Faith under fire

By Barbara Sofer
Sep. 4, 2003

In my Jerusalem synagogue last Shabbat, all the new first-graders were summoned before the ark. A solemn second-grader addressed them, reading a speech full of good advice.

Don't be afraid, he reassured them. There's not much homework the first week. Anyway, it's easy - mostly copying the alef-bet. Despite the rumors, first grade is really okay. Then a handful of taller elementary school kids stepped forward and lifted a blue and white tallit over the heads of the first graders. The congregation sang a blessing.

I burst into tears. The images of the week before were still too fresh.

I hadn't cried when, two days earlier, Esther Zargari, six, proudly showed me her new navy skirt for the first day of first grade. Esther has the distinction of being among the youngest patients to recover from severe "blast injury" a medical specialty of Jerusalem doctors.

Blast injury is what happens to you when you're in an enclosed area like a bus and a bomb goes off. The enormous concussive waves that break your ear drums can also destroy any place in the body that contains air.

Esther was among the seven members of the Zargari family who were on their way home from the Western Wall on August 19 when the terrorist - himself a teacher and father - positioned himself to deliberately kill children. Their baby, 11-month old Shmuel, died of a brain hemorrhage in the arms of one of my neighbors, a physician. Esther's lung X-rays showed dreaded patches of white throughout. Together with her mother, Nava, I had visited her many times in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Hadassah University Hospital.

Why was the terrorist assault on Bus no. 2 deemed "the worst attack yet" by so many commentators?

It wasn't only the appalling numbers: 21 dead. It wasn't only the horrifying setting: families on summer holiday attacked returning from prayer at the Western Wall. It wasn't only the disappointment - the sparks of hopefulness fanned by the so-called cease-fire being extinguished.

The particular ghastliness of this attack had to do with the children. The story of the baby found beneath a pile of dead bodies. The stories of the infants and children waiting in emergency rooms for a possible survivor to claim them. The story of a fatally injured older woman identified by an orthopedic surgeon because of an old hip fracture he'd once fixed.

The Holocaust imagery was unavoidable. My swimming companion, whose arm bears the tattoo of Auschwitz, confided that the old nightmares had returned.

"I couldn't sleep at all," she told me. "The thought of the babies flying through the air brought back the memories I fight to keep down."

Ironically, in the dark days after the attack the victims of Bus no. 2 were not "haredim," as popularly perceived. They were just Israelis facing disaster with a dignity that won the admiration of their often-disparaging compatriots.

Instead of waving away the press, the men and women on Bus no. 2 reached out. Mothers and fathers who had never watched a television program in their lives went on air in Israel and abroad to speak earnestly of their faith, aware of a rare opportunity to bring people together.

How fortunate it was that a camera team happened to be standing by when Hanna Nathanson, a bereaved mother, woke up briefly and unexpectedly from her own surgery. Her first words were a plea that everyone should do a good deed to bring them closer to God and speed her family's recovery.

The most perplexing of theological questions - why so many bad things happen to so many good people - was placed center stage in this terror attack.

LEST ANYONE mistake their acceptance of Divine intervention in their lives as emotional indifference, let me assure you that the pain of the bereaved parents was real and unfathomable. I was in the recovery room when Nava Zargari - lying across from Hanna Nathanson - learned of baby Shmuel's death. When I close my eyes, I still hear her heart-wrenching keening.

Zargari doesn't discount the contribution of the ventilators and the medications and the years of advanced training and dedication of the PICU team in her daughter's recovery. Far from it. She expresses awe and appreciation of the massive equipment and delicate fine tuning necessary for Esther's healing.

Yet while Esther lay unconscious, this same injured mother returned to the Western Wall to pray for her speedy recovery. Most difficult to fathom, Nava Zargari went back to the site of the terror attack on Rechov Shmuel Hanavi. With trembling lips she recited a thanksgiving prayer for the six members of her family who had survived.

Critical care physician Ido Yatsiv, who runs Hadassah's intensive care unit for tiny patients, spoke for all of us when he admitted that he envied the certainly of her faith in the face of her immeasurable loss.

No matter how we define ourselves as Jews and Israelis, living in Israel, particularly in Jerusalem, has become a test of our faith. To go ahead with daily life despite the threats, disappointments and uncertain future is an act of belief. Whether we assume that there is a Divine lesson in suffering, or whether we reject that idea and believe that the Creator despises suffering and demands that we respond to evil by increasing goodness and healing - each day of bringing up a family here requires the reaffirmation of our faith.

And so, when the beautiful but vulnerable boys and girls stood beneath that fringed cloth in the Shira Hadasha synagogue, the future of our people shining in their eyes, the sorrow and the joy, the frustration and the potential were overwhelming.

Like Jacob blessing his grandsons Ephraim and Menashe - so different from each other - I joined the singers: "May the angel who redeems me from all evil bless the children, and may my name be declared upon them...."

Thus we pledged to do whatever we can on earth to protect and perfect the Israel in which we are bringing up our children and grandchildren. And we raised our eyes to heaven and prayed for Divine protection for the work of our hands.