Hurting Hearts

A Song, in translation

Hurting Hearts, Hanan Ben Ari

I actually translated this song in the first months following October 7th, and I wrote these words then.

When I stopped in the midst of so much... it's hard to find any words to describe the feeling in Israel right now... But I knew I wanted to share a song that would express the pain, and also the prayer. The prayer that even when we don't understand, don't know why, when we could lose faith... We keep asking. And this is an essential part of what it means to be part of Yisrael, of the people of Israel: to struggle. It's embedded in our name: Yisrael is the name Yaakov was given after struggling with the angel. We question. And question. We don't stop believing, but we question. This song does that piercingly.

We are still in this hurt. For those of us not as directly affected, or/and who have prayer to turn to, we find a way to move forward, day after day. But then there are weeks like this, when the pain sears again as fresh as it did then. (And I bow my head to anyone, like the families whose loved ones are still being held captive, and those who’ve learned that their loved ones won’t return alive, for whom there’s been no momentary reprieve.)

So I share this Hanan Ben Ari song today because it is such a real, and beautiful, response to hurt.