Luz

There is a story in Jewish tradition of a city called Luz.

It is not defended by walls. It is not announced on maps. It survives because it is not fully given over to the world.

In the midrash, Luz is a place where death does not enter. Not because the people are spared suffering, and not because time is suspended, but because the city itself cannot be fully found. It is known only through transmission. You arrive there by being told, not by conquering. Some versions say that death comes only when one leaves.

It is not a triumphant story. There is no battle, no victory, no moral lesson. Luz endures by staying partially hidden.

I have been thinking about this story recently, as many Jewish colleagues and friends carry fear, grief, and vigilance in the body. There is pressure, in moments like this, for suffering to be made legible, spoken clearly, or translated into meaning. There is also pressure to reassure, to explain, or to take a position that makes the pain easier to locate.

Luz does none of this.

It does not ask to be understood. It does not promise safety. It does not offer redemption. It simply holds the idea that life sometimes survives by not being fully exposed, by keeping something back from a world that has shown it cannot be trusted with everything.

For those who live under recurring threat, concealment is not a failure of courage. It is a form of care. Silence is not absence. It is a way of keeping something alive.

The story of Luz does not tell us what to do. It does not tell us how to feel. It does not instruct us to be resilient, visible, brave, or forgiving. It makes space for the knowledge that endurance can be quiet, partial, and costly.

For non-Jewish readers, this is not a metaphor to apply or a lesson to take. It is a story about how a people has learned, again and again, to protect continuity when the world turns hostile. The details are not universal, and they do not need to be.

For Jewish readers, I hope it offers something simpler. Not reassurance. Not explanation. Just recognition.

That sometimes survival does not look like strength. That sometimes the most faithful thing is to withhold. That sometimes the work is not to be seen, but to remain. Luz is still there, in the story. Not lost. Not conquered. Not fully revealed.

And that may be enough, for now.