Fearing For My Life

On dying

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”

Matthew 10:28

I grew up sitting in our settlement living room looking at dockets prepared by ex-intelligence personnel devoted to hunting down anti-Zionists. As I started to awaken to the nature of Israel, the system, and its treatment of dissenters, I was genuinely afraid for my life. The fear of death, the fear of losing loved ones, the fear of losing work, all kept me silent. And the cost of my silence was other people’s lives.

These fears kept me in spaces where I could not speak my truth. Sitting at dinner tables, nodding along at the genocidal jokes, swallowing what I knew for the safety of belonging. I wanted to be honest, but didn’t have the courage. Every moment I thought I was protecting myself, something in me was dying.

Coming clean in all aspects of my life meant facing these fears. Each fear I faced meant losing something I clung to, but each one meant regaining something I had lost.

Facing the fear of losing my work opened aligned work.

Facing the fear of losing my reputation freed me to become someone new.

Facing the fear of losing my family connected me to the human family.

Facing the fear of losing my relationship called in new love.

Facing the fear of losing my life opened the experience of life.

The death I had always feared was the death of my old self. When I surrendered even my life to the truth, when I decided that nothing, not even my life, was worth the silence, the fear lost its grip, and the system lost its leverage. On the other side of that death was the grace of rebirth, and the possibility of liberation.

I have made my peace with the fact that my own family has supported the targeting of people like me.

And once I made peace with the idea of losing my life, I regained my soul.

הודאה

اعتراف

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