Friday, March 15, 2024

Payback

 On the nightmare of this past Simchat Torah my daughter and her family were spending the holiday with us. The call-up of her husband only added to the trauma. I, in a typical Jewish mother fashion, gathered up every chocolate chip cookie in the house and sent him off to war with those treats.

I knew those cookies were not going to protect him. Hopefully, my prayers would do that. However, the baked goods were my way of sending love. Once he was inside Gaza, though, it became impossible to send him any goodies.
There’s a scene from the classic movie, Gone with the Wind, where Melanie is handing out food to soldiers making their way home after the end of the war. Scarlett complains about the drain on their resources and Melanie’s answer is beautiful.
Maybe if he’s (Ashley) alive he’s on some northern road right now and maybe some northern woman is giving him a share of her dinner and helping my beloved come back home.
I know no Gazan mothers are giving any food to our troops in Gaza. Instead, I rely on the good-hearted Jewish people who travel south to feed our soldiers whenever those soldiers get leave to cross the border. Meanwhile, I try to do my payback by sending in treats from my kitchen to the soldiers stationed nearby.
May they all come back home. Safe in body and safe in spirit along with the hostages, the injured, and evacuees.
Shabbat shalom

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

A Purim Miracle


My first experience with war was the 1991 Gulf War, the war when Iraq invaded Kuwait triggering Saudi Arabia and America to ally with England and Egypt against the invader. Somehow, in the world of politics, Israel was caught in the crossfire and over forty missiles were fired at us for a period of six weeks. Iraq had declared those missiles would be part of chemical warfare. Therefore, in Israel we all walked around with gas masks and sealed a room with plastic in every one of our homes. Every time a siren sounded, signifying an approaching missile, we would scurry to those rooms and don our masks.
It was a tense time but, as always, we coped using humor. On Purim day one of the neighbors dressed up as a sealed room with plastic wrapped around his body. As the radio announced that Saddam Hussein had surrendered and we could unseal our rooms, our neighbor didn’t miss a beat. Tearing off the plastic he cheered loudly, and we joined him in jubilation.
That was twenty-three years ago. Purim is now twelve days away. How wonderful it would be to have another Purim miracle. Please HaShem!

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Is It Possible?

 

At our table this past Shabbat we discussed how so many of our historical tragedies were followed by positive growth. Prime example is after our servitude in Egypt we received the Torah. Also following the destruction of the Holy Temple, the Babylonian Talmud was compiled despite the exile. Jumping ahead to modern history we all know that the establishment of the State of Israel came on the heels of the Holocaust. Thirty years later the Yom Kippur War was the impetus for the settlement in Judea and Samaria.

What, we wondered, would be the aftermath of the horrible Simchat Torah massacre and subsequent war? We let our imaginations flow and our favorite vision was the rebuilding of the Holy Temple.

Who knows? As I’ve written before I often marvel during my visits to the Kotel that my grandparents couldn’t even dream of making it to that spot and here I am. Is it so improbable that my grandchildren will go to the Holy Temple remembering how their grandmother once longed for the opportunity?

Anything is possible if we work and pray hard enough.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Did you call the White House today?

Please call this number at the White House: 202-456-1111
Tell them the idea of a Palestinian State is suicidal for Israel.
Tell them a ceasefire is untenable w/o the return of all the hostages, dead and alive, and a commitment from Hamas to recognize Israel's right tp exist.
Imagine the impact if they would get hundreds of such calls daily.

You can do something w/o leaving your home. 


This was in the Jerusalem Post:

Hamas official Basem Naim said on Monday to AFP that the terror group did not know which of the hostages were dead or alive.
My comment-If they don't know who does???
Basem also added that the hostages were held by many terror groups in different locations in the Gaza Strip.
My comment-sounds like bedlam to me, not a cohesive group that can make peace with anyone.
According to Basem, a ceasefire is necessary for Hamas to ascertain how many and which hostages it is still holding.
My comment-Is this blackmail?
Continuing the BBC interview, Naim asserted that information relating to the hostages was "valuable" and could not be given "for free."
My comment-and the world thinks we should reward this morally bankrupt group with a state???
Did you call the White House today?

Thursday, February 29, 2024

And Another Terror Attack

 

I’m angry, No, I’m furious. There was just a terror attack at the gas station between Shilo and Eli. It’s so close I can walk there, if I want. My husband gassed up there a couple of hours ago. My son-part of the first response team-is there right now.

Two Israelis are murdered, according to the news a man in his thirties and a teenage girl. Two innocent people gassing up their car or buying something at the convenience store or fast-food place.

And the world wants us to reward these murderers with a Palestinian state? I beg each and every one of you to demand from your congressmen that they take that idea off the table unless they want the annihilation of Israel.  As for a ceasefire, inform them there is nothing to talk about until all the hostages, both dead and alive, are released and Hamas pledges itself to stop firing rockets at us and recognize our right to exist.

Do it for yourselves, not for me. If Israel is destroyed no Jew’s life will be safe.

Nothing New Under the Son

Who has not read Chapter 5 in Judges, the second book of the Bible? Who does not know the song of Dvorah? Who doesn’t remember verses 28 through 31? Sisera, the Canaanite general who was set to defeat the Jewish nation, has not come home from the war in which he was routed. His mother, like most mothers, is worried about him. Her maidens try comforting her, reassuring her that her son is busy collecting spoils and ravaging women. Sisera’s mother finds comfort in their grisly words.

Who has not heard the transcript* of the phone call made on October 7th from the Arab bragging to his family he had killed ten Jews with his own hands? Proudly he tells them to go to his WhatsApp so they can see the murdered bodies. More grisly words.

What happened to Sisera and the Canaanites? What happened to the Jewish nation? The Canaanites are long gone, and we are still here. Anti-Semites come and go but we last forever.
Am Yisroel Chai! The Jewish People Live!

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Let's Try

 

Today, on the 144th day of the war, I stood at the Kotel and remembered how the place was once called the Wailing Wall. How apt that name has become again. Ever since the war began, when I pray there my sobs join those of our ancestors throughout the centuries. I’d wager my prayers are not all that different than theirs were. Pleas for an end to the anti-Semitism and violence, yearning for full redemption, longing for the Third Holy Temple. Oy!!!

Yet, today, as I stood in front of the stones, I wondered how I can possibly ask the Almighty to make peace for us when we are not peaceful with each other. If there was ever a time to let go of our grudges and resentments for one another it is now. Now is the time to give the benefit of the doubt and judge favorably.  Can we do it? We can try and then maybe, just maybe, G-d will do the same for us. It’s worth the effort. Isn’t it?