The day after the terrorist attack at Heaton Park Synagogue, Valerie and I visited Yoni Finlay in hospital. He had been preparing to lead the prayers on Yom Kippur until the moment when the holiest day of our year was desecrated by hatred and violence – when the lives of Adrian Daulby z”l and Melvin Cravitz z”l were so brutally taken from us.
Yoni had been badly injured but at his bedside, Valerie turned to him and said that we hoped to return the following year to hear him lead those prayers once again.
Yoni’s recovery continues, but together with Rabbi and Rebbetzen Walker, and countless others from the Heaton Park Community, he has been a tower of courage and inspiration since that fateful day.
Sure enough, he has risen to the challenge, and Valerie and I will indeed be at Heaton Park Shul to hear him daven again in a few days’ time. It is a remarkable achievement for Yoni personally, but it is also the archetypal Jewish response to adversity.
Nothing can erase what happened on Yom Kippur last year, but neither will the community allow it to diminish them. Yoni will lead the prayers again. The community will gather in full voice again. They will be stronger and prouder than ever.
This is not only a form of resilience, but something much more than that. In the original Latin, resilience means “to recoil or rebound” – it implies a return to where we were before. But for the community of Heaton Park and, indeed, for the wider Jewish community, there is no return to “normal”.
In Hebrew, we use the term “nechama”, which means “comfort or solace”. Its Biblical usage implies change, recognising that as one emerges from a traumatic experience, a paradigm shift is called for. Nechama is about becoming, not overcoming. It is not a process of closure, but disclosure, of a previously dormant strength which now comes to the fore.
This is one of the themes at the heart of the Haftarah on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. The prophet Jeremiah addresses a people devastated by exile. Particularly to the modern ear, at a time when Israel’s very legitimacy is constantly challenged by those seeking to erase 3,500 years of Jewish history, and Jews around the world are threatened, his words are exceptionally moving. He describes our matriarch Rachel weeping bitterly for her children, refusing to be consoled because they are lost. But God promises her that grief will not be the final word:
“Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears... There is hope for your future, and your children will return to their own border.”
One word is used repeatedly – “od”, meaning “again”.
“I will build you up again, and you will be rebuilt.”
“You will take up your drums again and go out to dance to your own music.”
“You will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria again.”
A people who had lost so much would be rebuilt, and Jewish life would return to the land from which it had been torn.
That prophecy came true. And even after the Temple was destroyed for a second time, it came true yet again.
After centuries of exile, the Jewish people have returned to our ancient homeland. Our language has been revived. Cities have been established. The land is worked and farmed. The promise of Jeremiah has become a living country in our time. After Nova, we declared that we will dance again. After Heaton Park, we declared that we will pray again. So it was – and so it will always be. But the prophecy of Jeremiah also calls on us to take responsibility for being part of the next “again”.
God promised that we would be rebuilt, but we had to take responsibility for laying the stones. He promised that we would dance, but it was for us to play the music. The promise of renewal does not rest on the shoulders of Yoni Finlay or the Heaton Park Community alone. Nor can it be carried by the heroic, returned hostages, who are not only rebuilding their lives but using their survival as a beacon to inspire people all over the world.
Every person in our community has a responsibility to stand alongside them. We do it whenever we deepen our Jewish learning, strengthen our identity, show our love for Israel or make space for another Jew at our table. We do it when we bring our children and grandchildren into the Jewish story, so that they can pass the same gift onto their own children.
We do it when we enter our shuls, raise our voices in song even after others have tried to silence them, and choose to take our place in the long chain of Jewish continuity.
Rosh Hashanah calls us to examine where we have become discouraged or disheartened and to decide to begin again. Neglected relationships can be renewed and forgotten commitments recovered. As individuals and as a community facing adversity, we can emerge with a clearer sense of identity and purpose.
Our future will be built through thousands of such decisions: that whatever we face, we are determined to rebuild – again.
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