Lately, the dancing has stopped all across the world as we are forced to mourn--but the loud, angry, anti-Western anti-American anti-Israel anti-tolerance revolution marches on, smashing down buildings and lives. Killing a person is like cutting down a tree, it takes so much water, nurture, and simple luck for a human to survive in this world for so long--but to cut down a human can be momentary, a life that took years to build is extinguished. I want to be part of the revolution that stops fearing terrorism and confronts it, that doesn't make excuses for terrorists (look at the London Bombers, they weren't poor or impoverished--they had choices, they chose violence and degredation of human life), I want to dance in the streets when the mood strikes me and NOT feel fear of reprocussions from any religious group.
It's been so hard for me to think about what's happened in Mumbai, I just feel fear and want to sit in my apartment, curled up, not being offensive to anyone, not being an infidel to anyone. Today, I found out that the Rebbetzin (the rabbi's wife and fellow teacher) who died after 16 excruciating hours in her home was five months pregnant. It's like, suddenly, I can't deal with it anymore and a big flood of emotion has come bursting out, sadness and confusion and anger. I feel such confusion for how this could happen--how could someone shoot a pregnant woman, a fetus, the ultimate sign of innocence-a fetus has made no choices but holds the hope of the future--how could someone extinguish that hope with a bullet?
Israel's in a state of national morning, as both the Rabbi and Rebbetzin (and six other victims) are being mourned. This country functions so well when there's not a cloud, but in the United States the death of six people would barely register on our radar, here it's "the topic," it's the black cloud hanging over this tiny nation.
But, under each cloud, we can't stop dancing and moving, we can't stop hoping and dreaming. This weekend I walked to Jaffa with two friends, and their friends studying abroad in Egypt, and we walked past a Russian night club that was blown up a few years ago. There is a monument in front of the night club, that has two blue figures, and under them it says, "We Won't Stop Dancing." Even in the wake of this tragedy, even though this black cloud has invaded the newspapers, the radios, and our thoughts, I know that we can't stop dancing. We can't stop loving freedom, and we can't stop learning, we can't turn into people who sink their heads into the sand and stop dancing and just praying for safety and not liberty--we can't stop dancing, because after that, there's only stillness.
