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This time last year it’s early in the morning and I am suddenly roused from sleep.
Could it be…? Is this a siren? We are usually warned about red alert sirens, indicating that we are being shot at by missiles, but this morning it came unexpectedly. No sign at all.
Through my confusion, I dragged myself out of bed.
I had that student. I remember his first time in my class vividly. He chose a chair, positioning himself with his back to the window to shield his eyes from the sun. As he settled in, he seemed to claim the space as his own. With piercing, attentive eyes, his demeanour challenged me with a ‘Well? Show me what you’ve got.’
Whoops! In that very instant, I sensed he would challenge me every second of our 90-minute lesson.
“Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” I suggested.
More empty chairs than not
We’ll sit at the table alone
But how can we bemoan our fate
When our children could still come home
Through smoky dawn,
a soldier stands,
in Israel’s land.
Courage demands,
he treads on ashes,
October’s ashes,
the fallen’s remains.
I once had a dream that disturbed me for years, and then I forgot about it. Until now.
The dream concerned my youngest child, my Gadi, who was five at the time. In the dream, I took him to the kindergarten down the block from our home, as I did every morning. We played our usual counting and color-spotting games as we walked, swinging our joined hands. When we reached the kindergarten, I pressed the entrance buzzer, and then, as happens in dreams, I suddenly found myself elsewhere.
Last night, I went to the kotel and prayed. I didn’t pray like I normally pray. I imagined I was Shiri Bibas praying for herself and her husband and her children in Hamas captivity. I do not know if she’s allowed to pray out loud where she is. I am sure most of her thoughts are prayers.
We commemorate
Celebrate
Pontificate
On the ironies
Faced in grief and love
that proliferate
Holding space and breath
Remembering who we are and the salvation
We await
We’ve been here before
We know when it’s time to
Lather, rinse, repeat
Sadness overwhelms
A new day, the tale replayed
Once too many times
Laid to rest in peace
As hearts weep across bruised land
Pain spreads far and wide
Threats are heavy
Anxiety is thick
And the sky is a perfect bright blue
that reminds me uncomfortably of
that Tuesday morning
Fear permeates the steady, warm breeze
As thick grey plumes of destruction
Ring out
In the picturesque landscape of Israel’s Galilee, where the soothing hum of our Neshikha beehives now mingles with the buzz of air force drones and echoes of distant aerial and artillery cross-border warfare, a recent quotidian journey to the annual beekeepers’ conference at the Volcani Agricultural Institute in Rehovot, in the country’s center, turned into an unexpected snapshot of Israel at war.