Time and love heals...

A few months ago, I watched a tv show about German Jews leaving Israel and returning to Berlin. To live. Most were 3rd generation Israeli citizens.

It was a most uplifting story, these people choosing to leave their friends and families and return to the place where so many of their past friends and families were murdered.

I glimpsed the light shining brilliantly in these 2 comments:
1. An East Berliner observed that “I’ve never seen a living Jew.” He was very happy to see this return happening.
2. An ex Israeli citizen observed that she could never find the light at the heart of the holocaust darkness when she lived in Israel. She had to return to where it happened to find this light.

I do believe that, in our hearts, we humans come from a kind place. Many Germans have been carrying the guilt of the holocaust since 1945. Now they are finding opportunities to co-create a new beginning of caring and sharing their homeland with Jews once more.

Since enjoying this program, it has given me much food for thought. How much time does it take for an event so excruciatingly painful as the Holocaust to dissipate enough for those involved with the people who died to return to the scene, and ask “Why?” Three generations it seems.

Today, I read a summary of Franz Kafka’s story about the little girl losing her precious doll here. His essential message was delicious: Everything you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form.

Perhaps that’s what happened here. Perhaps simply time has removed these 3rd generation German Jews far enough from the devastating loss of their forebears that they could return to make their own loving connection with this thread of their past. Our world just had to wait until the time is right.

Despite the ongoing conflicts around our world, this gives me much hope.

Wendy