It's scary that there are people whose entire lives exist between alarm and alarm, between missile and missile, between fall and fall.
Their lives are not lives.
They sleep in the barracks, eat in the barracks, play in the barracks. As if that's how it should be.
They go down to buy bread and milk, calculating even before calculating the money, whether they can even make it from the store to the police station in time, and what will happen to the children if an alarm sounds just when they are gone.
Sleep eludes them night after night. Fears and anxieties constantly fill their hearts.
They don't know what will happen with the Purim party and what Passover awaits them. They have trouble making plans, and they wouldn't dream of leaving their children with someone and going on vacation.
They suffer alone, it seems that no one reads their hearts, no one understands their plight, and no one can help them.
They tell their fears to the relatives at the center, but they nod their heads as if they understand, but continue to be busy with their own.
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And now, who would have dreamed that an alarm, so simple and so familiar in one place, could cause such a shock in another place.
The alarms that sounded in the central region shocked the entire country.
Suddenly it turns out that people living in the central region have a heart. They do understand what distress is. They feel and know. They are clearly aware of the situation when it is terrible.
But all this when it's close to them. When it's a part of them, when their ears hear and their feet run and look for somewhere to hide, and somewhere to be.
The people who live in the envelope sit there, watching and not believing: Are those who don't seem to be partners and participants suddenly really caring about the situation? Until now, they have seemed to lack minimal understanding and ruthlessness.
What is really going on here?
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A person who is close to himself, especially in matters that he does not personally experience.
A rich person, who was previously poor and humiliated, will understand, despite his wealth, the feelings of the poor person, and perhaps even help him. A student who succeeded in mathematics, after much memorization, will understand his friend who asks for his help.
A mother who had difficulty raising her children and saw that education was not easy at all will be able to understand the woman who is facing similar challenges.
But how will ordinary people, whose lives are ordinary lives, who almost never leave the borders of their city, and who do not feel what their southern friends feel, understand? How will they understand in their hearts? How can we even ask them to share in their grief?
You've probably once left the house at dawn, when the air was cool. It was clear to you that you wouldn't dare go out without a coat. Three hours later, you couldn't figure out what was wrong with the coat in your hand. It was too hot for you to even hold it in your hand.
How could you think you would be cold?
When it's cold, you don't remember what heat is, when it's hot, you don't remember that cold exists.
It may have happened to you that you arrived at a restaurant, your stomach growled at the sight of other people eating their hearts out, you ordered a hearty meal and ate to your heart's content. When you left, you passed by other people's restaurants. You saw them dining. You didn't understand how it was possible to eat anymore, you forgot that once you were the hungry ones too, and those who passed by you were the starving ones who don't understand how it is possible to eat?
There are things we will not understand unless we experience them, dwell within them, feel their power.
There are things that are not enough to be in, as time passes, you forget. This is what happened with people who lived in the seam area, but moved away. Their senses became dull. They stopped feeling.
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We must remember all this when we are at a distance.
We must strive to ensure that, despite the distance, we will be in the north or center and our hearts will be in the south.
There are things we can do even from a distance, even if we don't fully identify with them: love, empathy, hugs, participation, invitations to our homes, and doing things for them.
I remember the war days, years ago, each of us invited a family who lived there, on the border, to our home, so that they could have a quiet Shabbat, to have a relaxing experience. A Shabbat of rest.
I think that if we did enough for those who stand as a living wall to guard our border, they wouldn't reach a point where, unknowingly and without shame, they are happy that we are finally feeling what they have been feeling all their lives.
We wouldn't hear sentences like: "Well, well, finally they'll feel what we feel, finally they'll identify with us.".
They wouldn't mock and joke when their brothers were suffering from panic, making mocking remarks.
No Jew is happy when his friend suffers, even if he is very sick and prone to death.
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