3 minutes

You can get so confused
that you’ll start to race
down long wiggled roads at break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirding wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
                   The Waiting Place . . .

. . . for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

– Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

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Posters had been put up overnight – the ones they had been tearing down in big cities. I saw them as I was walking to and from work, and I thought, “That’s important. I should write a post about that.” Before I could, the hostage release deal went through. Every day, I turned on live-streaming news on YouTube to watch the transfer. I couldn’t do anything before 4pm. And then there were delays and more delays and more delays. For days, I could do nothing else: I waited before. I waited during. I waited after for the next day. And then I waited for the extension. Or would it be the end of the pause?

I have been constantly waiting. Dr. Seuss, one of the great philosophers of the 20th century, told us when we were kids that The Waiting Place is a most useless place. And it is. And today – the 100th day of waiting – Israel still cannot turn the page. We are all just waiting.

Waiting for news.
Waiting for friends and colleagues to come back from reserve duty.
Waiting for phone calls from loved ones.
Waiting to hear the names of the fallen.
Waiting for the next siren.
Waiting for Friday or for Chanukah, but without any excitement.
(I forgot to wait for Santa – what can I say, I like the NORAD Santa Tracker. But not this year.)
Waiting for the secular year to change to 2024. (I made a herculean effort to remember to do the countdown to midnight, but it was empty and meaningless.)
Waiting for the 100th Day.

NO!
That’s not for you!

Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.

– Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

That “somehow” is a little tricky.
For now, we’re all in The Waiting Place praying for the release of the hostages and praying for peace.

To get out of this terrible, awful, no-good Waiting Place, we have to take action, so we’re always looking for that “somehow” to escape.