The incident: The traffic accident in which the late 4-year-old David Sofer died in the Beit Vegan neighborhood.
Date: 22nd Elul, September 6th.
I wanted to write about what stirred me this year, about one of the events that gave me no rest, and as usual, I sat down at my desk.
I was thinking about what to write about from everything that happened this year, and I remembered everything I had written throughout the year. I remembered the elections, I remembered the Milki protest, I remembered the ugly Israeli, and Mega that almost closed its doors to its employees.
I had just spent an eventful year and suddenly the sound of an ambulance siren was heard outside my window. After the first siren, came the second, and after them more and more police car sirens.
I tried to ignore it, to think that these vehicles were just passing under my window on their way to the hospital, that nothing had happened beyond the walls of my home. I kept thinking about which event from 5775 to choose to write about to end the year, but it was like rust had broken out of my head and only terrible sirens terrified my sweaty brain.
I left the keyboard and ran to the door. I found myself hurrying after the voices. When I arrived at the scene, the children who had been injured in the horrific accident had already been taken away, and only the bicycles were on the road, lying like orphans.
Dozens, if not hundreds of people, mostly children, surrounded the area where the terrible car accident occurred.
A very small street is Shaarei Torah Street, in Beit Vegan, Jerusalem.
A tiny street, but one imbued with holiness. Yeshivahs on all sides, a synagogue on the left, a boarding school for boys on the right, cars parked barely on the sides of the road, and inside the circle marked by the police stands a red mail truck.
As I stand, looking like everyone else at the road that suddenly became the road of death, I see him, shrunken and despised, the driver sitting inside the red car.
It's hot outside, very hot. Who feels the heat? No one. Certainly not the driver who is sitting in his seat and sobbing.
Someone passes a glass of water, another brings a chair, suggests he sit outside his car in this heat. Meanwhile, a woman, probably his wife, joins in.
Police officers do their job properly, photographers from the media take one picture after another.
And now an update arrives and passes from here to balance: the child died of his wounds, his brother was injured.
And I know the family and the sword that stabbed before, stabs seven times more.
And I think to myself: Many events have happened in the past year, but you won't be able to see any other event, when this event intensifies before your eyes. You don't have to see the children themselves to understand, you don't have to hear what happened to the child to tremble.
Suddenly all the events that filled the year seem so insignificant, so uninteresting, completely unimportant, how could I think of writing about any of them?
And doesn't this sight, which is happening here before my eyes, sum up the year that has passed, sum up life in general, prove how insignificant we are. What are we, what is our life, after all we are like blooming dust, which was a moment ago and is already gone. Like a dream that will fly away.
I don't know what events made the year for each of the readers. For me, this incident definitely made it.
A red mail car, an unhappy driver, who has been sitting in the middle of the circle for two hours, awaiting his sentence.
And...orphaned bicycles...yes, orphaned bicycles...orphaned...
• Mencha Fox is a writer.
Join the Haredim 10 Facebook page >>
Join the X page of Haredim 10 >>
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
