I spent my adolescence going to funerals. Here, a dead child. There, a friend’s father. Dead, dead, dead: murdered by terrorists who hate us. You shouldn’t be here, said every bomb, every knife, every death notice. We will never accept that you belong.
In-between funerals, I would sing along to Uzi Hitman’s “I was born to peace” whenever it played on the radio. “I was born to peace – let it appear!” But with every death these words came to taste more like wishful thinking, and the longing in them – like despair.
So when my father said “when the situation will change, and peace will become possible –“
I cut him off.
“Let’s be honest. You know that it will never happen.”
But my father looked at me, and in his eyes I saw all the people who told him not to fight the Soviet regime, not to risk his life for lost causes.
“Well,” he said, “it will certainly never happen if you assume it won’t and just stop trying.”
Now, I keep this truth with me as I wade through life’s harsher realities. It reminds me that regardless of what is currently impossible, everything can always change.
Rachel Sharansky Danziger is a writer, blogger, and educator. Her work can be found in The Times of Israel and Tablet Magazine. @Rachel.sharansky.danziger
