Celebrating Our Baby’s Birth When Israel Is On Fire

Over a year ago I wrote a personal article (using a pseudonym) detailing the thoughts and emotions my wife and I experienced during our second miscarriage (which was followed by a third), struggling to make sense of the pain.

A week ago, on Shabbat/Shemini Atzeret, I was called to the Torah and announced the Hebrew name of our three-day-old daughter, Nechama Leah. My father, father-in-law and I danced around the bimah with the community who embraced us with hugs and mazel tovs. It was one of the most gratifying moments of my life.

I was asked to speak about the baby’s name. Unprepared, I opened my heart to a room full of people who I had come to see as my extended family and shared many of the struggles my wife and I had experienced over the last two years, and how our daughter will be a source of great comfort (nechama in Hebrew). I have rarely been so raw in public.

Our Rabbi then spoke and discussed the idea of why we break a glass at a wedding. Not only to remember the destroyed Temple of Jerusalem, but because unfortunately we must temper our joy with harsh realities, lest we forget our purpose on this Earth. And then he revealed to the congregation that Israel was in the midst of disaster.

We were supposed to be in the time of great joy, the final day of the holiest period in the Jewish calendar, and I was sharing a personal simcha, celebration, with the community, while Israel was experiencing the bloodiest moment of its history. Not since the Holocaust have so many Jews died in one day. I was utterly torn.

Over the coming days, I would see new and terrifying horrors shared on the news. I’d try to put my phone down and focus on my baby, but my feeding/diaper tracking app is just a button press away from Instagram, Facebook, and hundreds of news sites, it was hard to resist the “doom scroll.”

I love my daughter, and I love these earliest days with her, they’re magical. My wife and I have never been closer. I’ve never felt so blessed in my whole life. Holding my newborn daughter has given me so many things I only imagined I would ever have. At the same time there is a picture of an infant, being held by a rescue worker. Because both of the child's parents are dead.

So my joy is tempered by sadness, fear, and so much anger. It feels wrong that I should feel such joy while my extended family (all of Israel) is in so much pain and worry.

While we were struggling to have our child, every time anyone on social media announced they were pregnant or had a baby, it sent us into such a sad and dark place. So for the entire pregnancy, we decided not to post anything on social media until our daughter was born. But now with the hurt and chaos, I don’t feel it is right to share our cute pictures detailing how many hours our baby has been alive while wearing a onesie with an impossibly cute joke stitched into the chest. “Best gift ever” or “Poop loading…” Such posts would feel insensitive when compared to the acts of leadership from friends, Rabbis, and anyone desperate to help.
I was witnessing the Jewish world come together and I wanted to be a part of it. But instead, I was insulated in my apartment, changing diapers, washing dishes, struggling with my wife at 3 am to help our daughter eat.

When I get a moment of peace (usually while washing dishes) I try to avoid Youtube and instead listen to a Torah thought. I don’t recall who said it, but one video made the comment that it isn’t just the IDF soldiers who are on the front lines. This war isn’t won with bullets and drone strikes alone. There is a spiritual dimension to this conflict. When we pray, do acts of kindness, learn Torah, and do mitzvahs, those acts all have an impact. Every Jew has their front line to hold.

I love this idea. I want to learn just a little bit before bed, or try to say a verse of Psalms. But as any parent will tell you, at this stage, you’re struggling just to keep up with anything. Eating, showering, our apartment looks like a warzone, and of course, getting an hour of undisturbed sleep is a miracle. How can I possibly keep up my front line?

Then a friend texted me something that got through the haze of sleep deprivation and confusion. “You’re taking care of a brand new Jew. There isn’t anything bigger than that. If you were a single guy without kids, I’d agree you could be helping Rabbi so and so all night pack care packages or collect suitcases. But thank God you’ve got more important… doodies.”

So as another friend put it, “Being a Jew means celebrating even in the face of darkness. You having a beautiful child gives me hope.”

We all are in unique places, physically, emotionally and spiritually. We are in those situations for a reason. I cannot believe it is just a coincidence that Nechama Leah’s naming happened to share the day of the attack. Your contribution to the war effort – whatever it may be -- is not only needed, it is holy. Even if that contribution is getting yourself (or someone else) out of bed. You have no idea where that contribution will take you in say… two years from now.