"In the Midst of Exile, It's So Hard to Believe in Redemption": Noa Yaron Dayan's Stirring Post

A moving post by Noa Yaron-Dayan on her Facebook page yesterday, Rosh Chodesh Av, received thousands of likes and comments.

In the post, Noa wrote about isolation and a conversation she had with the Creator during this period, where redemption seems so distant within the ongoing exile. "Rosh Chodesh Av," she begins and writes. "I lift my eyes and speak. I whisper to the One who said and it was 'a world' a prayer from the furnace of this period, a prayer from a world that seems to be crumbling before our eyes.

"Tell me," I ask him, "You really will redeem us, right? You promise, right? Because wherever I look in the world you created, it seems darkness is winning. Hope is cast into the dust, division, and narrow-mindedness prevail over us. Our dreams are still dreams of personal success without the ability to see beyond the boundary of the darkness."

"Chaos and void and darkness over the abyss. Astonishment and emptiness and darkness. It seems as though chaos and void and darkness have reached the abyss, and where is the spirit of Hashem? Are you truly hovering over the waters? In the midst of exile, it’s so hard to believe that redemption will come. This is the exile itself, my personal distance from the faith that my comforts are on the way."

"I must fall and rise with the whole world"

At this point, Noa describes the days when each day seems eternal, and she experiences them in a challenging way. Yet, even amidst great and prolonged hardship, the desire to continue believing in redemption persists. "I want to believe with all my strength that redemption will indeed come, that the darkness is temporary, finite, and fleeting, that my tears will dry up, leaving salt marks on my face—a reminder of destruction. That in the most personal, private, and profound way—a consolation will come to me. That my eyes will be opened to see that everything is for the good—not as a successful slogan, but as an inner truth. Not as PR—but as a sweeping reality. That all my sorrow within all the other mourning of your people, the house of Israel, will turn into simple, existing joy, clear as the dazzling sunlight, present as the heat of this summer.

"And I comfort myself that it is a great privilege to feel. That nothing is worse than a coma. That only this way can one truly cry out for redemption, amidst the troubles. Because if this is not my personal exile I am mourning over, then how can I truly mourn? If this is not my personal redemption waiting around the corner, then how can I truly wait for it and be excited about it?

It turns out that to be a partner in what is happening in the world, I must fall and rise with the whole world. Apparently, yes. That's how it is. And now I feel the distress strongly. We all feel it. So I close my eyes. I feel the exile. I use this sorrow, leverage it, turn it into prayer. Waiting for redemption. More than in good times.
Rosh Chodesh Av and I lift my eyes.
"Min-HaMeitzar Karati Yah, Anani VaMerchav Yah," she concludes.