My namesake, Aryeh (Leibele) Fagelman, my father’s baby brother, was killed in the battle for Latrun, fighting for the creation of the State of Israel. My commitment to a democratic Jewish state is one of the ways in which I remember the uncle I never knew. I never forget him during Yizkor when we remember the martyrs of Tzahal, the Israel Defense Forces.
When the Israeli army announced the tragic news that the bodies of the three abducted Israeli teenagers, Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrah, were found brutally murdered, the initial shock was followed by an outpouring of revenge fantasies. Of course, from time immemorial, the dead want revenge. But what is the appropriate revenge for innocent blood that has been shed? How do the dead want to be remembered? These young Jews—boys, really— were spending their days immersed in Torah study. They want to be remembered for what was important to them in life, not for their deaths, which were senseless.
The psychoanalyst Martin Bergmann, whose father Samuel Hugo Bergman (sic) was one of the founders of Hebrew University, explained that to transform revenge to remembering is a big leap into a state of sublimation. Bergmann emphasized that Jewish history can guide us into the significance of memory. For those who trust in a God who remembers everything, their feelings of wanting revenge will be transferred to God. Bergmann goes on to explain that the prophets understood that in the end of Days, a new reconciliation between God and his people will take place and punishment will be forthcoming.
It is too soon to contemplate how to best remember three innocent students who were had not yet themselves decided what will be most important to them in their lives. Now is the time to bring comfort to the families whose lives are forever changed by the murder of their loved ones. Now is the time to contemplate how to reduce the annihilation anxiety that has been heightened for us all, not just for residents in Israel and the West Bank, but in many areas of conflict around the world where the “other” is being dehumanized and is no longer is seen as part of the human race. Now is the time to prevent those seeking an eye for an eye to stop the cycle of violence.
Visiting atrocities upon the killers—“an eye for an eye”—will diminish compassion towards the innocent victims. In an age of rampant terrorism growing across the globe, we barely have enough time to mourn—to feel the rage, the loss, depression, survivor guilt, the helplessness, the wish to undo the murder, and to then transform these feelings into a form of sublimation, a search for meaning in our own lives. These feelings, and what to do with them, are difficult to sustain. Most prefer, therefore, that immediate revenge for the murders will take place and thereby alleviate the angst of annihilation anxiety felt by those near or far from the scene of the crime.
There are better ways.
By Eva Fogelman, PhD
