The ritual was simple, as all new rituals are. It was based on an older tradition – one that long ago ceased to be simple, but retained a simple core.
Teach them to your children.
Rachel and Chana prepared while the children gathered around. The grandparents waited in the background, eyes shining as they remembered the early years when they had prepared so, the fear and the hope and the promise to do what must be done.
“Why is this day different from other days?” asked Nathan. He was twelve that year, about to be b’mitzvah and take on responsibility for his own actions. The next year, if he chose, he could begin training to join his parents when he turned eighteen.
“How is this day different?” Chana responded.
“Most days, we go out together, but today you leave your children home.”
“Today, we go where it may not be safe,” Chana said as she checked the balance of her shield.
“How is this day different?” Rachel asked.
“Other days, you go out for dressed peace; today, you go out dressed for fighting.”
“Other days, we go out for our own reasons; today, we go out to guard our cousins.” As Rachel spoke, she locked her phone in a portable Faraday cage and packed it in her emergency medical bag.
“Why do we guard our cousins today?” asked Yiska, the youngest.
Rachel and Chana paused their preparations in surprise. Yiska did not have part in this ritual, she was too young. But the question was right and the answer was important.
Chana knelt down and chucked Yiska’s chin. “God commands that we are responsible for our siblings. We must never stand by while our siblings’ blood is spilled.
“Our cousins are not siblings, but they are still family. God surely did not mean for us to guard our siblings and ignore our cousins. So we guard them when they need it. And they guard us when we do.”
It was an idea centuries old, born of the Blood Libel and the pogroms, when the Jews of Europe’s ghettos needed to always be ready to defend themselves. Today it was repurposed for a new age. Across the city, but especially in homes clustered around the city’s synagogues, people prepared riot shields and bullhorns, medicine and bandages.
No one remembered who began the tradition or even what city it started in. Perhaps it had begun in many places at once, as needed things sometimes do. But in every city and town where the cousins lived side by side, the practice was honored and cherished.
Rachel and Chana finished preparing and the family ended the ritual with song, because all holy days must have songs. They sang new songs to go with the new ritual. We will build this world with love, the song said, and God will build this world with love.
Then Rachel and Chana thanked their parents for watching the children, and left. As they stepped out the door, they murmured a brucha. “Blessed are You, Lord our God, ruler of the Universe, who has commanded us to protect our family.”
As the call to prayer went out across cell phones and radios, they came. Some in kippah or tichel or snood, others bare-headed, the Hebraic Community Defense teams gathered around the mosques of the city. None came barehanded. Inside, their cousins would pray in peace, undisturbed by whatever the day might bring.
The guardians expected a quiet day. Their cousins would share their feast and they would spend the time exchanging news of family and friends, making plans for the new year, and even playing games. But still, they would watch, and when their cousins finished praying and emerged, the guardians would greet them with a song. All holy days must have songs.
Tomorrow night, as the shofar rang out across the city, the Islamic Community Defense teams, in keffiyeh or hijab or neither, would stand guard over the synagogues.
It had been 20 years and more since the last major attack on a house of worship. The most they guarded against today was petty vandalism and hecklers. But still, for each holy day, they gathered. Still, they taught their children why.
Lest a cousin’s blood be spilled.
I wrote this the summer of ’23, for a market requesting visions of a better future. Ironic considering how much worse the near future actually was. But no matter how bad things get, they can always get better. May a better future come soon for all of us.