I'm thrilled but terrified, relieved but anxious, celebrating but in still in mourning....

How do you manage the intensity of mixed emotions that come with the release of just a few hostages at a tie? Maybe that's part of Hamas' psychological warfare. Maybe this bit we can actually win....

I spent part of the day on October 7 messaging with my friend Rachel* who has lived on Kibbutz Nirim for decades. A grandmother in her 80s, Rachel is a colleague and classmate who I dearly cherish. We met a few years ago when we did a certification course together in Spiritual Counseling. The nature of the course was one of intense inner work, introspection, and sharing. It was the kind of program where you get to know your classmates’ deepest traumas and struggles. And in fact, for Rachel as well as another participant who lives on the Gaza rim, the issue of endless rockets and a government that doesn’t take care of them was a big topic that year….

When Rachel and I chatted on that fateful day some seven weeks ago, I had no idea how bad the situation was around her. All I knew was that she was sitting alone for hours in her safe room, and I was worried about her. But when the day was over, I was also glad that she was okay. It was only later, over the following days when the world started to understand the gravity of what had really happened there — the murders, the kidnappings, the torture, the burning of houses…… It feels weird to me that we were chatting and I didn’t know what was really happening. I can’t fully explain why.

Today, we know that Rachel was lucky. Wow, so lucky, my goodness. Like, some strange stroke of luck that her house was passed over. Can I say that? Can I use the word “luck” to describe these events? It feels all wrong….And yet….

How do I manage the feelings of horror alongside the great joy and gratitude that Rachel survived that day in tact? It’s complicated. It’s a lot to manage.

Those emotional complications have only multiplied over time, especially these past few days. On Friday, all of Israel was glued to the television at 4PM hoping to see some hostages released. It happened many hours later, when a lot of people had already shut off for Shabbat or gone to sleep. There was intense joy for the families of the 13 Israelis and 11 foreign workers who were released. But at the same time, a lot of anxiety for the rest of the hostage families.

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The complexity is even worse. Because every time children get released and there is a collective sigh of relief, the fear that certain hostages will never be released increases — especially the men. In a kind of reversal of gender fortunes, the male hostages seem to be at the greatest risk right now of being left in Gaza.

Here is what I wrote on FB on Friday as we were waiting for news.

WOW, on so much shpilkes today.... waiting for 13 hostages to be released.... will believe it when I see it....Shpilkes. Shpilkes. Shpilkes.

And also a few complicated thoughts about this.

First of all, it's quite a Sophie's choice deciding who gets out first. I can't even imagine what the families are going through here.

Second, while I absolutely am in support of releasing the children and babies first -- ABSOLUTELY -- and also of keeping children with their mothers in the cases that mothers and babies are together, I am also concerned about the "womenandchildren" configurations.

As I've said many times, women are NOT children. Women are not fragile, dainty, figurines. The whole classification of "womenandchildren" is infantilizing to women. De-powering. Stripping women of power, agency, independence, self-reliance, and adulthood. I wish, wish, wish the world would stop talking about us as if we are children. But, you know, that wish is, like, number 75 on my priority list of essential wishes these days....

But also, I feel very sad about what this whole focus on "womenand children" does to men. As if to say, like, men are expendable. As if men should have the expectation of being cast as cannon fodder during war. As if to say, had Hamas ONLY taken men hostage, somehow that would have been more legitimate, a "normal" expectation of war. You can hear hints of this in so much of the chatter about the hostages. Like, it's only bad b/c it's womenandchilren but if it were men, then maybe it's understandable....I hate that too.

And I'm very concerned about this. First of all b/c there are men, like Hersh Polin-Goldberg, who are in dire need of medical attention. Second of all because men deserve care and compassion and we shouldn't be raising men as robots or having expectations that men are indestructible fighters. Men, like women, are human beings and deserve care.

But also because I am worried about this language will impact the long game here. Because even if, say, Hamas decides by some miracle to release all "non-men", and then all that's left is like "just" 50 or 100 Jewish men -- ones who are considered some kind of "fair game" in this war -- will the language then change? And people be like, "Okay, we saved the womenandchildren so we can all breathe a sigh of relief", and then the men will sit for months or years in gaza tunnels? IS that the reality we are headed for? The Ron Arad thing multiplied by 100???

And just generally, the fact is that even if they release 50 or even 80 hostages in the next week, which is the maximum they are talking about, there will still be 150 hostages left.... so there's that.

I'm just doing the math here. Even though I'm very very very eager to see these hostages come home today -- and wow, do i hope that the babies are all released ASAP b/c i can't even imagine their torment -- at the same time, I am ALSO still very very worried about the others and also about what comes next and how long this is going to go on. Very, very, very worried.....

PS -- Just to give the proper credit, Susan Sered in her book "What Makes Women Sick?: Maternity, Modesty, and Militarism in Israeli Society" does a thorough treatment of the whole "womenandchildren" construct.

Commenters shared the fear for the men being left behind. And the unspoken discomfort with the “Womenandchildren” configurations that set us all backwards as a society. Are we even allowed to be talking about these discomforts — or is it all in the “now is not the time” category of conversation?

Meanwhile, in the two days since I wrote this, I have seen similar sentiment echoed by hostage families, especially those of male hostages. It is absolutely heart-wrenching. The sense that the government is getting ready to leave a bunch of male hostages behind is very real, and terrifying.

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I also keep hearing the whispers that Bibi is trying to stretch this out as long as possible. I have been saying that from the beginning. But most people can’t wrap their heads around how politically manipulative our charlatan Prime Minister truly is. And also, who has the energy to really think about politics right now? To wit — last night, tens of thousands of people showed up in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv to support the families. At the exact same time, at a rally in Jerusalem in front of the PM’s house calling for his ouster, a few hundred showed up.

Because as long as we are fighting to get hostages released, it’s hard to deal with politics. Lucky Bibi. He’s still got nearly 200 hostages to rescue him from his downfall.

(Too cynical? Sorry not sorry.)

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One of the hostages released on Friday was from Nirim. I wrote to Rachel to ask her how she feels. She shared that it is very hard to manage the complexity of the emotions. I totally get that. We had a very “spiritual counseling” kind of conversation about managing complex emotions, holding it all at once.

And then I thought to myself, this is part of the Hamas game, isn’t it?

They want us to lose our minds.

It’s what the army calls “psychological warfare”. Things like telling a hostage family that the IDF killed their loved one, even when it was Hamas. Telling us that people are dead when they are still alive. Lying to the world that Israel has broken the cease fire when they just can’t get their act together and fulfill their end of the deal. All kinds….

This thing, about playing with our most intense emotions, forcing us to be so confused by the mix of reactions that we can barely access our own truths — that is ALSO part of the psychological warfare.

But this one we can manage.

I suggested to my friend that maybe the ability to hold on to complex emotions is precisely a form of our own victory, if we can even use words like “victory” in this terrible war. Maybe not so much a victory as much as a personal little triumph, an overcoming.

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Or maybe not. I don’t know.

Maybe we are all finding sources of strength within ourselves.

Or maybe, if this hostage thing really takes months or years, we will all break at some point.

For the sake of the hostages and their families, I really hope that they are all released soon.

But I also recognize that there is a possibility that this may take a while. And I hope that the country finds a way to break our own government, one way or another. And I to think that, in the end, removing the current leadership may be the only way to bring an end to all this. I hope we have the wherewithal and strength to do that.

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