Locked Boxes

My husband always talks about how he is able to compartmentalize his brain and his thoughts. Everything has a place and a box. Work box – check. Family box – check. That way he only focuses on one thing at a time and things don’t get mixed up. 

That concept is completely foreign to me. Maybe because I am a woman and mother, or maybe because my head is always running and planning and worrying and thinking. 

Except I do have one box: The October 7, 2023 box. And that box is locked shut with a tight lid. 

But why don’t I open that box you might ask. 

One reason I don’t open that box is because we are still living in the war that started on that dark Shabbat, Simchat Torah. We still have friends doing miluim, we still have soldiers in Gaza and on the northern border, we still have wounded and displaced, and we still have hostages in Gaza!

I can’t open and process that box because I am scared of what’s inside and I can’t afford to lose it now. I need to be able to take care of my kids, go to work, make dinner, do laundry, drive down the road. I need to sleep with one ear open in case the Houthis try to shoot another missile at my house in the middle of the night. I need to still be a functioning human, and I am afraid if I open that box I don’t know what will come out. I can literally count the number of times I have cried since October 7, 2023, and it is not that many.

Another reason I don’t open that box is because I am not sure I have the key. In fact, I’m not sure anyone in Israel, and maybe even any Jew around the world, has the key. I think there is severe emotional trauma that we are not fully aware of and/or have the tools to deal with. 

The hardest part is I see it in my kids. The way they copy me and preemptively say “motorcycle” when we hear a loud siren-like sound outside. Or when my daughter literally jumped into my arms when an ambulance drove past her grandparents house in America because in our house that siren means something else entirely. 

But today is Yom HaZikaron. The national day when we are perhaps supposed to open the box. To feel all the feels, to cry all the tears, and remember all the people who risked their lives so I could live freely in our homeland, להיות עם חופשי בארצנו, today. 

So why today am I struggling to open the box? Because I know that the day after tomorrow is Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, one of the happiest days (if not the happiest day) on the Israeli calendar, and the stark switch from sadness to happiness, מאבל ליום טוב, is hard. It is hard every year, and during a war it is even harder as the sadness is even stronger. 

But I will try. I will try to open the box because they deserve it. They deserve all the respect, thanks, and love that we can offer. They – the men, women, children, brothers, sisters, husbands, uncles, cousins, teachers, and workers – who fell for our country. We are eternally grateful to them, and for them we are sad tomorrow and happy the day after tomorrow. 

I think Michael Dickson, Executive Director of Stand With Us, said it best: 

“The truth is, living in Israel, every day is Remembrance Day and every day is Independence Day. 

Never a day goes by where we don’t cherish our independence nor appreciate and remember those who keep us safe and free.”  

יהי זכרם ברוך 

חב עצמאות שמח