CRITICA

I love puzzles. I love scattering the pieces, I like looking for the frame pieces, assembling the frame, and slowly connecting the pieces to reveal a familiar image.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary a puzzle is: “a game or toy in which you have to fit separate pieces together; a problem or question that you have to answer by using your skill or knowledge; a situation that is difficult to understand.”

Every year on Yom Kippur – Day of Atonement- I assemble a puzzle. Every summer, the process of searching for the right puzzle begins. It’s a family, a couple, and a personal process. We have informants who know where to find good puzzles, we have observers who locate them, we have air forces that fly them over, we have logistics forces that deliver them to the division area, and we have Infantry that bring them home. Once the puzzle Is at home, we wait for the evening of Yom Kippur, the forces unfold again, and the assembly work begins.

There are puzzles of various sizes, various pictures, and a variety of piece numbers. Personally, I love a 1000-piece puzzle. It takes trial and error to reach the optimal number of 1000 pieces. The challenge is to fit and arrange the pieces in their places, and the satisfaction comes with completing the task and observing the picture.

Many times, while assembling the puzzle, I declare that there are missing pieces or too many pieces. In the end, I discover that everything required is there, and I complete the puzzle and the puzzle completes me.

However, reality is always more complicated than that, and since 7.10.2023, it is much more challenging. Within this reality, I cannot concentrate. My thoughts wander and evaporate, words come and disappear. There are not enough words to express what I wanted to say and certainly not what I am experiencing. I try to gather my thoughts and assemble them.

I tried to find some comfort and engagement for my stormy and turbulent soul in books, but who has the patience to read a whole book? Not me! The most I can manage is reading short stories. I tried to find some comfort and engagement in puzzles, but who has the patience to put together 1000 pieces? Not me! Then, I discovered the puzzle app with puzzles of various sizes. Since then, I use the app to find solace.

Today, our life puzzle is composed of many, many pieces and particles. The pieces just partially take shape, and there is no sign of what they are going to look like in the future. Today, the picture and its near future is unclear, neither in the head nor in the heart. Neither outside nor inside.

On a hot line service, Tom, a young man, calls and says, “I would appreciate some advice, I would like to hear your opinion about taking a puppy.” I immediately get alert. On ordinary days, in my mind’s eyes, I would imagine a picture of a small puppy, and Tom cuddling and playing with it. Today? The images are confused, the symbolic and reality interchange. I ask him about the puppy, its color, age, parents, who raises it. Tom answers with enthusiasm and describes in detail a lovely picture of the puppy, “Really, really cute,” so I enquire, “What’s the hesitation?”

He answers, “It’s a huge responsibility, a puppy, especially now, that my sister was murdered a month ago, on October 7 th, and I don’t know if I can take care of and bond with one now. I’m so confused. I need some advice.” The dagger pierces the heart, the stomach turns, all the pieces are scattered, and the picture is filled with pain and compassion. I ask him to tell me about his sister and he does, in the same words that he had previously described the puppy, with the same admiration for his “really, really amazing” sister. We talk about the sister, about the sorrow and the fresh pain of separation. He talks about the guilt he feels for not telling his sister how amazing she was and how much he loved her. He talks about the fear of not being able to remember everything and how he can keep her “in my heart.” Together we start searching inside him for details, pieces to build the puzzle that will memorialize her in his heart.

And the puppy? He asks.
Difficult… I answer.
And he replies: Yes, a sweet puppy to take care of, keep and bond with. It frightens me… it hurts to part. I don’t want to.
You’re afraid you’ll have to part with him…
Yes, I’m afraid that suddenly, he won’t be, maybe it’s not right now to love someone who might disappear.

In my heart, I think that a puppy can be good for his aching soul, reassuring, and able to build a comforting puzzle. But his internal puzzle is not made up of only pieces of comfort but also of pieces of worry and fear. Such painful pieces that I, like him, am hesitating. The missing pieces are so many, so painful, so frightening.

I already said that on ordinary days, I don’t like a puzzle with more than 1000 pieces. It’s too much! It requires a lot of patience, calm, spatial vision, concentration, and above all, the assurance that all the pieces are in my hands, they have a clear frame, they match, and they assemble into a picture. It requires a lot of ingredients that are very much in demand these days and not so readily available nationally and personally.

And I have a hope that we will allow the forces of life, belief, and mutual support to collect the scattered pieces, complete the missing pieces, and build order and structure in our lives. A new puzzle that will be better, safer, more reliable, and more captured.

This is my puzzle of hope.