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I saw their beautiful faces, filled with light and happiness. I heard their joyful voices speaking about love and hope. I watched their bodies jump and gyrate to the beat of ecstatic, pounding music. They called it a “Trance” - a music festival where people of all ages and backgrounds merge together to celebrate peace and unity.
As the sun rose, there were 3500 euphoric dancers welcoming the dawn. By noon, hundreds were dead. Massacred. Assassinated. Murdered. Many more were wounded, maimed, raped, kidnaped.
Like many of you, I visited the Nova Exhibition last Sunday. My eyes filled with tears numerous times as I walked through the brutally immersive rooms, listened to the testimonies, examined the burned-out cars and tables of shoes, and stared in overwhelming grief at the hundreds of faces of the victims, most of them in their 20’s, mounted on the walls.
Three days earlier, I also attended the premiere of a new documentary about Nova, produced by Paramount Plus and the BBC, which is soon to be released. The Israeli filmmaker had received permission to go to the site of the Festival on October 10 – just three days after the attack. Nothing had been moved or changed and the scenes were raw and sickening. Unexpectedly, in the footage, taken from hundreds of cell phones, there was a lot of film of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, which was unbearably painful and poignant.
In both instances, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing. Not just the scenes of brutality and violence, the horrific screams of terror, the tears and pleas for mercy, the cries of Shma Yisrael. Not just the blood-thirsty shrieks of the murderers, praising Allah, urging each other on to kill, kill, kill, and then boasting about their body count.
But I also heard this astonishing, astounding, mind-blowing phrase that pierced and lifted my heart at the same time. How could they say such a thing? Where did they find the strength and the courage?
We will dance again.
In the documentary, at the exhibition, out of the mouth of the young Nova survivor who shared his story with us. Over and over, I heard those words, which I now realize were a holy, sacred message from broken angels, from shattered hearts, from the purest of souls.
“We will fight the darkness with light and with love. We will not give up and we will not give in. We still believe in the goodness of people and though we are shattered and devastated and grieving, we will rise again. We will remember them. We will live for them. And in their names, we will help each other and support each other and take care of each other and be a family forever.
And we will dance again.”
Shabbat Shalom.
Love,
Susan
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