I (almost) don’t cry anymore — the hidden costs of war

He spent a Shabbat sleeping in our basement bomb shelter, but the next day we went ahead with our plans to celebrate his birthday with a family day — a יום כיף/yom kef — to celebrate his turning five years old. Nothing fancy, just a trip to Jerusalem’s biggest mall for the “gymboree” indoor play area and a food court meal, and an afternoon at the pool. Opening presents at home. Just plain fun.

(Photo by Alan Abrams)

This has been our strategy for getting through this war — to resist the efforts of Hamas and its allies to break our spirits  to take away our love of life and of Israel — by our still trying to live a life of joy. But it’s not like we’re trying to pretend that there’s not a war going on for the sake of our young kids. How could we even imagine doing that when just this past Friday, the sirens went off again at about 4:30am.

As we ran down the two flights of stairs, our near-9-year-old daughter — in the lead as the fastest of us — was shocked to find that a neighbor had locked the door to the miklat. We called her back up to the second story landing, which we think of as a relatively strong part of the building. “We’re not safe here, we’re not safe here,” she said again and again in a panic as she paced rapidly back and forth. I tried to calm her with a hug.

This is the greatest damage my family has suffered in this war — a shattering of our two children’s sense of safety, of being able to be carefree. And that is something. Like Miriam Herschlag, Opinion & Blogs editor at The Times of Israel, expressed recently on The Promised Podcast, I am acutely aware that so many others have suffered more than we have in this war. But our sufferings, our losses, are very real and — maybe too often — unacknowledged, too.

Herschlag says that after October 7, she cried every day, bawling her eyes out for months, more than a lifetime of tears. 

I did, too. So much crying that I got a sore on my eyelid that didn’t seem like it would ever go away — for months it just kept getting irritated again and again when I started bawling tears again. But I hardly ever cry, anymore. (Although I certainly did on that terrible day when it was revealed that Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages with him were brutally executed by Hamas.)

And maybe the end to my crying is a big loss, too. Because maybe this war has stolen something away from me emotionally, just like it’s stealing something away from my children. Maybe I’m losing some of my ability to feel. Feeling just feels too risky.

You need to feel to do so many things. Like appreciate great films or literature. Ever since the war started, I’ve barely been able to read anything longer than a newspaper article at all. And not only can I not watch great films, but I can barely sit still long enough to watch a half-hour long, mindless TV comedy. Even though I’m in my 60s, I’ve become part of the TikTok generation, rarely watching anything that’s even a minute long. 

I also need to feel in order to listen to the radio news these days. I used to look forward to listening to the 6am Reshet Bet radio report, the one that starts with the Shema. It was a great way to get to know my adopted country better and to improve my Hebrew a bit. But so many of the reports are about the hostages and their families, or about fallen soldiers and their families.

It’s not that I don’t care about the hostages and the fallen, as well as about the reservists whose lives and families are so disrupted by months of miluim service — I very much do. But, to survive emotionally, to be able to still leave a place for joy, I need to titrate my exposure to the horrors — continuously measuring how much I can take, how much I can feel, without damaging myself. And, also, to judge if, alternatively, I’m allowing myself to feel too little and thus cutting myself off excessively from the world and the nation I care about so much.

I know so many people are leaning in to their feelings for the hostages. I admire them and am glad they are able to find community and solidarity and feelings of agency by taking to the streets in protests. But my path doesn’t involve my joining them there. My way of resistance to those who hate us is much smaller — through trying to live a life of joy, especially joy with my little family. But, still, I wonder if I am really succeeding. Is too much of that joy — especially joy in forming human relationships — being taken from my life?

This comes up with social media. On Facebook since the war started, I’ve limited who can comment on my Facebook posts to “friends”. I just don’t want to casually come across the hateful antisemitism that would surely be on my feed if I allowed strangers to comment there. I just can’t have all that hate — and the anger it spawns in me — as a big part of my life. I admire the people, especially the young people on college campuses, who have the strength to debate these haters and fight against them. But that’s just not who I am, at least at this point in my life. So, I’m cutting myself off from a lot of people, including people who were once real-life friends.

I also only accept friend requests now from people I actually know. I used to accept nearly every friend request I received — I wanted Facebook to be a place that exposes me to the diversity of the world. But, it’s not that, anymore. 

And, I’ve also withdrawn in my professional life. I’m part of a group of international chaplain educators; it’s a group that I helped form and that has been a source of meaning and fellowship for me. But when we have our monthly Zoom meetings, I’m always in fear that someone will suddenly attack me because I live in Israel. This is part of living with war, too.

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Last night, as I write this, I went to sleep with my shoes on. I donned a warm vest with generous pockets where I stowed my phone, glasses and a wool hat. I’m not as fast as I used to be and I don’t tolerate the cold well. Going to bed with warm clothing and everything I need already with me gives me a better chance to get down to our building’s miklat in the 90-seconds they say you have (and not catching my death of cold when I’m there).

I’m sure this is nothing compared to what it means for a soldier to be on the front lines. But it’s a big disruption to my life to be wondering every night if I’m going to be awakened by the siren of the azaka, as we live through this time of Houthi missile attacks in the middle of the night.

Our five-year-old asks us if an azaka is a good thing or a bad thing. It’s scary for him to go through one, but he also knows that the siren helps keep us safe. It sends us to the (relative) safety of the miklat downstairs.

May we all know a time when there are no more azakot. And no war. Anywhere.