Our hearts are shattered today as we mourn the brutal slaying of Shiri Bibas and her toddlers, Ariel and Kfir, as well as Oded Lifshitz. For 500 days we held out hope. We thought about them, cried for them, begged and pleaded for their return, prayed for their safety, and hoped beyond hope they would be returned to us alive and whole. Now, that hope has been decimated. Today the world mourns.
Now we are broken. Broken and outraged. How are there monsters roaming this earth that would willingly murder a mother and her babies? How can they proudly parade their coffins through cheering crowds and the world watches silently? How can our hostages languish in the hellish Gaza tunnels for a year and a half and the world goes on?
The Bibas family became the symbol of Hamas terror. The faces we all knew and recognized. There is nothing more pure and innocent than a child. And those two red-headed little boys, and their terrified mother clinging to them desperately, are images that have haunted us for 500 days.
To kidnap, torture, and hold hostage such precious, innocent mothers and babies who never harmed anyone is the most evil thing in the universe.
The contrast between the barbarism of Hamas and the Gazans compared to Israel and Jews could not be more clear. On one side, you have evil monsters, on the other hand, you have the Bibas family who just wanted to live in peace.
Make no mistake, Hamas is the Amalek of our generation.
We are about to enter the Jewish month of Adar when we celebrate Purim and read the megillah, telling the story of the holiday and the miracle that saved our nation. The villain of the Purim story is Haman, who set out to completely wipe out the Jewish nation. In a single day, he wanted to kill every Jewish man, woman, and child—a plan even Hitler didn’t imagine possible. But Haman’s power was unrestrained. He had the ability to approve and sign any decree on behalf of the king, and so he put forth his murderous plot.
But Mordechai and Esther came up with a plan, and Mordechai encouraged the entire Jewish nation—especially the children—to come out in droves and pray to G-d. With Esther’s bravery and the nation’s prayers, G-d intervened and overturned the plot, leaving us with one of the most joyous holidays on the Jewish calendar—Purim.
Haman was an Amalekite. And Hamas, and anyone who supports them, is too.
I got a message today from someone in our community that reflects how we are all feeling: “How can I carry on with my life? I am watching the coffins of the Bibas family being transported into Israel and my heart is shattered. I am in tears. How could there be such cruelty in this world? I want to cancel all my plans for the next few weeks and just sit home and cry.”
Who among us is not feeling this way? So what do we do? How can we go on?
First, we mourn. We cry. We support one another. We take on a mitzvah in memory of Oded Lifshitz and Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas.
Then, we get up and continue our lives. We pledge to prioritize our children. To teach them Torah, tell them Jewish stories, bring them to shul. We hold them up to kiss the mezuzah and give them a coin to put into a tzedakah box. We sing Modeh Ani with them when they wake up and Shema before they go to sleep. We play with them, hold them, hug them, kiss them, and do it all with Kfir and Ariel in mind. We channel the love Shiri had for her boys, and her fierce determination to keep them safe and protect them until the very end.
And we wait for the day when we can have our own Purim, when we will celebrate the fall of Hamas and the safety of our people.