Hi How Are You?

Hi how are you? On the surface such a simple question, one that we often don’t even realize we’ve asked when we greet someone. Yet since October 7, 2023 it’s something I rarely ask my friends because I know exactly how and what they feel every hour of every day.

Sadness.  Anger.  Frustration. Fear.  Exhaustion.

I usually wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes more than once. But today, October 7, 2024 I awoke at 4:33am. It’s almost exactly the time that I was awoken on October 7, 2023, by a call from my youngest son telling us that he had been called up for miluim (reserve duty). Living in the US we were, at that hour, still unaware of the rockets, the kidnappings, the massacre that was still happening in Israel.  That call at 4:35am was followed by calls from our other lone soldier reservist sons saying that they too had been called up and they too were going in to defend their country, and our homeland.

Here we are, one year later, and unbelievably my sons are still fighting to defend Israel alongside their brothers and sisters. How can that possibly be? And now we’re fighting on multiple fronts, and by that I don’t mean just Lebanon.

The exhaustion I feel is not just from the war, though that is a huge part. It’s with the attitude of what seems like the entire world. From whole countries like France refusing to sell arms to Israel to the individuals accusing Israel of genocide while in the same breath they call for the genocide of not just the Jewish nation but of the Jewish people.

The anger and frustration I feel as even people who say they support Israel call for a ceasefire without calling for an immediate release of the hostages. I’m frustrated because most don’t understand that even on October 6^th there was no ceasefire. That rockets have been shot into Israel by Hamas for more than a decade. That before October 7^th a call from my kids living in Israel is just as likely to be one saying ‘we’re safe in the bomb shelter’ as they are to tell me what they did for Shabbat. How can we make the rest of the world understand that this is normal for us; how can the rest of the world think that’s ok?! How can we? If just one rocket was fired from Mexico at the state of Texas the US Army would come down on Mexico like a annihilating hammer and the world would not protest. Why is the world not outraged by the horrific rapes and executions of civilians or calling for the release of the hostages? Simply put why is this all Israel’s fault, the Jews’ fault.

The tears of sadness and fear that I’ve cried in the last year could surely fill a lake or a river. The tears cried by all of us should by now have flooded the earth like the mabul, the great biblical flood. Oh, how I wish our tears could wash away all the bad in the world and leave only the good. For most of you reading this I know, I’m preaching to the choir. But for those of you reading this that support Israel and the Jewish people but have done so silently you must SPEAK UP NOW! WE NEED YOUR VOCAL SUPPORT! Join your Jewish friends and neighbors on the walk for the hostages. Speak up against the antisemitism you see. Talk to the people you know about educating themselves about the history of Israel and supporting the only democracy in the Middle East. At the very least check in with your Jewish friends, like on October 7, 2023, they are still not ok.

So tonight, like so many others I will go to the October 7^th commemoration ceremony in my community. And like all gatherings in the Jewish community security for the event will be heavy and will be armed in order to protect us as we gather to mourn and cry and hold each other up.

As a Jewish people we are all feeling sadness, anger, frustration, fear, and exhaustion. But somehow, we are also resilient and inexplicably we are all also trying hard to feel HOPE.