Come What May

Freeze-dried coffee grounds. Boiling water. Milk. Boom. I swirl the contents of my mug and head out to the porch overlooking my mother-in-law’s garden, a masterpiece of Japanese-style ornamental plants blended with countryside European apple trees and blackberry bushes. Behind the rose bushes, fig trees rub leaves with pear trees, a symphony of greens, alongside a fence whose other side stands sentry to the only local  – now defunct  – synagogue. We, my husband and kids and I, are visiting from war-torn Israel, the sounds of rocket sirens, fighter jets, and distant booms ringing in our ears. Boom. I shake my head, the echoes of a familiar sound fading away. There are no interceptions, not here. I sit on a sturdy wooden swinging bench and listen to the buzzing bees, the western breeze drawing my attention to the roof on the other side of the fence.

My husband was in that synagogue last night at the behest of the few remaining members of the Jewish community here – most of them intermarried, all of them grandparents or great-grandparents – to go through the remaining sefarim. Many are moldy and falling apart. All of them have been untouched for decades. As planned, I accompany him there later that morning to finish the job. The dusty pews have been in storage for years. What was once a thriving Jewish community is no more; in keeping with tragic Jewish history, its members have been murdered, emigrated, or assimilated. I reach underneath the aron kodesh and find a pile of worn, passul Sifrei Torah underneath a thick layer of dust. As I leave handprints on the dusty parchment, the eerie quiet is a relief.

Old seforim that haven’t been touched in decades, destined for shaimos

It’s Sunday morning, and there’s hardly a sound in this religious town. The Jewish community here practically doubles in size when my family arrives; as I lit Shabbat candles two nights ago, I wondered if any such candles have been lit in this city for the last 50 years aside from my visits. I had watched the flames spring to life and I thought that finally, away from the fears and anxieties that come with war for one’s existence, I could reflect on the emotions simmering just under the surface of our placid demeanor.

Here, I think, we have a chance to be regular people, remembering what regular life is like.

But . . . I can’t get away. Like the narrator in The Book Thief, I am haunted by my people. Like Moshe Rabbeinu, who was initially resistant to the task God assigned him, we live in a time that none of us chose, yet all of us are exhorted to face and grapple with. The ancient struggle between good and evil, between brothers, has boiled over yet again only a few years after my family moved to Israel, our minds and hearts full of idealistic dreams of resettling the land after millennia of journeying.

I am not brave by any stretch of the imagination; running away from danger and fear has always been easier and more enticing. And here, in this small central European town, it’s so quiet, so . . . boringly relaxing. “Why can’t we just stay here?” I ask my husband in a moment of panic. Every time a motorcycle revs up outside, I think it’s a missile siren starting, or a terrorist shooting. Oh, yeah – I remember. There hasn’t been a strong Jewish presence here since . . . 1946. And so, as a card-carrying Anxious Ashkenazi Jew, I turn back to prayer, anxious thoughts mingled with whatever emunah classes I can remember, and coffee.

And the news. We are supposed to return home tonight, but in Israel, every hour brings potential major news, and I don’t know if our flights will be canceled. The tiny airport (the airport is two rooms) we leave from in Pieštany is full of Israelis returning from vacation. Laughter and light conversation roll down the flight cabin like water, better than therapy: They talk of the news, but they are not afraid to go home. As I sit, white-knuckled, wondering whether I’m endangering my children’s lives by returning, wondering if we’ll survive this era, wondering if Hezbollah will bomb the airport before we arrive, I let the atmosphere on the plane wash over me unhindered. On the plane, what may seem like fear is overridden with the unwavering knowing that we made it through in 1946. And we’ll make it through now, our homeland intact.

When we land and go outside into the hot, sticky evening, I am transported away from the crumbling monuments to diasporic Jewish communities of the past, away from the vestiges of magnificence and heartbreak that went up in smoke. The sefarim in the abandoned synagogue we were in that morning will go the way of the community. As we left it earlier that day and turned out the lights, it felt as metaphorical as much as it was literal. The only light still burning in that old synagogue is the Ner Tamid above the aron kodesh, and soon that, too, will go the way of its surroundings.

And here we are, in modern-day ragged and rugged Israel, the memories of the past etched into my (relatively young, I hope) bones and my genes. My anxious thoughts subside somewhat as we walk to our waiting taxi. The Ner Tamid is burning in an empty room back there, but here, our hot breath adds to the warmth of the waning day. Boom. The distant booms and tears of a nation in grief notwithstanding, it’s good to be home. Come what may.