By Rabbi Shlomo Schachter

For the yahrzeit and memorial event on October 7th, I was asked to share a prayer for the release of the captives.  Over the last year I have heard and read many different prayers for the release and return of our captives.  Some are formulas long established and printed in siddurim since the eighties when we were praying for the release of Ron Arad (an Israeli Air Force pilot who was captured during the First Lebanon War).  Others have been composed in the last year, specifically for the captives of October 7th.  Yet somehow these words didn’t tug on my heartstrings quite hard enough.  And it’s not words that can crack the heavens anyway, but only hearts. So, I let my heart pray and this is what emerged.

My sense has been that it’s not just the hostages that are captive, but our hearts are captive with them. We’re all so stuck and mired in this conflict with no tangible way out or forward.  We’re all emotionally and spiritually entangled and matted with our ‘enemies’ in Israel and antisemites here in America like hair in a dreadlock.  We don’t know what’s authentically us, what’s our traumatic response and what’s our reaction to being hated.  Who among us has a practical vision for peace and reconciliation, never mind finding the emotional courage and largess to expand our ‘we’ to include our neighbors with whom we’ve been unwittingly and unwillingly cast as enemies.

Yet, every morning we find in the siddur the blessing of “Matir Asurim” in which we praise Hashem as the untier of ‘our bonds’.  This appellation of God is taken from Psalm 146:7, “who secures justice for those who are wronged, gives food to the hungry; The LORD sets prisoners free.”

So, this refrain, H’ Matir Asurim, has been pounding in my head and heart for the last year.  Nu, Hashemie, let’s see it.  Untie our tangles and set us all free.

Shlomo Schachter is the Rabbi at Kehillat Ohr Tzion and an educator with the Buffalo Jewish Federation.