It is well-accepted that things made smaller are typically cuter – with the exception of your bank account. Human beings can’t seem to get enough of all things mini. We delight in them. According to clinical psychologist Carla Marie Manly, PhD., “The mind finds the tiny object appealing – cute and adorable– as it evokes a sense of normalcy and oddity at the same time.”
Show me a woman whose heart doesn’t melt when you hold up a tiny newborn outfit. Tell me you don’t smile when you see a little boy wearing a tiny tallis and carrying his own little sefer Torah. It is pretty straightforward. Tiny things, that aren’t supposed to be tiny are terribly cute. So why was it that this past Shabbos, that the presence of something tiny and not supposed to be so, confused me, as opposed to invoking the usual sense of cuteness?
Shul was mostly empty. Many are in miluim and a large portion of our yishuv opted to daven in street minyanim, in closer proximity to a safe room. Of those who were at shul, I noticed that many were visitors – daughters and grandchildren staying with their extended families while (and this is conjecture) their husbands and fathers are off protecting our land and us. There was one little boy, he couldn’t have been older than four or five, who kept running in and out of the men’s section to check that his mom hadn’t suddenly disappeared. He was a particularly adorable child with blonde payos and a tan lined seersucker suit, but the thing that really stood out to me was the toy machine gun that he had slung over his shoulder. My initial reaction was to be horrified. Who buys these kinds of toys for their children, and even worse, allows them to bring such things to shul? My second reaction was much more reasoned. This little boy didn’t bring this toy gun to shul to elicit violence or fear, he wore it proudly to be like his Abba. I assume that there was more to it as well. Maybe carrying his toy gun makes him feel like his Abba isn’t so far away, or doing something so dangerous. Maybe he feels that by carrying his gun, he too has an important job. My brain began to process why this could in fact be translated into cute, but my heart refused to let it.
There is nothing cute about young fathers leaving their families to fight on the front lines. There is nothing cute about war being such a profound reality that it reaches every aspect of our lives. There is nothing cute about a five-year-old having a good excuse to wield a toy gun.
As I stand there contemplating this, a friend walks over and asks me if I plan to come to the shiur she is hosting after shul. She tells me how she doesn’t really expect anyone to come, and then she holds up her hand as she ticks off a finger for why each of the regulars aren’t going to make it. When she gets to Yossi, and mentions that he too is in miluim, I look at her in confusion and burst out, “But he is old. And a dentist. What do they need him for?” She looks at me in a way that someone with much more life experience looks at a newbie, a mixture of pity and discomfort at having to explain herself, and she says, “He was called up. They need him to help identify bodies by their dental records.”
I am not sure why this hit me more strongly than any of the other awful things I’ve had to process over the last week, but for some reason, this idea causes something inside me to stir and refuse to settle. Maybe it is the appreciation for how far this war spans. For how many people’s lives are affected. For the understanding that there is so much going on behind the scenes that we are not even aware of. For the sense that no one is too old to be called up to contribute in the way that they can.
We are all being called up. None of us are untouched by this war. It may be different for you or for me, but at the end of the day, as Jewish people, we are all connected. We are one, and what is happening is happening to all of us. If this were not true, we wouldn’t have people voluntarily arriving in Israel to help in any way that they can. We wouldn’t have people across the world raising money and sending supplies. We wouldn’t have people grilling, and baking, and cooking, and donating, and writing cards and drawing pictures like they are. We wouldn’t have people frantically tying tzitzis for chayalim. We wouldn’t be davening for each other as we are. There is nothing cute about this, but there is a comfort, a bittersweetness, in the recognition that even though this war isn’t supposed to be, we are banding together. Like I said, we are all being called up. And this gives me hope. Because one thing is clear. There is no overcoming the enemy if we are not united. In fact, there is nothing at all if we are not united. We needed to be kish achad blev achad to receive the Torah, and to have kept the second Bais HaMikdash, and we sure need it now.
You may think that your efforts are tiny, a drop in the bucket, but the truth is, like the five-year-old boy, they are anything but tiny. We are a part of something much bigger than ourselves and that makes everything we do that much more far reaching.
With us, our tininess doesn’t register, because our numbers are irrelevant. It is our connection to Hashem and each other that makes us indestructible. With Hashem’s help, this time, like those that have come before it, we will rise and overcome, and show the world that it isn’t size that matters, it is only responding when we are called up.
