I Can Breath Again
Healing With Nova Festival Survivors
I can breathe now.
I don't feel like I'm being strangled.
I can get out of bed.
I have hope.
I’m crushed by guilt and remorse.
I want to make something of my life.
I don't know why I am alive.
I’m broken. But I’m healing.
I know there is light.
I am still afraid.
I want to sing, work, travel, see the world.
I will dance again.
These are some of the reactions we heard in group therapy with survivors of the Nova Music Festival massacre during a week-long retreat this month at Camp Ramah in Ojai, California.
When an Israeli nonprofit asked the 2,000 survivors of the Nova Festival what they needed most after the October 7th massacre, the response was - we desperately need a break. A break from the sirens. A break from the rockets and an opportunity to be in a different setting, meet new people, and just be.
To heed that call, a small and mighty group of passionate American and Israeli leaders, led by Karin Hepner and Rikki Hepner, Israeli therapists and Camp Ramah, quickly came together to create the Orot Healing Retreat.
Nova survivors are spread throughout Israel and beyond, not together in a community with others who share the same traumatic experience. At Orot, our goal was to provide survivors with the opportunity to breathe. We wanted to create a safe place to process and share their experiences and an opportunity for survivors to find their strength surrounded by light and love.
The Orot weeklong retreat included camp activities, group trauma therapy, individual therapy, mindfulness training, yoga, nature, therapy animals, movement, communal singing, dynamic Shabbat experience, a dance party, art therapy, challah baking, candle making, Japanese tie dying, and hundreds of hours of conversations, meetings, crying, laughing, joy and sorrow and much more.
Thanks to private donors and a small army of volunteers, Orot brought 120 Nova survivors together for a weeklong healing retreat, transforming all of us. At Karin's invitation, Pico Shul, Rachel, and I were honored to join the American team.
***
Koby — all names have been changed for privacy— and his two friends heard the missiles. They headed for their cars. They tried to find a way out of the parking lot. They heard shooting from all directions. They headed one way, then the next. They sped down roads and over fields. Their car was riddled with bullets that narrowly killed them. When they saw no one chasing them, they turned into an orchard—ditched the car—made for the trees. They lay at the base of a tree for nine hours.
“When I think about those people whose life flashes before their eyes, I always imagined it happened quickly,” Koby said. “There we were, silent, hiding, hurt, praying, begging for help in texts to family and friends. And my life passed before me many, many times. I recited the Shema. I said Psalm 23.”
He grabbed his phone, looked up the psalm, and said it aloud to our group. I recited it out loud with him in tears.
The LORD is my shepherd; I lack nothing....Though I walk through a valley of deepest darkness, I fear no harm, for You are with me...
“There were eight times we made the right choice. If we had made any other choices those eight times, I don't think we would be alive.”
On Friday morning, Koby approached me after breakfast. “Could I DJ Saturday night?” We had heard that some of the survivors were also psytrance DJs. We had already placed Eitan as the opener at 9 pm. He was gushing with joy. “It is my dream to open for Infected, Rabbi Yonah; thank you!” Infected Mushroom had graciously volunteered to be our headliners. God had organized it so that they would not be traveling the world this weekend but would be in LA. I put Koby in as the late-night DJ from 3-5 am. I was there when he started playing, and he was beaming.
***
Whenever Reut sees me she smiles and shouts, “Machshavot Tovot! (Good thoughts)!”
And then we all instantly reply with the niggun, “Ay yah ya yah...”
“Ma’asim Tovim! (Acts of Goodness!) ” “Ay yah ya yah...”
We are yelling this 2022 Israeli dance song by Israeli Breslov musician Moti Weiss. It’s now being sung everywhere in Israel. We start jumping up and down and adding our verses. “Chaverim Tovim! (good friends)” It goes on for a long time.
Reut is full of life, a party-going young woman who had become more religious in the months leading up to NOVA. She started to pray every day. Then Nova. She now is angry at the God she knows saved her. She says “the malachim (the angels)” protected her, but it's so hard to understand why angels didn't protect her friends.
“I have no answers, Reut,” I tell her. “It’s about what we do with the new life that God has given us.”
We are all crying.
***
One of the young men I speak with every day, Roni, doesn't ever mention Oct. 7. So we speak about psytrance music. I have now become highly versed in the various sub-genres of trance, the best festivals, and DJs. We speak for hours about his life, his journey, and the many places around the world he has lived. He is a soul brother.
“You know both my brothers are orthodox. I have many nieces and nephews. But I find my spirituality in music.”
For Roni, the attack on the festival must have felt like an attack on his synagogue. The terrorists not only killed and kidnapped, raped, and butchered, but they also desecrated what was sacred for him.
“Rabbi Yonah, you must join us in Portugal this summer....” Apparently, the best psytrance festivals in the world are in Portugal and last nine days.
“Let’s see what's possible...” I told him.
***
We are all holding it together in joy and tears leading up to Shabbos. We had created a musical program to bring us up to candle lighting. The energy was so strong. Every one of the musicians I was with had led music on retreats or camps before — no one had experienced this kind of embrace, this level of connection.
But it isn’t for everyone. There were groups of survivors who sat in circles on the lawn. Their processing was different. They just wanted to chill before dinner. And that was ok.
We all gathered in the giant dining room and started singing Shalom Aleichem. And we could not stop. There was so much power in the singing of that ancient simple song. And we could not stop. We sang it over and over again.
Peace be with you, ministering angels, messengers of the Most High,
sent by the King of Kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He.
Come in peace, messengers of peace, messengers of the Most High,
sent by the King of Kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He.
Bless me with peace, messengers of peace, messengers of the Most High,
sent by the King of Kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He.
Go in peace, messengers of peace, messengers of the Most High,
sent by the King of Kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He.
Angels. We were in a room of people whose angles had all protected them from death just four months ago.
I’m standing on a chair in the middle of the room singing the Friday night Kiddush. As I am about to belt out the blessing over the wine, for some reason, I switch to the tune traditionally used for a wedding. There was so much joy in the room. My brain just made the switch. The joy of Chatan and Kalah, the bride and groom, the joy that we all have standing at a Chuppah. The joy of the promise of the Jewish future. The joy of two people in love and families and friends together. That is the joy in the room. We are the bride, and God is the groom.
When I finished the blessing, Borei Pri Hagafen, everyone answered with a booming “Amen.”
I was still. It took my breath away. It was like my heart stopped. The amen was the most powerful amen. It reaches into my core, into my heart. I can’t continue.
Amen, an acronym for El Melech Ne’eman, God, faithful King.
It was just a regular Borei Pri Hagafen. Fundamentals. A prayer we say all the time. A prayer we say every Friday night. But this was not a regular Friday night. This was not a regular prayer. This was something way, way beyond.
The room was silent. I felt my heart start to beat again and continued to pray.
***
There were approximately 3,500 people at the Nova Music Festival. The Hamas murderers killed 364 people, including seventeen police officers, and abducted forty to Gaza. Some survivors still have bullets in their legs. They suffer from other physical injuries in addition to extreme anxiety, PTSD, and a host of other trauma-induced problems. Many also have friends or family members who have served in Gaza fighting Hamas or protecting Northern Israel from Hezbollah.
May God heal the injured, and may the souls of those murdered be blessed on high.
If you would like to partner with us in these efforts, please consider a donation — we are still providing follow-up care and support for Israeli survivors here in the US.