Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

A slightly chubby man approached the microphone: pitch-black turban, snow-white beard, black robe like a black balloon filled with shouting. There was an undeniable wisdom in his eyes, even a gentleness. There was absolutely nothing to distinguish his face from that of a Jew.

“It is now nine p.m. in Israel. Two p.m. in New York. It is seven p.m. in London, eleven a.m. in Los Angeles, eight p.m. in Paris, three p.m. in Buenos Aires, nine p.m. in Moscow, four a.m. in Melbourne.

“This speech is being broadcast around the world, on every major news outlet. It is being simultaneously translated into dozens of languages, and will be viewed by people of every religion and race and culture in the world. But I am speaking only to Jews.

“Since the devastating earthquake two weeks ago, Israel has endured calamity after calamity, some brought upon us by the indifferent hand of Mother Nature, some by the fists of our enemies. With ingenuity, strength, and resolve, we have done what Jews have always done: we have survived. How many more-powerful peoples have vanished from the face of the earth while the Jewish people have survived? Where are the Vikings? Where are the Mayans? The Hittites? The Mesopotamians? And where are our historical enemies, who have always outnumbered us? Where are the pharaohs, who destroyed our firstborn but could not destroy us? Where are the Babylonians, who destroyed our Holy Temple but could not destroy us? Where is the Roman Empire, which destroyed our Second Temple but could not destroy us? Where are the Nazis, who could not destroy us?

“They are gone.

“And here we are.

“Spread across the globe, we have different dreams in different languages, but we are joined in a richer, prouder history than can be claimed by any other people to have graced the earth. We have survived, and survived, and survived, and have come to assume that we always will. But brothers and sisters, descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, I come to you tonight to tell you that survival is the story of the Jewish people only because the Jewish people have not been destroyed. If we survive ten thousand calamities, and then, in the end, we are destroyed, the story of the Jews will be the story of destruction. Brothers and sisters, heirs of kings and queens, prophets and holy men — children, all of us, of the Jewish mother who released the wicker basket into the river of history — we are cast into the current, and this moment will determine our story.

“As King Solomon knew, ‘A righteous man falls down seven times and gets up.’ We have fallen down seven times, and seven times we have gotten up. We have been struck by an earthquake of unprecedented proportions. We have endured the collapse of our homes, the loss of basic utilities, aftershocks, disease, missile attacks, and now we are assailed on every side by enemies funded and armed by superpowers, while support for us has wavered, while our friends have averted their eyes. Our righteousness has not diminished, but we cannot fall down again. We were defeated two thousand years ago, and we were doomed to two thousand years of exile. As the prime minister of the State of Israel, I am here to tell you tonight that if we fall down again, the book of Lamentations will not only be given a new chapter, it will be given an end. The story of the Jewish people— our story — will be told alongside the stories of the Vikings and Mayans.

“Exodus recounts a battle between Israel and Amalek: man against man, army against army, people against people, with commanders observing from vantage points far behind their own lines. While he watches the battle, Moses notices that when his arms are raised, Israel makes advances, and when they are lowered, Israel takes losses. So he keeps his arms raised in front of him. But, as we are again and again reminded, Moses is only human. And no human can keep his arms raised forever.

“Fortunately, Moses’s brother, Aaron, and brother-in-law, Hur, are nearby. He summons them, and they hold up his arms for the duration of the battle. Israel is victorious.

“As I speak to you, the Israeli Air Force, in collaboration with the other branches of the Israel Defense Forces, is commencing Operation Arms of Moses. Beginning in eight hours, El Al planes will be departing from major Jewish population centers around the world to bring Jewish men and women between the ages of sixteen and fifty-five to military stations in Israel. Those flights will be met by fighter jets, to ensure safe travel. Upon arriving in Israel, our brave brothers and sisters will be assessed and directed to how they can best support the effort of survival. Detailed information about the operation can be found at www.operationarmsofmoses.com.

“We have been preparing for this. We brought home our Ethiopian brothers and sisters from the desert. We brought home Russian Jews, and Iraqi Jews, and French Jews. We brought home those who survived the horrors of the Holocaust. But this will be an unprecedented undertaking — unprecedented in Israel’s history, and unprecedented in world history. But this is an unprecedented crisis. The only way to prevent our total destruction is with the totality of our strength.

“By the end of the first twenty-four hours of flights, we will have brought fifty thousand Jews to Israel.

“By the end of the third day, three hundred thousand.

“On the seventh day, the Diaspora will be home: one million Jews, fighting shoulder to shoulder with their Jewish brothers and sisters. And with these Aarons and Hurs, our arms will not only be raised in victory, we will be able to dictate the peace.”

They unrolled the Torah on the kitchen island, and Sam chanted with a grace that had never before touched a member of the Bloch family — the grace of being fully present as oneself. Irv lacked such grace, was self-conscious about crying, and held in his tears. Julia lacked such grace, was too concerned with etiquette to respond to her most primitive instinct to go to her son and stand beside him. Jacob lacked such grace, and cared enough to wonder what others were thinking.

The Torah was closed and dressed and replaced in the cabinet that had been emptied of shelves and art supplies. The men who surrounded Sam took their seats, leaving him alone to chant his haftorah, which he did slowly, resolutely, with the care of an ophthalmologist performing surgery on his own eyes. The rituals were complete. All that remained was his speech.

Sam stood there, at the kitchen-island bimah. He imagined a cone of dusty light projecting from his forehead, creating everything in front of him: the yarmulke on Benjy’s head ( Wedding of Jacob and Julia, August 23, 2000 ), the tallis that wrapped around his grandfather like an unfinished ghost costume, the unoccupied folding chair on which his great-grandfather sat.

He walked around the island, then awkwardly between chairs, and put his arm on Max’s shoulder. With a physical closeness that neither could have borne in any other moment, Sam took Max’s face into his hands and whispered something into his ear. It wasn’t a plan. It wasn’t a secret. It wasn’t information. Max softened like a yahrzeit candle.

Sam made his way back to the other side of the island.

“Hello, gathered. So. Right. Well. What can I say?

“You know how sometimes, when someone wins an award, they pretend that they were so sure they weren’t going to win it, they didn’t bother to prepare a speech? I don’t believe that that has ever once, in human history, been true. Or at least not if it’s for an Oscar, or something big like that, and the awards are televised. I guess people think that saying they didn’t prepare a speech will make them sound modest, or even worse, down-to-earth, but they actually sound like totally disingenuous narcissists.