Drop by drop, the grief of this nation

On the night Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Senator Robert Kennedy had to break the news of King’s death to an Indiana audience. His words form one of the most extraordinary speeches ever written, in their brevity and powerful simplicity.

Frankly, and calmly, Kennedy addressed the anger and hate that underlies irrational acts and the profundity of his words. Then he quoted the Greek poet Aeschylus:

“And even in our sleep,
pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

I thought of Kennedy addressing his shocked and traumatised nation as I watched on the cortege bearing the bodies of the four Israeli hostages travelling from Gaza in the south of the country to central Tel Aviv.

Drop by drop the grief of this nation: the soldiers carrying the coffins with an ineffable grief on their young faces; the affront of adult caskets for the Bibas baby and infant; the persistent horror of that iconic video of October 7 of the children and their mother Shiri carrying Ariel under one arm, Kfir under the other. Oh, how heavy the burden of bewildered children; Oh, how aching the soul of a fearful, vulnerable mother.

The body of that remarkable 84-year-old, Oded Lifshitz, a peace activist who worked with his wife to aid Palestinian citizens get to Israeli hospitals across the border, was now ignobly transported back to the Red Cross.