Redemption

This is not about my politics, or yours. It is not about words like peace and understanding, though they have their time and place. It is about something else. On Friday, I arrived home from work and, because I had left my keys at home, I sat on the doorstep, in the sun, waiting for Judy. In my email was a message: Hadar, the son of my strong and clever friend and colleague, Leah Goldin, was missing in action, believed captured. Twenty three, the same age as my own son. So, I sat at the Shabbat table with my family and I said a prayer 'for the redemption of captives'. And I cried. Here I am, in London, now, speaking this prayer, as if out of time, as if history and all the fragile protections of civilisation were stripped away.

This morning I read on the BBC that Hadar is dead, and I cry again, for Leah and for Hadar.