Holy Ground in the Gaza Envelope

For the intermediate and final days of Passover this year, my family went south.

Now, when you picture a map of Israel, “south” can mean a few different things. South can mean Eilat, at the very bottom of the country. South can mean the desert, which for many Israelis means the Ramon Crater. Or south can mean the Gaza envelope and border.

And this is where we went.

As I write this, we are in a ceasefire. For two weeks there will (hopefully) be a break from the war between Israel, the United States, and Iran. But 48 hours ago, this was not the case. And even while we were away from the center of Israel, where over one hundred and fifty rockets have been fired, down in the south, rockets still rained down overhead. And yet, being out of the center of the country, there was a strange sense of quiet. Not peace, exactly. Just a different kind of breathing room.

For two days, we hiked through what felt like an almost ironic beauty. The desert was lush. In between trips to the Bomb Shelter, there were wildflowers, patches of green and yellow, little sandy hills that my children climbed up and down like miniature mountains. We picked vegetables. We spent time together. We soaked in the warmth and the sun.

And the whole time, I felt like I was walking on sacred land.

That may sound dramatic, but it is the truest way I know how to say it. I had the same feeling I get when I walk through Jerusalem and know that I am in a holy place. I felt humbled. I felt like every step needed to mean something. This was land that had seen horrors no human being should ever know. October 7 is not an abstract event in the Gaza envelope. It is in the scenery. It is in the memorials. It is in the people.

One day, after a hike, our children were understandably hangry. We stopped at a gas station to buy kosher for Passover ice cream and use the bathroom before getting back on the road.

What we did not realize was that this was the gas station. The one that had been under siege by Hamas terrorists on October 7. The one where blood was lost. The one where one of our family was kidnapped and later murdered in captivity.

We knew from the sign on the door. We knew from the bullet holes in the side of the building.

And there, right beneath those bullet holes, our children sat eating vanilla ice cream with sticky hands while we wiped tears from our eyes.

That was one of many moments over those days when the tension of moving on was felt so sharply. Not moving on in the sense of forgetting. But moving forward because we must, while refusing to let the horror be flattened into background noise.

Before the final day of Passover began, with just a few hours until the holiday, I found myself wanting to go to the Nova festival memorial site.

For two and a half years, I had been avoiding visiting this site.

I had not felt emotionally prepared. But after two days in the Gaza envelope, after seeing how memory had become interwoven with hiking and vegetable picking and family time, I felt that if I was this close, I needed to go.

The memorial is overwhelming in its own way. A forest is being planted in memory of the victims. Their names are marked with plaques and ceramic red flowers on the dance floor. Different areas, such as the infamous dumpsters where victims hid for hours, the dance floor, and the bar, have been preserved so you can read about the people who were murdered there and the heroes who died there.

One of those stories was Debbie Abraham’s.

As I was walking around the preserved bar, her picture caught my eye. Debbie was a police officer. Her shift had started 40 minutes before the October 7th attack began at 6:29 in the morning. I read about how Debbie bravely fought off terrorists. I read how she saved hundreds of lives. How she stayed, defending her people. How she helped others escape. How she ran toward people hiding and defenseless. And how ultimately she was murdered. I took a picture of her memorial sign. Inspired and moved.

And then, I went back to the guest houses on the Kibbutz where we were staying. After all, the final day of the holiday was beginning soon and the transition back into mom life needed to commence.

The reception area in front of the guest houses was a multipurpose room, and one of my children had spent a lot of time during the holiday chatting with the receptionist. In the middle of the holiday, I went in to thank her for being so kind to my daughter.

Then I noticed two pictures on her desk. One was of Stav Kimchi, who was murdered on October 7. The other was of Debbie Abraham.

I said to the receptionist, “Oh, I was at Nova yesterday. I noticed this woman. I read her story and was so inspired.”

The receptionist’s eyes filled up.

“That was my sister,” she said.

She proceeded to tell me the story of Debbie, how much she missed her, and though two and a half years have passed, retelling it brought us both back to that fateful day. And then, just like that, someone walked in, asked for an extra towel, my daughter wanted a snack and we jumped right back into reality.

We are in the day after.

A member of my community recently wrote about this week’s Torah portion, Shemini (Book of Leviticus (chapters 9:1–11:47) as the portion of the day after. It is the day after the great spiritual heights of the dedication of the Tabernacle, but it is also the day after the death of Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aharon, who died immediately after bringing a misguided sacrifice to God. Joy and loss. Holiness and grief. Life continues, but is changed forever.

That is the Gaza envelope right now. That is Israel right now.

We step out into the sunlight, trepidatiously. We enjoy the warmth. We take our children on trips. We eat ice cream. We celebrate Passover. And as the ceasefire between the United States and Iran barely holds, we send our kids back to school. But we carry the last six weeks of war, the last six months of war, the last two and a half years of war, in the back of our minds. And as we enter this season of our calendar, the tension only sharpens: Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day for our fallen soldiers and victims of terror, and Israel’s Independence Day are all celebrated just days apart. National grief and national gratitude, one after another.

Days after October 7, a pendant was found on the ground at Nova. It belonged to Debbie. Later, it was returned to her family.

Around her neck, she had worn a verse from Psalm 23:

That is what it means to walk through Israel right now.

Not untouched. Not unafraid. Not pretending the valley is not real.

But still walking. And knowing that even here, especially here, God is with us.