Day 5

The morning started, and I got to snuggle and play with my little ones. It was so fun to play and sing with them. I tried not to think about the little ones from "down south" (40 minute drive away from me) that I heard about yesterday, or the ones that were in captivity. Doing so makes me stop breathing. I also came to an internal agreement with myself today that I was done watching the horror videos of the massacres. The gates are the same as ours, the cars are the same as ours, the cribs are the same as ours. The people are me, and I am those people. But one day, we are going to get up off the floor, and have to rebuild our country. And we can't let Hamas beat us psychologically here as well. 

I then got to learn Gemara with my Grandfather on Zoom for the first time since before Yom Kippur. I spent the next couple hours doing work, but really I was mostly watching the news and trying to find a place to volunteer and be meaningful. This is a battle for our home, our lives, and our country, and I can't bear the thought of not being on the frontlines. But since I can't be, I am trying to make myself useful here. Then I found out about a citizen-run organization, that is handling some of the internal things during this conflict, that was looking for volunteers. I got in touch, drove to Jerusalem, and within 10 minutes of arrival, was already building out a Google Sheet/CRM with someone who works with one of Israel's Ministers. I can't get into those details, but lets just say I felt very meaningful, and finally got to be impactful on our safety, by using my skills from work. I will continue to work with them over the next few days to make it as helpful as possible. (Data, dashboards, CRM, etc.) Thank you especially to my boss's boss at my workplace (my boss is of course in reserves) for giving me the freedom to go do that instead of working. 

As I was in Jerusalem, I got notifications on my phone about drones and paratroopers from Lebanon, attacking our North. Now in general, Hezbollah is much scarier than Hamas (if you could even still say that after Shabbat), and they have very long range missiles. And here I was, 30 minutes from home, about to drive on the highways. I turned the radio on (I've had to listen to more radio in the last 2 days driving than probably my entire adult life combined - can we get back to Lions Podcasts already please? They are finally good!), and listened carefully. I had already had the radio on on the way to Jerusalem, with my heart pounding every time the radio host interrupted the conversation to say "Red Alert" and then the name of the city. During that time, one of those cities was Tel Aviv, meaning the rockets went over me, but thankfully I did not need to get out of the car and lie down with my hands on top of my head. I did of course drive super fast and was on the right lane at any point I could be in case I needed to quickly pull over. Anyway, on the way back from Jerusalem, I was listening even more intently. The North of Israel is my true love, it is the most beautiful place on earth. To hear the names of cities and the names of the most peaceful places and rivers and waterfalls, made my heart pound even more. To think about Noam the owner of the small supermarket where I used to work, or my 85 year old Rabbi, or even our old neighbors who are in their 70s and don't have a saferoom, is just so heartbreaking. I was literally up there two weeks ago at my Yeshiva in Kiryat Shmona. I also have many friends and family members currently stationed up there. Anyway, I got home without incident, though my heart pounding. Shifra wanted me to pick up dinner, but I just needed to get home. 

A few minutes after I got home, our Homefront Command sent a message that EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE COUNTRY needs to get into their shelter IMMEDIATELY. We started bringing the baby in (we do have 90 seconds), scared out of our minds, and had the internal debate - do we wake the big kids up. Now, heartbreakingly, E this evening seems to have figured out what is going on, because he was crying that he didn't want the bad guys to come to our house. We need to do a better job of sterilizing him it seems, but anyway, we were able to calm him down by telling him that if he's with us he will be okay. (Again, thoughts go to the 4 year olds in their home down by Gaza envelope who were promised similar things that could not be kept). Anyway, we decided to wait a couple minutes to check if it was a real message before waking them, and it turned out it was a false alarm. Apparently, it was also a false alarm up North while I was driving and so I am able to breathe again. 

Shifra and I decided we need to have some sense of normalcy as well. So after dinner, we played backgammon (she won). It was nice to have a few sane moments, that was kind of like a zoom in to the life we used to know, and hopefully, somehow, in some way, the life that will come back in some way soon. After dinner, we had a Zoom with Shlomo Katz, and also Tehillim with our Rabbi as we do every night. 

I got some serious goosebumps today while watching the videos from 2 AM last night, when our youth came to the airport to sing and dance and properly welcome home our soldiers who had been abroad, and who got on a charter flight home, to immediately go and protect us. My cousin will actually be on one of those tomorrow, which I hope I can go to. 

As I keep telling people who are asking, our hearts are broken, we are scared of what comes next, but our spirit and Israeli Pride is high. Just listening to the HEROIC stories of our citizens and soldiers of what happened on that fateful Shabbat and Simchat Torah day, is so moving that we have these heroes among us, that will go down in history forever. 

Am Yisrael Chai.