Marilyn Monroe At The Plaza Hotel Fountain In New York City (1957). Photo By Sam Shaw.

had to go to the store and did not get this but did i look at it? yes

My beautiful smiling man…do you know you’ve changed my life? Made it better? Comforted me in the lowest moments? I hope you know. You are so special and loved. ❤️

Jewish Journal

Hersh and a Story of Love

He was everyone's Hersh.

He was everyone’s Hersh.

Hersh’s charismatic smile let you know he was, as his mother Rachel described, a “happy-go-lucky, laid back, good humored, respectful and curious person.” He was, as the death announcement put it, “a child of light, love and peace.” People were drawn to the story of a young man who loved soccer and music, had a passion for geography and travel, who had just gone to six music festivals in Europe over the span of nine weeks.

And then came October 7th. Hersh’s last messages to his family, at 8:11 AM on October 7th, were “I love you” and “I’m sorry.”

Hamas kidnapped 251 hostages that day. But a statistic doesn’t ignite the same passion as an actual person; and through Hersh, the world connected to all of the hostages. Heads of state spoke about Hersh. At the Democratic National convention many in the crowd openly wept for Hersh, and chanted “bring them home.” His image was posted everywhere; “Bring Hersh Home” was graffitied on walls and printed on posters. Tehillim groups prayed for Hersh, and a Sefer Torah was written in his merit.

And after Hamas murdered Hersh, millions of people cried; and they cried for all of the hostages, including [those] who remain in captivity.

Hersh’s story is one of love. His parents Rachel and Jon Goldberg Polin advocated for him 24/7. Despite their overwhelming pain, what Rachel called “our planet of beyond pain, our planet of no sleep, our planet of despair, our planet of tears,” they found the superhuman strength to advocate every single day, to remind the world how many days it was since Hersh was held captive. Rachel and Jon traveled everywhere to do everything and anything possible to bring him home.

Most of all they told the world how much they loved Hersh, and got the world to love Hersh as well. Even at the funeral, with an otherworldly expression of spiritual strength, Rachel declared that “I am so grateful to God, and I want to do hakarat hatov (offer gratitude) and thank God right now, for giving me this magnificent present of my Hersh…. For 23 years I was privileged to have this most stunning treasure, to be Hersh’s Mama. I’ll take it and say thank you. I just wish it had been for longer.”

The Rambam says that when you truly love someone “you will recount their praises and call on other people to love them.” And that is what Rachel and Jon did.

Love has its limits. At Hersh’s funeral, the speakers apologized to him for being unable to bring him home; sadly, this immense outpouring of love could not accomplish what everyone desperately wanted. But the Song of Songs says “love is as strong as death.” Jon declared at the end of his eulogy that Hersh’s memory “can begin a revolution.” And without question that is what love can do.

Love is belittled because it is bewildering. It is immaterial, a force that ought to be reckoned with but cannot be measured. Charles Darwin wondered whether altruism would disprove his theory of natural selection; to sacrifice oneself for others contradicts a theory based on a single-minded pursuit of survival. (A person of faith grappling with the same question would see the traces of a divine love tucked away in the DNA of the universe.) From a political standpoint, love is the frail runner up to raw power. Machiavelli wrote that “it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.” In a world about survival and strength, love is seen as the veneer that covers up far uglier forces.

Judaism sees love as the very center of the universe. There are commandments to love God and to love all of humanity, both one’s neighbor and the stranger. Hillel explained that the entire Torah can be reduced to the commandment of loving others; one first experiences the divine in interpersonal connections, and only from there does the rest of the Torah become comprehensible.

The world begins with love; the Book of Psalms (89:3) says “the world was created in kindness.” Rav Saadia Gaon and Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto see love as God’s very motivation in creating the universe. Love becomes the spiritual blueprint for all of existence.

The very human love we have for others reflects this larger divine love. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook offers a fascinating perspective on Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs, a biblical book written in the style of a love song. In the Talmud, Rabbi Akiva already reinterprets Shir HaShirim as a metaphor of the love between man and God; ordinary love songs don’t belong in a holy text. Rabbi Kook offers a fascinating reinterpretation of Rabbi Akiva, and explains that the ordinary love songs in Shir HaShirim are actually a small-scale reflection of the greater love between man and God; and that is because our “ordinary” loves are not ordinary at all. All loves lead one to the divine.

It’s difficult to talk about love at a time of war. Love sometimes requires one to go into battle to protect one’s family, reluctantly but resolutely. But that is not at all the goal; Isaiah dreamt of a world where the swords are beaten into plowshares. War is our nightmare; the dream is peace, of each person sitting contentedly under their own vine and own fig tree.

And that is the love we continue to search for, an otherworldly force that will transform history. Rachel explained that Hersh had a unique ability to bring people together that he had “befriended… German (soccer) fans over the years when they visited Jerusalem to watch their team play soccer. Together they painted a peace mural with both Arab and Jewish residents near our home in Jerusalem…” One prays for the day when this will be more than a mural.

Judaism proudly asserts the power of love. Machiavelli’s approach is tempting; sometimes all that matters is pure strength. But the mistake is that brute force works for a generation or two, until there’s a crisis. Then the fear disappears, and the ruler is deposed. Power is as finite as those who wield it, grasped tightly by princes whose lives are short and temporary.

To survive for a generation or two, one needs power; to survive for millennia, one needs love. And that is the story of Jewish history. Jews are a people who never quit because they had a passion for God, Torah and the Jewish people. The love Jews around the world had for Hersh (who was named for a great-uncle who perished in the Holocaust) is part of this same never-ending story. The Jewish people are living proof that love can outlast power.

The day of Hersh’s funeral, several posts on social media reported about children being named Hersh in the memory of Hersh Goldberg Polin z”l. These were not relatives or even acquaintances of the family. Just ordinary Jews who cared, and wanted Hersh’s legacy to continue onward. They were naming their children after a man they loved but never knew.

They were sharing Rachel and Jon’s remarkable love for Hersh with their own family.

And in doing so, they were starting a revolution of love once again.

May Hersh’s memory be a blessing, and a revolution.

though this is from September, I had never read it until last night, and I think we need it this week.

Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester in 1.1 "Pilot" Supernatural (2005-2020)

My darling, sending you the biggest hug across the universe today 💕 You are not alone.

Christi!!! ;___; (sorry for having a mental breakdown on main because I've apparently hit oversaturation with the things I have seen on here)

my sweetheart 💗 thank you very much, I send that hug back so tightly through all the stars, and you're such a blessing amongst them.

Hey Alma

Praying For My Friend, Hersh Goldberg-Polin

Editorial note: This article was originally published in October 2023. We are republishing it following the news that Hersh Goldberg-Polin a

Editorial note: This article was originally published in October 2023. We are republishing it following the news that Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages were killed by Hamas.

I don’t really know how to write this story, but it starts at Myahn’s house.

Myahn invited me for Shabbat dinner; we were attending the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies at the time, and the other guests were all Pardesniks. I don’t remember much about the day, not the weather, not the date, nor do I remember which of my friends comprised the other guests, to be honest with you. But I remember what Myahn’s apartment felt like, the entryway cramped with as many guests as she could muster, the kitchen filled with her savta’s recipes and her roommate’s baked goods. I remember the warmth of being with my friends at Shabbat dinner.

And I remember Hersh GP.

Myahn’s apartment was being leased to her, furnished by a family connected to the Pardes faculty. That’s how so many apartments work in our parts of Jerusalem – Jews come from all parts of the world to study Torah at Pardes for a year or two or three, and they find furnished apartments filled with other families’ sefarim (Jewish religious books) and become a temporary resident of an ever-changing home. These apartments link generations of yeshiva students who pass the keys to one another, who share beds and kosher kitchen utensils, torchbearers of Shabbat meals and Torah study.

That’s how I found Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s bentscher, a small booklet that contains Kiddush, Birkat HaMazon (Grace After Meals) and various songs we sing on Shabbat. Bentscher culture is real, and it is amazing. I’ve seen thousands of bentschers in my day, for weddings, brises, mitzvahs both bar and bat, and for the most part, they’re exactly the same.

Hersh’s was unique. It was made to celebrate his bar mitzvah and customized more than any bentscher I have ever seen. Serendipitously, it was handed to me, and I remember smiling – the front cover had water imagery, and his bar mitzvah portion was Parshat Noach (as in, Noah’s ark). Clever. And then I opened it, and fell in love with the Goldberg-Polin family. The front and back inside covers contained song parodies, written by Hersh’s Safta Leah and Bubbie Marcy. Each page was filled with pictures of Hersh and his family, all lanky and smiling.

I think I interrupted whatever conversation my friends were having to show them the bentscher, in particular the wonderful parody of “Edelweiss” written by Safta Leah. We immediately sang it together.

Hersh G P Hersh G P

Jon and Rachel they bore you

Fun and bright

Sheer delight

This is why we adore you.

Interest in sports and with sharp retorts

Reads and learns most daily

Hersh GP

We agree

Now a perfect Israeli.

I don’t think I can really describe how weirdly obsessed we (OK, mostly I) were with Hersh. We sang his other songs (to the tunes of “The Marines’ Hymn,” “Old MacDonald” and “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean,” all certified bops). The small WhatsApp group we made to coordinate who would bring what to dinner, and what time we would eat, and all the other minutia of a Shabbat meal, was soon renamed “Hersh GP Fan club.” We were so enthralled by this guy and his bar mitzvah bentscher, without ever having met him.

After Shabbat, I posted about Hersh on my Instagram story. One of my followers saw it and sent it to Hersh, because all Jews know each other. Myahn also had mutual friends with him, and got his number and told him about my story. He replied, saying he’d always wanted to be famous. He sent me a selfie of him with his safta, saying he’d tried explaining to her that I loved her songs and posted them for thousands of people to see. She replied, “Doesn’t she have anything better to be doing with her time?”

It was an honor and privilege to be roasted by Safta Leah.

Hersh sent me pictures of his sisters’ bentschers and the personalized songs his grandmothers had written, based on “Chad Gadya,” “Oh My Darlin’ Clementine,” “Doe A Deer,” “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Bicycle Built for Two” and “I Have A Little Dreidel.” Soon after, a different friend randomly found Hersh’s parents’ wedding bentscher in another Jerusalem apartment. We’d sing Hersh’s “Edelweis” cover from time to time, a running in-joke for the Shabbat meal participants. We joked that we wanted Myahn to marry Hersh so Safta Leah and Bubbie Marcy would write her songs, too. I had custody of Hersh’s bentscher for my remaining time in Jerusalem, and I’d use it most weeks. It was such good, silly fun.

Two Shabbats ago, Hersh was abducted by Hamas terrorists from the festival and taken into Gaza.

I say this abruptly because the shock is what it felt like when I came across Hersh’s picture on my Twitter feed. It’s how I felt as more details have been released about Hersh’s kidnapping, and his extensive injuries. It’s how I feel now, every time I think about Hersh. Until now, this whole story was just a goofy anecdote from my group of friends at Pardes. Now that image of a silly bar mitzvah kid is shattered, and I shudder to think of where he is now.

I’ve never met Hersh GP in person, but the news that he was one of the festival-goers took the wind out of me. Because I know him. I know, thanks to the songs, that he only used to eat Wacky Mac and schnitzel. He likes the White Sox and the Chicago Bulls. As I write this, I cry. I think of his family, whose pictures I looked at so often, the grandmothers who so lovingly wrote these odes to their grandson. I think of his friends, and his parents’ friends, and his sisters and everyone who knows him, waiting in agony for any news they may receive.

And then I remember that the Goldberg-Polins are one of over a hundred families currently feeling like this. And of thousands of families that are in pain.

Their pain feels immeasurable. This pain feels astronomical.

I don’t have a novel message about this conflict, nothing new to add to the outpouring of grief and fear that so many people are feeling right now. But this week’s Torah portion is Parashat Noach – the 10th anniversary of Hersh’s bar mitzvah.

I think maybe that when Noah was on his ark, he couldn’t imagine seeing dry land again after being in the storm for so long. The ebb and flow of the water – unsettled, unforgiving and so vastly deep – became his new normal so quickly. But, as we know, a rainbow was just around the corner. A dove was close by.

I don’t think any of us can imagine rainbows right now, nor do we particularly want to.

All I can think about is my family and friends caught up in the conflict, about the victims of horrendous terror that we cannot begin to imagine, about families waiting to be reunited with their loved ones.

All I can think about is Hersh Goldberg-Polin. All I can do is pray for Hersh GP.

I saved this article months ago. It touched my heart deeply and was so illustrative of the connection we felt to Hersh, to his family, to the hostages, to each other, through all of this. The intention in my mind was to post it when he came home. I was so sure he’d come home.

And then a month ago that hope was shattered forever, and we all endured the heartbreak of knowing he, and the five beautiful people held captive with him, were never going to have the joyous reunions we’d dreamed of for them. I considered sharing it then, when we got the news, but the grief was such a raw thing. When I learned his birthday was only a few days before the first yahrzeit of the October 7th pogrom, I decided to save it for his memory on this day. Yesterday, I learned his Hebrew birthday this year falls on 10/7. They just recovered his blanket from the Nova Festival, drifting all this time in the lost and found.

May his light, and the light of Eden, Carmel, Almog, Ori, and Alex, of all the other hostages who have lost their lives, and all the souls taken on that dark Shabbat, continue to illuminate this world with the courage to make change and the hope for peace. May we remember them in goodness and love. May we hold onto the resilience of his mother Rachel’s words: stay strong. survive. May this new year usher in better days.

May the 101 remaining hostages return soon. bring them home.

i am so sorry you all have to deal with angsty posts here as i situate myself, but as an extremely sensitive people pleaser, i was mentally sort of always trying to do my best to reach out to others and even cater certain things for them, especially once my blog grew in size, which led to my more widespread interactions, influxes of messages, anons, etc - and so now, because of having to retreat from and even to a degree fear (or at best feel wary/uncomfortable) continuing some of those interactions, i feel a horrendous sense of…guilt? sorrow, yes, but i also feel awful. i cut off those anons who came to me with whatever, which isn’t their fault but was a protective choice to guard from potential outside harm, but i also left behind people i love and adore and considered precious in my life, not because that ended up not being true, but because the trust got shattered. and i know that some of them would be so hurt if they found out i moved spaces, and it weighs on me, because the last thing in the world i ever want is to do that, is to hurt friends that i love. it’s a horrible feeling. and my mom told me it’s not my fault and i have to have boundaries (i am very bad at boundaries) and trust my instincts and protect my peace however i can…but i still feel so bad and anxious at the potential of hurting someone, even though i myself was hurt. fun times in jessie’s brain 🙃

😘

i don't want to be making this post, i know none of you probably want to have to read this post, but i feel like i need to embed it into the establishing of this blog, and why, despite everything i built and created and shared there, the sense of community i thought i had, my previous one became unsafe.

if you are here, i am making the baseline assumption that you understand that the slaughter and torture of innocent people is wrong, will always be wrong, should never be celebrated, justified, or upheld as righteous, no matter who they are or where they come from or who's murdering them. i assume, even if you don't understand an entire complex situation or thousands of years of history (something you can do some cursory research on if you feel so inclined and would rather not spread harmful misinformation and outright bigotry about anyone), that you would not suggest that infant children deserve to be eradicated because of the country they were born, that women being brutalized don't deserve it because of actions committed by their government (a government many of them oppose). i assume that you understand that a terrorist organization that has written in their charter that their entire goal is the elimination of a specific people - regionally and worldwide - and causes active oppression, harm, and death to their own innocent people because they are more hellbent on killing and destruction than advocating for anyone (much less human rights), is not a bastion of freedom and dignity, and that conflating them is not only detrimental, but racist. i assume you understand that a right wing authoritarian government does not mean its people deserve to be massacred in their homes.

i assume you would not advocate for more violent death under the guise of progressive values. i assume you would not think that myself and half of my own family, unconnected to this by anything but shared ancient ethnicity, deserve to be exterminated. i assume you would find that inhumane and distressing to suggest.

i assume. but this is no longer something i know.

there have been people - mutuals, friends, i communicated with - who, over the past two weeks proved that none of this holds true for them. there were people instantly celebrating these deaths (that, in fact, was how the news was broken to me - by mutuals' jubilation over mass murder on my dash). there were people immediately justifying that, calling it necessary, saying that even the brutal assault of women "just has to happen" (or didn't happen at all, this from proclaimed "believe women" feminists). there were people spreading openly genocidal rhetoric about how a specific group of people "deserves to be erased" or "i hope they're wiped off the earth," using slurs, praising or mocking or denying the holocaust, and this website's terms of service wouldn't classify that as hate speech worthy of termination. there were people intentionally sharing debunked infographics or misinformed headlines which were later corrected (but never reading the corrections) or outright lies that come directly from n*zi propaganda (wish i was kidding) to call for more violence. vive la revolucion! was used to defend people chanting things like "gas the jews!" right in front of me, every day. there were mutuals reblogging the most vile, hateful people on this website without vetting what they were saying at all (i have a list of them, if you ever need it. did you know, for example, that her*tageposts is a n*zi sympathizer and north korean regime defender under the guise of being "communist"? yeah). the dehumanization and bloodlust and hatred on my dash was unlike anything i've ever experienced online, and what's WORSE, what made it such an agonizing betrayal, was it came from people i thought were allies, people i'd stand beside, who i thought understood and cared about human rights enough to not lust for murder and harm and destruction. i was, it turns out, wrong. all they needed was a reason.

on the surface, i know i am very disconnected from the horrors of this - i have no family in the region, by strict definition this is only half of my heritage. though as my dad would say, whether to g-d or the n*zis and their ilk, "half" doesn't matter. you are who you are, enfolded all the same. i have always loved and been proud of that. even when i was harassed and bullied and threatened and assaulted in my first two years of high-school about it. i always thought it was a beautiful thing to be a part of. i never felt terror around it until these past two weeks. i was consciously aware, but never felt it viscerally in my bones and like a weight on my chest, that people would want me dead. or if they did, they would be condemned as terrible, as fringe extremists, as far-right agitators. except that's not where this was coming from - this was coming from my own ideological side. this was coming from "friends." i don't think i can describe what that betrayal feels like or how profoundly wounding it is. people far more affected than i, far more connected and impacted, reached out to me in their hurt and anxiety, afraid of their mutuals, afraid of saying anything even remotely empathetic out loud, afraid of being attacked.

i have had tough things going on in my direct daily life for the past two weeks, but because of all this, i've barely slept. i can't remember the last day i got more than a few hours. i haven't cried this much since angel died. i have never felt such a pervasive sense of fear and despair. i never had panic attacks simply logging into my blog.

so again i say, if you're here, i assume you wouldn't participate in this. i assume you'd understand why it's dangerous and painful. i assume if i expressed grief or concern over the horrific loss of any human life, you wouldn't tell me i deserved it too. but this is not a certainty. this is not something i'll ever again know for sure. and if you're not, if you disagree with me that quantifying innocent lives' value *anywhere* with, "yes, but-," you don't have to stay, and i won't hold it against you. and if you're here, i love you, and i can only hope you're a safe person for me to interact with and love. but thats's what these past days and this rhetoric has done to me. and it's going to take me some time to not feel like the walls are closing in and to heal from that, though i know i won't forget it. so i hope you understand if i'm a little sad and a little skittish. i hope you don't mind that my most basic principle is that living beings of all kinds have sanctity, and no one deserves to die.

my mom reminded me today that i woke up on the 4th and came to her crying, and she asked me what was wrong, and i didn’t know, i couldn’t tell her anything except that i was unbearably sad and had this sickening feeling of dread that made me feel like the walls were closing in for no reason