For years before we made aliyah, I would have vivid and frequent “Holocaust-type” dreams. I had that kind of dream the night of Simchat Torah in which I saw people being separated and led away. I can’t explain why, but it’s what happened.
Shaken from a disturbing night, I woke up to strange sounds. The faraway booms sounded a little familiar but so out of place and I went back to sleep, only to be awakened to an unmistakable sound shortly later. A siren! Here? In Bet Shemesh? On Simchat Torah?
I grabbed my kids and we ran down to the mamad (shelter) worrying about my parents who moved to Israel a few weeks ago and live in an apartment without a mamad. Did my mother know what it was (as it turns out, she didn’t until my husband ran to get her). My husband, son and father were at shul – were they able to get to a shelter? I sat in the mamad and remembered my dream. What did it mean?
The rockets were almost continuous until 12 p.m. and we knew something big was going on. It was too unusual for there to be this many rockets. But we could never have guessed that these rockets were a diversion for something far more sinister, far more catastrophic that was happening in places as close to 50 minutes away from our home.
When we went to shul for Mincha, we started to hear rumors. There was an infiltration in kibbutzim and yishuvim in the South, I was told. Forty people had been killed. I walked into shul, in a shocked daze. With tears falling I grabbed a Tehillim. Forty people?! “Imma,” my daughter whispered, “the rav is shaking.” I don’t know if Rav Lichtenstein’s children had already been called up that day, as so many were, but he now has five children serving in the army. If he is still shaking now I don’t know, because he has been an endless pillar of strength and chizuk for our community.
As Shabbat ended and the week progressed, our shock grew as the number of dead rose to over 1,300. Unfathomable numbers and stories of slaughter that conjured images of the Holocaust. I would dissolve into tears at any random moment of the day and my husband told me I needed to get control of myself, for my children and for my students in the school I run, but I couldn’t. I went to the Kotel, which was empty, and then to Har Herzl, which was full. I thought of the families of the kidnapped, not knowing if their kids were being tortured or even alive. I worried about our soldiers. Who could stomach the thought of sending our soldiers – who are not only soldiers but fathers of kids in my children’s classes and husbands and sons and daughters of my friends – to fight in a terrifying situation in Gaza, with terrorists who will do anything to kill Jews. Already there have been two times our neighborhood has lined the streets with flags to show support for families as they head to Har Herzl to bury their son. Each time, I wonder: will we have to do this again? I speak to brave mothers who are trying to occupy themselves with other things so as not to worry, but the worry is with them always, and I worry for their children and for them.
We hear planes night and day and we can already identify the sound of “booms” of the Iron Dome based on how loud it is – that one was Rechovot, that one was Tel Aviv, that one was Ashdod. I opened our school building for a few hours for parents to collect books, and during those few hours rockets were launched at Bet Shemesh and I found myself in an area far away from a shelter, trying to protect a mother who walks with a cane as we lay on the floor covering our heads, wondering how my kids were managing without me at home.
Afraid of infiltrations, we double-lock our doors and at first didn’t even let our children play outside. Schools are closed and our kids and students are back at Zoom, burnt-out from the Zoom school of the corona era. Once again, as parents we are balancing our jobs, our kids’ Zoom classes plus our own anxiety over the war, helping our kids find volunteer opportunities, spending hours advocating for Israel and combating the media on social media, horrified that even now I should have to do that. My sister is hosting a family with eight kids from the South. I reached out to a fellow principal to commiserate about the stress of having to set up and manage Zoom school with overworked and anxious teachers, along with students and parents who are having difficulties (some of whom are new olim!) while balancing my own kids’ needs at home and her response was yes, and her husband was called up a week ago. She is expecting her eighth child. That put things into perspective.
I have taught Israeli history for years and the experience described of people walking out of shul to a horrific war on Yom Kippur in 1973 has always struck me. This Yom Kippur, our rav spoke about his experience of seeing this happen at Yeshivat Har Etzion as we commemorated the 50th anniversary. I never thought I would live through such moments myself, certainly not a mere few days later.
But there is another moment in history that I’ve been thinking of a lot these days. Before the Six-Day War, there were the weeks of the Hamtana – the waiting period, when no one knew if Israel would attack or be attacked, and what would be. The prospect of doom weighed upon the country as they prepared for possible annihilation. While Israel suffered tragic casualties in that war, it famously faced six days of miracles they could never have expected. What was that like, I’ve wondered, to have been listening to the radio to hear, “Har HaBayit b’Yadeinu”?
Right now, Israel is facing threats from Hamas and Hezbollah, and increased threats from a possibly nuclear Iran, not to mention increasing antisemitism across the world. The world and media which were so supportive last week are starting to turn on us to tell “the other side.” The fear and stress are very real and while we are mostly managing now, the questions about how bad it could get are a place where our minds don’t want to go. But the spirit in the country is amazing. We are seeing chesed like never before as everyone binds together to support our chayalim and their families and to provide for the families from the South who have needed to evacuate. Our chayalim have shown up in droves to answer their summons, and even ones who have not been summoned but want to serve, have inspired us with their ironclad commitment to protecting our country, no matter what risks they face. We are seeing the unity of our politicians and see the love and support from people across the religious and political spectrum, which is incredible after feeling the division for so long. We feel the embrace from Jews from afar, most powerfully from unaffiliated Jews, which has moved me to my core. There is no one like the Jewish people. There is no more intensely powerful feeling than being a Jew living in Israel at a time like this.
With all the mixed emotions of a fierce and protective love for our country, for its people and for our soldiers, the grief of what happened and the fear of what’s to come, I truly believe that with the achdut and chesed we are seeing, Mashiach is very, very close. May we merit to witness miracles like we saw during the Six-Day War and may Hashem bring home our soldiers to safety.
