* Translation by Yehoshua Siskin ([email protected])
"Shalom Sivan, this is Hadas. This is not a story about a baby born in the midst of war. He was born earlier, but it has taken time for me to commit his story to writing. He was born on the holiday of Sukkot. Therefore, his brit was on Simchat Torah, in the morning. Right in the middle of his brit, the sirens sounded. Everything changed.
It is said that parents receive a divine inspiration in choosing a certain name for their baby. In truth, at the time of the brit, we did not know what was happening in the south on Kibbutz Be'eri, but the name that my husband and I had already agreed on was Be'eri (בארי means 'my well'). To quote from his brit milah ceremony: 'And his name in Israel shall be called . . . Be'eri.' At the very moment that Be'eri received the sign of our covenant with God, Kibbutz Be'eri was fighting for its life. At the same moment, there was both end and beginning, both death and life, with hidden connections between souls and between hearts.
And since then little Be'eri and I follow what is going on. This body does not hurt so much as it did after giving birth, but the heart, the heart aches. And I want to say that it seems to me that these are the birth pangs of our nation, exactly like the pain that I felt. It's a pain that is followed by a great light, after which life is brought into the world.
These days I look at Be'eri and pray that the birth pangs are finally over. In another moment, they will be behind us, and we will all merit to be born anew in kindness, in compassion, and in faith."
