My war letters home A little bit of a different format:
Monday we gat a call from the cheder, still no cheder tomorrow, but R Moshe hille hirsh has said that all fathers who can should learn with their sons - even if their kollel has started already...also they should take in another boy or two (whos father cant learn with him) to the sessions..
Tehillim after all teffilos, The ieda announces tues day as a yom tfilla - all should finish the entire sefer tehilim...,
The rabanim harashaim start talking about having aklal yisreolwide tfilla.
I finaly get to the tambor, and the ownerfeels the need to excuse himself , why he's there and not with his friends in miluim - I'm Nechea Tzhal - I have a war/army injury, and there for am not useful???
Hes a chiloni guy - at least dresses that way - who grew up on a verry small yishuv in the Jordan valley. He wants to know, is thechareidi kahila being torem to the war effort are they being mishtataef.... I don't really have a good answer - its not likeI've been going around seeing whats up in different neighborhoods.
We get to talking. (we're freindly from the past, he knows that I'm moving...) And I get to see the resolve, the determination that has taken hold of the national concience here. He's NOT a Ben Gvir/MK Kach type, but the Gaza will be different, we will show them, we'll make a kilometer wide buffer zone, we'll go in and show them... We wont listen to the world when they try to make us stop...
I make the point that the most likely conclusion is a staleamate, we will not get back all the hostages, some of them will be lost forever, invoking names from my childhood like Guy Hever, Ron Arad, Sultan Yaakub.... He refuses to hear. No, we will get them all back.
streets are very quite. Geula is closed early. I don;t know which stores are open during the day, but when I walk home everything is closed.
Tachana merkazit is closing early.
I walk into a few stores, there is a shortage of fresh vegtables, and FRESH poultry, but otherwise at least in my area the supply chain seems to be working.
Stuff is hitting close to home: My chavrusas Brother in law ha sjust started in an army prep ulpan/lone soldier progarm on a kibutz in the north, and two of the guys who he met when he came - (who are alrady in the army) were killed.
When I came home from Yeshiva I found a tent set up outside one of the buildings on my street for one of the families to sit shiva for someone murdered... They seemed to just have gotten back from the beis hakvaros... so i decided to go in later.
We start to here the first drips of breakage in the united national front, someone on the radio saying that Bibi souldnt be forming a national govt -he should be resigning.
One of my wifes older single freinds is getting married in Beitar tonight. She decides to makean extra effort to go as maybe people wont come from out side the city, especially since there wasa missile strike in beitar yesterday. An nice amount of freinds showed up, prob all for the same reason. They said theilim at the chupa. Someone sent a message around that there is a chasuna and people should comebe meshameac. FLOP. many people came in weekday clothing, a a lower standard of tznius than the couple, the kalla knows who her freinds are , and these people who she hasent seen before in her life are not letting her dance with her freinds....but at least their hearts were in the right place.
Tuesdays call from the cheder brings NEWS. Kita Hay and up will be having some sort of program. call your class info numberto find out what... OLower grades stil closed - though theyre working on reactivating the Corona remote learning model. Other chadorim have bee open. There are all sorts of calculations that each school has to make - do we have enough protected areas, how will kids get home in the event of a massive flare up - nieghborhod schools have an easiiar time at least with that.
A bachur calls me from the US, his magid shiur is convincing him to come back, he wants an unbiased un connected third party, whos on the ground to tell himwhats up and advise him.
SO war has tought my 3,5 yr old son The entire shir hamaaols Mimamakim by heart
i basicaly told the bachur - can you deal with staying in yeashiva for the durtion f the zman with out breaks for shabbos....What level of escilation will cuase you to jump on the next plane back...Is irt just the uncertainty....
no war planes over head tonight. last night thery were there the entire time...brought me back to right after 9/11, and my trumas then ... seeing the landing path into LGA from my bedroom window and being conviced every night that my atic bedroom was going to be hit by at least the landing gear of a plane...
no war planes over head tonight. last night thery were there the entire time...brought me back to right after 9/11, and my trumas then ... seeing the landing path into LGA from my bedroom window and being conviced every night that my atic bedroom was going to be hit by at least the landing gear of a plane...