Guest Post: Trip Up North

 My friend, Michael, spoke so movingly about his trip up north to bring food to soldiers that I asked him to write a guest post to share with you. Thank you, Michael!!

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ONE DAY ON THE BORDER OF LEBANON

By Michael Yosef

One minute he is dancing with the Torah on Shabbas Simchas Torah, October 7, 2023. Not

engaged in deep learning. Not reading from the Torah. Holding it, dancing with it, singing with

it. Just like last year and the year before; just like we have done for the many centuries before

of our people holding the Torah close… as the Torah holds us close.

For some the dance stopped. The call came. And reserve soldiers left the shul. They were

being called up. We knew something was going on for them to need to leave on Shabbas on

Shminei Atzeret on Simchas Torah. But, none of us knew or could imagine the extent of what

happened. We figured more missiles. We had no idea that over 1,200 Jews had been murdered

and over 240 had been stolen from their homes, their land, their lives.

Those of us who stayed in shul, the majority, continued to dance. We read the beginning of the

Torah, the creation of the world… at the same time as the destruction of many Jews’ worlds

had come upon them. We had no idea what was going on. Would we have continued to be

able to dance on Simchas Torah had we known? Would it have been appropriate to continue

dancing had we known? I don’t know.

Babies, Holocaust survivors, mothers, teens, fathers, men, women, old and young murdered

over the course of a short time that Shabbas morning. Souls ripped from their bodies; their

journeys on this earth abruptly aborted by the barbaric anger, hate, and blame of a people who

would rather project their own communal self-abhorrence onto others rather than use their

resources to build a good life for themselves.

Whether you are in the United States, Europe, Israel, or elsewhere, how do you process this

information? “Largest Massacre of Jews since the Holocaust”. Shock, sadness, anger, grief,

Hashem, davening, confusion, action. ACTION?

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and reservists made their way to the southern border. The

Prime Minister and the government began to strategize. Soldiers also sent to the northern

borders with Lebanon and Syria to reinforce to prevent and invasion from the North.

Soon after, the country began to mobilize. My friend wrote: “My son is in this unit on the

Lebanese border, but they don’t have enough bullet-proof jackets and helmets. We are raising x

dollars.” Mass fundraising. Mass mobilization of equipment, often from citizens helping troops.

Food sent to the fronts. The government might not have been immediately ready to provide all

the logistics for the unprecedented call up the reserves. But the people of Israel were ready,

and we didn’t even know it. Restaurants closed down voluntarily to make food for the soldiers.

Citizens became de facto command centers for volunteer mobilization.

What could I do? I went with a friend to the Old City, special permission to drive into the Kotel

Plaza to pick up food that a yeshiva had prepared. I took some minutes to davven at the Kotel.

Food is now packed in the car, and we are on our way up north. I didn’t want to miss a special

weekly chavruta (Torah learning with a friend) that I already had scheduled, so I brought my

computer and did a video call; computer and Gemara in front of me; friend on the screen.

Learning, while my other friend drove. The chavruta was good, and now we are half way to our

destination. After a few hours of driving, we are a few kilometers from the northern border

with Lebanon, right on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and there is a line of traffic. This is

not 405 freeway in Los Angeles or Manhattan in rush hour. This is a small street almost at tip of

the country. It must be a security situation. It is the first time since October 7 that I have not

been sleeping or connected to the news of the moment. I got lost in the chavruta in the

pleasant drive with my friend. I said we should like online to see if we can get a better since of

what is happening.

We found it. Just moments before, the northern border had become the most active it had

been since the start of the war. Missiles flying towards Kiryat Shmone. Infiltration alerts for this

town and that town. I got on my computers maps to see where these towns were. They were

not in the exact place where we were, but they were 20 minutes away, which felt far enough

away at that time to feel “safe” continuing our journey to deliver food and support the soldiers

up north. But, we were still stuck in this line. I could see some police lights ahead. We figured

this line is connected to what we were reading online. We see a solider approach the car in

front of us and then finally approaching us. He said there is a security issue and that they are

not even allowing ambulances in. We were just minutes from our destination but could go no

further. We asked how long? He said it could be an hour or an hour and half. He didn’t know

and said we could wait in the traffic line if wanted to. We turned around and went to a close by

gas station. My friend called his contact back in the old city to report our status. We then called

the contact at the base. One of the contacts was also in the traffic line and said it was easing up.

We got back in the car, drove back north and the line was gone. From where the line had been

our destination was less than a minute away.

We arrived. We felt privileged to be on this ad hoc base, which was really an environmental

field school where the army reserves had set up camp. We delivered the food, and the guys

were so thankful. They are risking their lives for us, really for the whole Jewish world; I would

even say for Western civilization. We? We took some hours out of our work day. They were

thanking us. They were thanking us? It seemed ludicrous. As if they were giving us a billion

dollars, and we were given them 25 cents. And yet, they gratitude was genuine. They were

touched that we drove from far away to being this to them. The food was much appreciated by

them; for me, it was an excuse to send them the love and support of our nation, of all of us who

were not fighting; to let them know we support them, we are davening for them, we are

learning for them. One soldier showed us pictures of the engagement party he had just had the

field school the week before, week one after the war. His fiancé is the granddaughter of a Rosh

yeshiva. She came to the base, and they made a beautiful engagement party. I got to see the

pictures. I got to see his excitement, and we had a small moment of celebration of life. Another

soldier wanted to tell us that he is a tour guide, and that he wanted to take us on a tour when

the war ends. We got his number. We took pictures. We davened Maariv. And, then they got

ready. They were going on a mission. As they were preparing for their mission, getting suited

up, we got back into our comfortable car and moved onto the next base.

The first base was a Hilton compared to the second one. The second one was a dirt lot where

they had set up a bunch of tents. These soldiers greeted us, asking do you want coffee, seltzer,

something to drink. Beautiful Jewish neshamas. We engaged in deep conversation and again

tried to convey that the Jewish world and much of the Western world is behind them,

supporting them. It’s one thing to have a deep philosophical conversation about Light and

Darkness over the Shabbas table or in one’s youth in the later hours of the night on a college

campus. It’s another thing when the solder in front of you is on the front lines of fighting for the

Light against perpetrators of darkness. Yet, we waxed philosophical together. They knew they

were on the front line, not just Israel’s front line, but THE front line of what we are doing here

on Earth as a people as a species, to bring more good into the world. This group of soldiers

were actually a logistics group. Their purpose is to bring food and supplies to the soldiers that

are really on the front line, living in bushes right on the border with Lebanon; ready for any

moment they are needed to protect from infiltration or invasion. They are guarding the lives of

the rest of us who can go home and eat, spend time with family, work, learn. They had not

showered for two weeks and only got supplies once a day from this group. We are not able to

visit the group right on the border, but we brought food and support that hopefully got to them

also.

On the way home, there were some security check points. We stopped at those and gave them

food, got out of the car, talked with them. There was an ineffable feeling that I got from each

of these groups of soldiers. The invisible guards that normally protect us from seeing each

other’s deepest humanity seemed to be on sabbatical. It felt a bit like how I imagine it might be

when Moshiach comes. A sweetness, a place of connection, mutual appreciation, togetherness.

Even elation. Then we went to visit a special place in Meron where Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is

buried. We davened by his kever. And then we went home. The whole experience reinforced

that we were already home with our people in Israel.

We did one small thing while the soldiers continue to fight and protect, with Hashem’s help,

every day. The soldiers have their mission. Each of us also has our mission at this time. May

Hashem bless us all to have the moral clarity and courage to stand up, to speak, to donate, to

put ourselves on the line to create a better future today.

In Memory.....

 I have no words. Our 21 year-old neighbor, across the street:

I have no words, only tears.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/380590

Community support as the family left for the funeral

Wednesday update

Cousin Shmulie arrived Friday morning for a (pre-planned) visit with his son Coby, who is here learning in a gap year yeshiva.  It was SO GREAT having them both here for a few (much too few) days. 

I have requested a "guest blog post" so that Shmulie can share his thoughts on what it's like to come to Israel now, but, hey, the guy just took a bunch of time off of work, so he might be too swamped. Shmulie: you've got the mic if you want it.

Shabbos lunch we hosted a family from Ashdod, home of our favorite beach and now getting a LOT of incoming missiles. Here's a map so you can see why....

Our city continues to host a LOT of displaced families from the South and North, some on a long-term basis, and some, like our lunch guests, just taking a weekend away from the very frequent sirens back at home. The family was staying in the basement apartment of our good friends (set up through a "Housing for Displaced Families" local WhatsApp group; they didn't know each other). The family was terrific--parents who came here from Ukraine as children and their really fun kids, ages 6, 3 and 1. And SO proud of us: we spoke about 80% Hebrew during the meal ;). That's (embarrassingly enough) a first for us--our guests are always friends or neighbors who are native English speakers. (Amusing point about this family is that the dad spent five years learning in yeshiva in Brooklyn, but spoke little English. As his wife [who had lived in the US for a year as a child and had excellent English, although we tried not to use it much] pointed out, "it's like people here in English-speaking yeshivas". And we all nodded. Because it is totally possible to live here for years and not be fluent. I, sadly, am living proof).

Sunday I went back to work in the Old City in person for the first time since the war started (Shalom Shachne was a dear and came with me for moral support on the drive. "Take Your Husband to Work" Day!). The yeshiva where I'm the visiting nurse put our car's license plate on the "approved for entry" list to the Old City and we got to park where the cool kids who live in the Jewish Quarter park (and there was even a legal space! Which was wonderful but also sad). It was terrific to be back in person with my students and good for the soul to walk around the holy streets of the Old City and visit the Kotel. Really heartbreaking to see so many stores closed and just a handful of people walking around (my hat is off to the few tourists I saw).

The whole thing gave me a lot of "Covid whiplash". Except sadder.....I almost cried to see these signs at Judaism's holiest site: 

Are you kidding me? This way to the protected space in case a siren goes off announcing an incoming rocket? 😭. (Truth: this way to Bayit Shlishi)

Today: back to the Old City for work and helping out on a big project for soldiers. Hopefully a longer update tomorrow.

Signs of War (literally)

I've taken some photos lately of....signs to share:

Going shopping is a new experience: do you know where the protected area is where you're shopping (if there even is one)?

                                    

And once I was done grocery shopping (the protected area in by the eggs; you should never need to know), I crossed the street and saw this outside my favorite clothing store:

Sign announcing that "this store has a protected area" (and then the store's name, in case people thought it was the bakery next door. I was glad to see the sign because I had no idea that store had a safe room and, in my opinion, that's a pretty good selling point these days)

The fish store and the sandwich restaurant: "Together We Will Be Victorious




Kids are spending a lot of time making signs to hang all around. So great to see. This one says, "One people. One heart. We will win"

I called for info about possibly joining a new ulpan language program (I have registered with the government to be a volunteer nurse at a Jerusalem-area hospital if it should so be needed. Now I just need to get my language skills vastly, hugely improved in case I get called.....). With the registration materials, they helpfully included a list of handy words people need to know these days, including "Rocket", "Safe Room" and

And cousin Jillian got these beauties on her Duolingo.....

Two Weeks of War

Its hard for me to believe that its been two weeks since our beautiful-and-tough-as-nails country lost even more of its innocence. And I cannot fathom that there are still over 200 BABIES, children, elderly, women- and men who are being held hostage by Hamas.  The Tel Aviv Museum of Art put together an outside exhibit in their honor: one long table (because we're all one) set for Shabbat with 203 empty seats, including baby bottles and sippy cups for the smallest hostages. For those people (I'm sure none of whom are on this list) who are going around the United States tearing down flyers with photos of the hostages on them: are you even human?

From my little corner of the holy land: Feels like we're in "wait-and-see"-ville. Even more refugees are streaming in, now from the North of the country as well as the South. Shabbat was super noisy (I couldn't sleep part of Friday night due to the endless "booms", although I try to always think of the noise as the Iron Dome defending us, rather than of the incoming missiles we need to be protected from), but things were quieter during the day and, thankfully, no sirens. 

There's a special television station and a radio station that cater to the Shabbat-observant public during high-tension times. They have regular programming up until Shabbat candle lighting time, and then go silent except in the case of a siren or security alert. We decided not to tune in, though, because the stations broadcast sirens for the whole country, and the stress of hearing every siren in the entire country was not desired (to say the least). We hear the local siren from our house (although I much prefer the pre-Shabbat music it plays late Friday afternoon and the siren that announces candle lighting at the start of Shabbat) and we also have the app from the Home Front Command on each of our phones, which gives location-based warnings as well (although it doesn't always agree with the local siren. On Friday there was a BOOM that literally shook our house and caused a flurry of texts on neighborhood groups asking why something seemed to have exploded over our very heads yet there wasn't a siren. Turns out that it was a missile that was heading to a neighboring moshav and it was, indeed, intercepted over our city. Home Front Command sent a message when it happened, telling us to head for the shelter, but they didn't make the alarm on the app go off so we all missed it [makes me assume there are different alert levels that they can send out].

I'm hard at work trying to fill my little bit of the world with more kindness (today there is a call for an "Global Day of Loving-Kindness": Fabulous! Other folks can keep their "Day of Rage" [preferably far away from me and my country, thank you]).  

May this be my worst fault, but I don't think I have ever made circle-shaped cookies (drop cookies? Is that what they're called?). So Saturday night, in a "chesed challenge" to myself and because a huge part of our family's "LovingKindnessBakingTeam" had gone back to New York, I spent my time after cleaning up from Shabbat learning how to make cookies :) (Rachel from Ofakim is my hero. Then again, she's everyone's hero [and, no, ABC News, they are not "militants", they are "TERRORISTS"]. 

I'm on my second batch now and have made 100 cookies (whee--I'm a cookie expert!). The first batch is going to a bat mitzvah a group of Ilana's friends are making for a girl displaced from the South. Some of the second are going to a family from our shul whose father was called up for the reserves. My buddy "Bella", who is eight, told me all about her Dad being away yesterday 😢. I made dinner for them tonight. We'll see what "chesed needs" pop up for the rest: last week we gave cookies to soldiers, first responders from MADA (Magen David Adom) and Hatzala, police officers and displaced families. I don't worry about finding places for these.

Today, Sunday, things had been calm for a few days so I was planning to walk to the mercaz and do a big shopping trip with my "bubby cart" (no shame here in using them--everyone does!). Thankfully I decided to go later than I had planned because I would have been out when a siren went off.....Penina and Menashe had just walked out of their apartment when it went off, so, whew, they went back in. Ilana was at school, where, after the initial craziness of "a lot of girls screaming" on their way to the safe rooms, they said tehillim and sang together until they could come out. Meanwhile, Chana, back in New York, had forgotten to turn off her Home Front Command app, and got woken up at 6 in the morning by the worst kind of alarm.....

War Day 11

Thankfully, a quiet day. So I'll take this opportunity to talk about some of the psychological issues. First off, I want to make clear that we, thankfully, live in a pretty calm part of the country and we're all, b''H, doing fine overall.

Definitely a "loss of innocence" about life here in our beautiful country. Here are some things that have changed for me/lots of people:

--My phone and I have reached a new level of our relationship and I'm not really loving this 24/6 are-you-within-arm's-reach thing. Need to use the bathroom? Better have your phone in there in case you don't hear the siren (we all have apps to alert us in case we don't hear the siren or are in an area that doesn't have a siren [ie driving on the highway]). 

--Going for a shower? Make it QUICK. Have a robe handy in case you need to leap out mid-shampoo. See above for making sure your phone is in the bathroom with you.

--Driving? Think (continuously!!!!) about where you will drive/pull over if a siren sounds

--Driving part 2: Tell your family that, should their Red Alert app go off and they need to pull over while driving and lie on the ground with their arms over their heads, that they should lie on the sun shade that's in the car because, on top of that psychological stress, they really don't need burns from hot asphalt on their faces. 

--Shoes: Gotta be able to run into a safe space if outside. Since being caught by the first siren while walking our dog, I've pretty much only worn sneakers when outside. I upped my game a few days ago and now I double-tie them. Even went to the neighbor's bar mitzvah in sneakers. #WhoIsThis

--Safe Rooms: Keep a mental list of where the mamad is in your local supermarket. And the doctor's office. And the other supermarket. And the community center. And in your kid's school and.....and.....and......

--Read on the neighborhood list about all the women who thought they could take their kids briefly to the park the other day. Then a siren sounded. Get stressed just reading about these women lying on top of their kids under the slide, because that's the most shelter they could find in the time they had. Be glad your kids are too old for the park.

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Again, thankful that our stresses are small compared to so many others here.....

In positive news, I've decided to try to popularize the concept of a #ChesedHaul. Click to see the kindness my family shared with others today. 

 

War: Day 11

 b''H a quiet day.

President Biden is arriving tomorrow, for which I would like to say, "thank you, Mr. President, for showing up FOR Israel and showing up IN Israel. Now keep it up even as this likely gets more messy....." 

Today's good deeds were Chana baking over 50 cookies and Penina baking more than 50 muffins. 2/3 went to soldiers (along with yesterday's winter hats and today's 8 pairs of winter socks) and 1/3 to the refugees STREAMING into our city. Ilana, thankfully, went back to school for a half day (SO grateful that her school finally moved into their new building last year, as they were in caravanim/trailers [THANK YOU to everyone who donated to the "move the school" fundraiser. There's no way they'd be having school if they were still at the old site).

Menashe and Penina went back to to their apartment tonight after sleeping here since the war started. Hoping that there will be no sirens tonight. 

A number of people have asked about sites to donate to. Here's my take:

Magen David Adom (MADA): the ambulance corps of Israel. Donate and, as they say, "Save a life in Israel from thousands of miles away". They are a 4-star charity on Charity Navigator.

Friends of the IDF: 100% of each contribution goes to helping Israeli soldiers. They are a 4-star charity on Charity Navigator. Cheryl and Haim Saban are matching gifts currently, which makes me say, "go, go Power Rangers" and thank you, Sabans. 

The Koby Mandell Foundation: I have heard that on the 7th of October, the number of Israeli victims of terror DOUBLED. The Koby Mandell Foundation helps support victims of terror and their family members. 3 stars on Charity Navigator (they didn't turn in tax returns. Otherwise, they are 100%); Charity Navigator says that 3 stars means "give with confidence". 

Ezrat Achim: This is THE local organization that is doing incredible things, both for soldiers, families with a member suddenly called into reserve duty, and displaced families from the South that have temporarily settled in our city. Not as fancy a site as the other ones and no "American Friends of" (i.e. no Charity Navigator rating), but they do tremendous things in our city. 

Before I sign off for the night, please take a moment to think of the 200 people still being held hostage in Gaza. Send them strength.