Before Hersh Goldberg-Polin was murdered by Hamas, his parents drove to the Gaza border, standing as close to their son as they physically could, and cried out this prayer to Hersh: We love you. Stay strong. Survive.
If there is one person whose voice has been a constant source of chizuk (strength), someone who had the ability to instill hope in us by modeling what a mother will do for her child, and by extension all the hostages, it is Rachel Goldberg-Polin.
There’s another Rachel, Rachel Imeinu who also cried out into the void:
קוֹל בְּרָמָה נִשְׁמָע נְהִי בְּכִי תַמְרוּרִים רָחֵל מְבַכָּה עַל־בָּנֶי
A cry is heard in Ramah. Wailing, bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children
(Yirmiyahu 31:15).
I can’t help but wonder what it would look like to put these two Rachels across time and space in conversation with one another. Did Rachel Goldberg-Polin glean her strength from Rachel Imeinu? And if so, is there a message from Rachel Imeinu that we can offer back as a gift to Rachel Goldberg-Polin, and by extension all of us, that will give us strength to keep hoping?
The text in Yirmiyahu continues, describing Rachel’s weeping for her children:
מֵאֲנָה לְהִנָּחֵם עַל־בָּנֶיהָ כִּי אֵינֶנּוּ
but she refused to be comforted
This phrase, refusing to be comforted, is lifted almost directly from an earlier story in Bereishit (37:35) where Yaakov’s sons tell their father that Yosef is dead. They hold up his bloodied technicolored coat, and Yaakov falls down in tears. The Torah says:
וַיָּקֻמוּ כׇל־בָּנָיו וְכׇל־בְּנֹתָיו לְנַחֲמוֹ וַיְמָאֵן לְהִתְנַחֵם
And all his sons and daughters rose to comfort him but he refused to be comforted.
The prophet Yirmiyahu weaves a linguistic thread between Yosef being lost and Bnei Yisrael being lost in exile and a connection between Yaakov’s weeping and mourning for his son and Rachel’s mourning and weeping for her children. Both refuse to be comforted. But what does that mean? In a surprising twist, the Sofrim (ch 21) explains the teaching of Rabbi Yossi who says that a person cannot receive comfort for someone who is not actually dead: לפי שאין מקבלין תנחומין על חי. You see, deep down, Yaakov did not believe that his son was dead, and therefore, his refusal to be comforted shows that he was unconvinced. He continued to hope that Yosef was still alive. And so too, Yirmiyahu understood that the Jews would return because they refused to be comforted; meaning, they refused to give up hope.
Rachel Imeinu represents a hope that there will be a future. In fact, she alone out of all of our matriarchs and patriarchs is buried בְּדֶרֶךְ אֶפְרָתָה on the road, and not in Maarat Hamachpela in Chevron because she and her burial site would become an eternal symbol of return, an embodiment of Yirmiyahu’s words:
וְיֵשׁ־תִּקְוָה לְאַחֲרִיתֵךְ נְאֻם ־ יְיְ וְשָׁבוּ בָנִים
And there is hope for your future, declares GOD: Your children shall return (Yirmiyahu 31:17).
At the core of Rachel Imeinu’s message is the realization that the arch of history is long; we may feel at a loss today, but all the crying will eventually lead to redemption, to something better.
I want so badly for Rachel Goldberg Polin to hear this message. To know that her tears and crying were not in vain. Hersh died. Hundreds of soldiers have fallen in war. Mothers must tuck their children into bed without their fathers at home. Innocent lives have been lost. This past year has been filled with devastation, screaming and so so many tears. But perhaps these tears are what Chana Porat, an Israeli scholar (Me’at min Ha-or) describes as “functional weeping.” That Rachel’s נְהִי בְּכִי תַמְרוּרִים, lamentations and bitter weeping, is a reference to the tamrurim which are actually signposts: “Set up waymarks for yourself, make you signposts (tamrurim); set your heart towards the highway.” If you can look to the future, you will see that eventually, your weeping and tears will lead you home.
For 11 long months, Rachel Goldberg Polin was that voice of hope. I never saw her shed actual tears, but her constant cries were of hope propelling us into action: to write letters; pray; advocate; and rally. Now it is our turn to pick up her mantle and be the voice of hope, thereby fulfilling her final request to her beloved son: “And Hersh, I need you to do one last thing for us…. Now I need YOU to help us to stay strong. And I need YOU to help us to survive” (Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s Eulogy for Her Son, Jerusalem, Sep 3, 2024).
For both Rachels, let us find those signposts that direct us to a brighter future. Let our tears be functional weeping, propelling us to action. Let our refusal to be comforted mean that hope is not lost.
As Yirmiyahu declares: “יֵשׁ־תִּקְוָה, There is hope.”