Not There

Last week I had a moment where I longed to be in Jerusalem, where I wanted to be there, in Israel, in the city I had made my own a year ago. I felt guilty, I lived in Jerusalem for 9 months and not a single attack on my city, and here, a year later, 8 were murdered doing what I was doing. 8 innocent students, murdered while studying the same texts I study, sitting in a room. I feel guilty that I was safe, that I can learn safely here in America while my colleagues don’t know what might happen as the day progresses. I am sad, for my city, my state, my people. I know life goes on, but this incident makes me think. What kind of a world am I living in, that innocent students become targets of political gain? Here in America college students are murdered on the side of the street for money, there in Jerusalem, for studying in the wrong place at the wrong time. Violence surrounds us, takes us by storm, and yet, we continue learning, we persevere. Learning at the yeshiva in Jerusalem will go on, learning at universities will continue.
I blogged before I left Israel about this guilt, this feeling of pain knowing that I was safe, I was “lucky,” nothing happened while I was there. I still feel this way, I am not there, I can only share the pain, the disbelief from a distance. I can only hope that it will be good….