mourning, the laughing and the dancing to the time afterwards. But what if it all happens on the same day and in the same season? Perhaps these words are meant to remind us that life is filled with complex emotions. Biblical scholar Michael V. Fox explains that the answer to our question may be found in the word zman, meaning time. This word is repeated throughout this poem and does not refer to specific moments in time but an occasion that is right for something. He reminds us that certain occasions demand a certain type of response. This moment demands a multifaceted response because we have held a collective grief and sorrow for two years. God willing, we will celebrate the return of 20 living hostages, but we will mourn and grieve with those whose lives will forever remain wounded because of the barbaric attacks of October 7th.

And what if there are bodies that don’t come home or cannot be returned? How shall we respond? The Shulchan Arukh (Yoreh Deah 375), a Jewish legal text, says that if a body cannot be recovered, one observes shiva and says kaddish but does not hold a funeral. It is an incomplete mourning. We cannot truly build back what we had on October 6th, 2023. There will always be scars and wounds. Just as we carry the pain of the destruction of the Temples and mourn those moments, maybe there is something we can capture from the lessons the rabbis taught about its destruction. In the Tosefta (Sotah 15:10–15), a rabbinic legal code that parallels the Mishnah, we learn about a great discussion of how we should mourn the loss of the Temple. Rabbi Ishmael explains that since the destruction, it would be appropriate that we do not eat meat or drink wine since these were used in the Temple service. Rabbi Yehoshua responds that if we are going to do this, then we should not even drink water, for it was used as well. The followers of Rabbi Ishmael were shocked. To which Rabbi Yehoshua said to them, we cannot mourn excessively, and it is impossible to not mourn at all. He reminds them that a person may plaster their house with lime, but they leave a small amount unplastered as a remembrance of Jerusalem. Perhaps, leaving a place on the wall unplastered or unpainted, combined with the partial mourning rituals, we will encounter reminders of the eternal brokenness. Maybe it can help bring some measure of comfort. It will never be complete.

The images of dancing in Hostage Square will stay with me as much as the tears and pain of that place. We are a people that builds and rebuilds on top of the sorrow. Where have we done that? In the holy city of Jerusalem. In the Book of Ezra, we begin to learn about the rebuilding of the Second Temple upon that return from exile and captivity. We read, “When the builders had laid the foundation of the Temple of the Eternal, they sang songs extolling and praising God, ‘For God is good, God’s steadfast love for Israel is eternal.’ All the people raised a great shout extolling the Eternal because the foundation of the House of the Eternal had been laid.” When they rebuilt the Temple, they shouted together. However, in the next verse we read, “The elders who had seen the first Temple, wept loudly at the sight of the founding of this house. Many others shouted at the top of their voices.” Here we see the complex emotions of the community. Those who witnessed the destruction and had experienced the loss must have recalled the memories of the destruction. How painful those memories must have been. The younger generation shouts with joy because they did not know the personal pain. But then the next verse comes to teach, “The people could not distinguish the shouts of joy from the people’s weeping, for the people raised a great shout, the sound of which could be heard from afar.” The weeping and the joy become indistinguishable. God willing, in the days ahead, when the hostages return, we can begin to heal from our collective grief and trauma. The weeping and the shouts of joy will unite because as a people, we will hold that pain and resilience together. And tonight, we hope for the last time, we will pray for the return of the hostages with this new blessing written for this moment.

May It Be

May it be, our brothers and sisters, that just as you showed strength and courage in the terrible inferno, so may you find the strength to heal upon your return and as you walk the path of recovery. May you be embraced by the tens of thousands of loving hearts that never stopped worrying, hoping, acting, and working for your sake.

May it be that we know how to serve as a support and a source of strength—material, emotional, and spiritual—for you and your families. May we together weave the thread of the hope for salvation, so that your return will proclaim peace and herald good.

May it be that we preserve this shared home. May we honor the light revealed in the actions of all those who never stopped striving and crying out for your return.

May it be that the memory of those we could not bring back safely, and those who fell in battle, remain with us forever—an eternal flame of pain and hope, of sorrow and consolation.

May the verse be fulfilled through us: “To bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives” (Isaiah 61:1). Let us all say: Amen.

Sources:

[1] https://jewishrituals.org.il/tkasim/may-it-be/?mc_cid=b0143fd0a9&mc_eid=c9c03ba22d

[1] Songs Ascending, Rabbi Richard Levy, CCAR Press

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/group-dances-sings-songs-of-hope-and-peace-at-hostages-square-in-tel-aviv/

[1] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-869878 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUhNhYSfVBE

October 10, 2025

On Tuesday morning October 7th, I joined the OSU Hillel community at 6:29 AM to walk 1.07 miles to remember the barbaric attacks that took place two years earlier. The somberness of the day and the heaviness of the rain weighed on us as we prayed for the return of the hostages and sang Hatikvah at Mirror Lake. I was invited to be the community rabbinic representative.

Thirty-six hours later, on October 8th, the world received the news that a deal had been finalized to return the hostages and end the war. Such news brings joy and relief as the two years of war, anguish, and suffering can come to an end. The effects of the war will scar our souls for years to come as the pain of the hostages and their families was a focus for Jews all over the world. Every innocent life that was lost in this war will remain in our hearts as well.

For the last two years we have prayed for the return of the hostages as part of our weekly Shabbat prayers. It is my hope that, as we welcome Shabbat this evening, this will be the last time we have to pray these words. These words begin with a word of family, acheinu (our siblings) and then continue to remind us that the whole house of Israel has been brought to pain. When they return, the entire family of Israel rejoices. May it be so.

At the conclusion of the Amidah, we always offer a prayer for peace. In Mishkan Tefilah, our siddur, there is a footnote with teachings from a text called Perek HaShalom. They are a collection of statements about peace from the minor tractate of the Talmud called Derekh Eretz Zuta. One of the teachings reminds us, “Great is peace, for peace is to the world as leaven is to dough.” Peace is an essential component of the world. It is the leaven that causes dough to rise. So too, peace causes humanity to rise in its spirituality, in its ethical demands, in its efforts to help us exist.

In the years ahead there will be many books written about how this deal came to be. Pressures from President Trump and his negotiating team of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner; pressures from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey brought both sides to the table. Peace is fragile, it is something we pray about and something we must work towards.

The entire nation of Israel can breathe again. It is our hope that we are emerging from this narrow place, this mitzrayim, and we are welcomed into a wide expanse. The Psalmist so beautifully captures this sentiment when expressing the words in Psalm 118:6 “Minhameitzar karati yah, anani bamerchav yah…From the narrow places I called to God, from a wide expanse God called to me.” The claustrophobic narrow spaces make it hard to breathe, but entering the vast expanse makes breathe easier.

As we enter this Shabbat on Chol HaMoed Sukkot, we pray that the Sukkah of Shalom, the fragile shelter of peace will bring us comfort and that this agreement will endure.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rick Kellner

October 3, 2025

With last evening’s final blast of the Shofar still echoing in souls, I want to hearken back to one prayer we shared during yesterday’s long day of prayer. When I need to feel grounded during the year, these are words I might turn to which would remind me of our core purpose. When we long for God’s presence, these are the places we go to find the touch of the Holy.

As we, once again, read these words with Shabbat about to emerge, may our hearts be filled with compassion to hold all the brokenness, and may our hands be strong so that we can collectively heal the wounds of the brokenhearted.

Yesterday, Rabbi Martin addressed the painful divisiveness in our society and the importance of openness to diverse viewpoints. She encouraged us to join together in a listening campaign in which we will share our concerns about the complexities we are facing together.

On Wednesday evening, I spoke about the importance of maintaining a connection to and a love for Israel, even if some of us might feel troubled by actions taken by the Israeli government. Our commitment to Israel needs to be grounded in our connection to our people and a vision for a better tomorrow. I hope you will consider joining me in a learning series I will be offering entitled “Two Peoples, One Land” in which we will be strengthen our understanding of our own narrative as it is tied to the State and land of Israel. We will also explore the Palestinian narrative so we can gain a better understanding of the complexity of the history. If you would like to read my sermon, A New Dream of Zion, please click here.

Though Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are behind us, we still have exciting plans to celebrate Sukkot and Simchat Torah. I want to take a moment to thank Rabbi Martin for her leadership. It has been a blessing to have a clergy partner this year. Thank you to Julie Sapper, our Director of Musical Programming for her coordination, leadership, and direction of our Shironim, Neilah Singers, Teen Singers, and Instrumentalists. Thank you to John Stefano and Debbie Costa, for their beautiful voices and partnership in leadership. Thank you to Morissa Freiberg, Hannah Movshin, Bentley Adkins, and Cade Crane for their coordination and leadership of our youth programming and services. I would also like to thank Debbie Vinocur, Hannah Karr, Everett Smith, Rhonda Simon, Alisa Swissa, Enos Wisnewski and our custodial team for their attention to detail and the planning of all the logistics for our High Holy Day Services. We know that you do so much behind the scenes and the High Holy Days would not happen without you. Thank you to the many volunteers, including all our singers, ushers, greeters, the Brotherhood and Women of Beth Tikvah for all you did to make these High Holy Days possible.

As we move into the year ahead, may we each find opportunities to connect with one another through the many offerings we share.

Shanah Tovah and Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rick Kellner