LA Jews are all mourners now — experiencing both the grief and hope our tradition understands

LOS ANGELES — As the wildfires devoured our neighborhoods and people’s homes, schools, businesses, sanctuaries, and lives went up in flames, we celebrated our eldest’s bat mitzvah. Amidst unimaginable and horrific destruction and tragedy befalling our beloved city and the community we care for; it was not the date we would have chosen.

And yet, as both a rabbi to a Los Angeles community and a mom, I cannot imagine my daughter having any other date. The miracles of humanity gave me a bird’s eye view into the capacity of human strength, resilience, and hope.

The first window into human beauty came during the days leading up to Annie’s bat mitzvah. We received hundreds of messages — messages from congregants and friends that were unsure of whether they would have a home to return to and many for whom, their homes are now no longer. The messages read: Rabbis, we hope that you will make room for your daughter’s moment, for your joy is our joy.

And as services commenced that Saturday morning, I looked out into the sanctuary and saw several families whose homes were completely gone. I was shocked. How did they have the capacity to come celebrate? I asked one of them, “Why are you here?” They answered with smiles as tears ran down their face, “This is exactly where I need to be.”

The second window of light involved witnessing congregants from our sister congregation, Kehillat Israel, show up to celebrate one of their community member’s bar mitzvahs. KI is in the Palisades. Miraculously, the synagogue still stands. However, the homes of their rabbis and hundreds of their congregants have completely burned to the ground. It was impossible for KI to host their planned bar mitzvah because of continued evacuation notices and safety concerns. While our daughter’s bat mitzvah was taking place in one sanctuary, down the hall, KI’s bar mitzvah took place in another. Even through their personal tragedy and horror, joy was honored.

A final lesson came from a congregant, Dr. Alisa Bromberg. Alisa is a prominent pediatrician in the Palisades. Her home and office are completely gone. One of her most cherished gifts from her own bat mitzvah was a necklace of a dove — a reminder as a teenager that even through the despair of the world, one must always have hope in a world renewed. She had bought a dove necklace for my daughter. The necklace must have melted somewhere within the ashes of her home.

However, without the physical necklace, she gave us an even bigger gift. She explained to me that in the Palisades it is a common sight to see wild green parrots flying through the bright blue skies. She and her neighbors have been bereft, wondering if the parrots had died. But on Monday morning, one neighbor looked up and there was an entire flock of bright green parrots flying across the ashen, gray sky: a symbol to the Palisades, and a sign that there is room to hope again.

Just like the dove Alisa wore around her neck as a bat mitzvah and wanted to give my daughter, just like the dove Noah sends from the ark  as the flood waters began to recede, even when consumed with the deepest of despair, we need to be willing to open our eyes, see hope fly across the sky and allow hope to root itself again within our hearts.

These unimaginable acts of strength, hope and community, among those experiencing profound loss, blew me away.

In the Jewish tradition, when someone dies, there is a period between death and burial. The period is called aninut, commonly translated as “living in deep distress.” During aninut, the mourner is exempt from daily Jewish commandments. Most of the people that lost their homes are unable to return. The areas are in evacuation sites, the air and the ground are toxic. There is no ability to say “goodbye” to their homes. And so the steps of grief are tossed upside down. These mourners are stuck in limbo. And, therefore, we in the Los Angeles community are learning how to show up in an unprecedented way.

We are sitting with our mourners in this gray area, within a limbo of loss for however long it takes. The communal acts are endless: opening homes to evacuees, donating food and toys to children whose playrooms and pantries are no longer, feeding firefighters, clothing those without, physically embracing those consumed with grief and praying side by side. The essence of community is seeing yourself as responsible to the mourner — no matter how long they exist in this confusing, bewildering, dark and lonely state.

The lessons of this period will last a lifetime. Through our prayers, through our deeds, through our love, through our faith — through the fires, through the peril, through the joys, through the tears of laughter and sorrow — hope will return. Humanity has a remarkable capacity for witnessing and manifesting resilience and joy even when one’s own world is crashing down. Our souls pivot toward positivity and hope even in the darkest of times. We must show up, mourn together and allow ourselves to feel hope. We will get through this because, no matter how long we exist within this limbo, it is hope and community that will eventually lead us from despair to joy again.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.