Don't Cry Over Spilled Wine; Cry Over Spilled Blood

in memory of Yona Brief

Mar 16, 2025

On the flight from Tel Aviv to Boston, I chatted with a fellow passenger. Avi Samter has just completed his military service in Israel and, before starting at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is taking time to visit with relatives and go places in America.

Friendly and cheerful, Avi (seated to my left) spoke in rapid, fluent Hebrew and surprised me by revealing that he’s American-born. “Were you at Nova?” (I was referring to the Israeli music festival that became a major locus for Hamas’s horrific rampage.) No, but an army buddy of his – a close friend, Yona Brief, serving as a sergeant-major combat medic – on duty in the area was fatally wounded. Injured 3 months earlier, he’d returned to his IDF duties only to get caught up in the October 7 carnage. He took 13 bullets.

As Avi further explained, visits to Yona’s hospital bed gave every indication he would recover. He survived 14 months.

It was a red-eye flight, and during my attempt to get some shut-eye I woke up with a jolt as I felt a cold splash on my left leg.

That side of my body was soaked from hip down. Avi had spilled wine. Usually, I can’t sleep on a plane. For once, the tides of slumber had started to carry me away into transatlantic dreamland, but this rude awakening dashed my hopes. Turning to Martha (seated to my right), I smiled, “Can’t catch a break.”

The immediate challenge was in getting my pants and seat dry. Avi, Martha, and a flight attendant helped. I used paper towels to mop up the sticky, pungent-smelling liquid; Martha and Avi offered me their complimentary blankets to place on the seat to cover what remained of dampness. He wanted to lend me a pair of pants of his stowed in carry-on luggage; I told him, no need.

And I told him not to feel bad. Accidents do happen; no harm done. By comparison with what his friend Yona had endured, this was nothing. Wondering about degrees of pain and loss got me thinking…

Earlier that night, at the airport while Martha and I were moving through customs and toward the waiting area, I noticed blood on my hand and her coat. She said not to worry – the blood would come out in the wash. Scrutinizing my fingers, I became more puzzled: How had this happened? There were barely visible red smudges but no sign of a cut. I’m still perplexed – where had that blood come from?

Wine… Blood...

I kept thinking about the wine mishap. Avi had gone on to video and cell phone activities and then sleep; I refrained from bothering him with my continuing ruminations. (Later on, though, he courteously filled in some blanks for me on names and events, and he shared photos.) I wanted to joke with him about it, laugh it off. Call my minor tribulation a gift, a blessing: This little inconvenience had opened up the realization of how fortunate I am to be alive. And so on – all the clichés on that.

I thought about Pesach/Passover, the holiday coming up this year in mid-April. Seder rituals. Blood on doorposts and lintels as a signal for God to pass over and not kill Hebrew along with Egyptian firstborn.

Four cups of wine, 10 drops of which we intentionally spill from our cups onto our plates – wine symbolizing joy, wine’s removal representing diminished joy in knowing our liberation came at the price of our enemies’ suffering (in Midrash God likewise chastises angels for celebrating the drowning of Pharaoh’s army).

More wine spilled, but by accident, during your typical seder. Whenever that happens, I tell everyone to be happy and feel blessed: wine stains on the Haggadah or tablecloth remind us how joy is flowing and spontaneous on our festive occasion!

Oh, if only, for this Passover, we had a magic charm to wish away death – yes, death our enemies in their cruelty inflict on us but also death they bring upon themselves by refusing to accept our right to live. The death of Yona, a hero who rushed in to save lives.

Israelites celebrated their freedom, then departed for the Promised Land. I thought about all these things while traveling away from the land of Israel, the sense of promise and hope not receding from my thoughts but lingering along with wine’s wistful odor still clinging to my now dry pants and accompanying me away from my Promised Land back to America, a home away from home.