I'm 27 years old today. It's actually my birthday right now. A bit sad, I would say.
In a sane time, I should have celebrated as a young man, rejoicing with his friends and family, marking the day he was born. But my land is drenched in blood, and the winds of war are blowing outside, and bereavement is knocking on the doors.
Maybe this is life, I think to myself. We have been living this way for thousands of years, and the proof is that millions of Jews are mourning right now the destruction of a house, or rather two, that were taken, robbed, plundered, and destroyed by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon, and General Titus, together with the army of Rome. They destroyed the house of our God, and brought a holocaust upon our people.
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""Jews," someone tells me, noticing my musings, "are a people born to perpetual suffering.".
It's hard for me to agree with him. It seems like a difficult period is finally coming to an end, but my heart tells me that another one will follow. It's kind of like the seasons.
Only instead of blossoming, prosperity, and joyful children filling the gardens and places of entertainment, we watch in tears, coffin after coffin, wrapped in the national flag, with one military song or another, in a cemetery packed with mourners, who came to pay their last respects, to a son, a father, an uncle, a friend, or the one you were supposed to marry.
Thousands of people, all silent, protesting a rebellious tear, refusing to be comforted. Dreams that were buried and now covered with sand and a bouquet of flowers. Families that were destroyed, and there is no end to the sadness. The sun sets and rises again the next morning, the world goes on as usual.
The beginning of an era
I looked for comfort, I looked for it in books, in bereaved families, in people of literature and spirituality, but I didn't find it.
"Our unity is our comfort," one of those I sought an answer to my question from told me. There may be something to what he said.
Suddenly, a special memory came to mind, one that was deeply etched in my mind, when I attended the funerals of the three young men, Eyal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaar, and Naftali Frankel, the 14th, saints of Israel, who were kidnapped and murdered as they made their way home to their mother and father, to their families.
There, I truly noticed the beginning of a wonderful period in the people of Israel, a period of comforting unity, one that initially emerged from three localities and gathered for a huge funeral attended by tens of thousands in the city of Modi'in.
Her journey wandered through different landscapes, different communities, and different faces, and the unity was great and comforting, addressing both the intellect and the emotion, the national and the personal, in words, tears, and other human expressions of weakness and strength.
The words of the bereaved father of the Frankl family, which he said with a tremor while standing in front of his son's bed, still resonate in my ears: "Your death led us all, this entire people, forward. And in that there is comfort. You were murdered because you are Jews, that we should not be confused even for a moment. That is the only reason for this murderousness, in that you join the millions who have been murdered throughout history - from Rabbi Akiva to Janusz Korczak, Machen and his seven sons to Baruch Mizrahi," he said, and did not elaborate.
The sobs of tears and bereavement from the audience took their toll. I asked for condolences.
The fear of the unknown permeates
Vineyards, olive trees, and vast green spaces appeared before my eyes through the ambulance window, somewhere in the south of the country, near Nahal Oz, Sajjaiya. A whole green world, and how quiet, hides there. A few sheep that had looked at me on the road as an intruder, continued to chew the grass, as if missiles were not falling around us.
I went out to medically reinforce the areas attacked by mortars, on behalf of Ihud Hatzalah, the organization in which I volunteer as a medic.
An alarm sounds, another, and another, fear seeps in, penetrating my soul. I clutched the object and helmet to my body, hugging the wheel of the car as I lay on the scratched asphalt.
A few minutes pass, and together with the truck loaded with all the goodies we had organized, and which had made the journey with us from the center for our soldier at the front, we passed through the gate of one of the bases.
C., a good friend, an ultra-Orthodox man from Bnei Brak, a reserve soldier, hugged me like a lost child.
Two days ago, he asked us to bring things to the guys. "There's nothing to wear, all the nice citizens with the treats are being arrested in the Ashdod area, we're right next to the border, citizens are afraid to come here.".
"You know," he points his finger toward the horizon, "this is Sajaiya, everything happens here.".
"Congratulations on coming," says another.
"I love you," says the third.
"It really doesn't matter who is in the army and who isn't, the main thing is that we be together," says Rebi.
And so I sit, in the first moments of my new and extraordinary age, contemplating my future, yours, and our people's. What should I do? Rejoice in my joy? Take comfort in our unity? Will it be good? Is the war over?
I don't understand. The fear of the unknown seeps in, the soul seeks an answer, and asks for rest.
This day, 9th of Av, is the peak of mourning during the time of the Egyptians, a day on which we believe that after the coming of the Messiah and the construction of the Third Temple, it will become, like the other fasts for the destruction, a day of celebration, a day of joy and peace.
Birthday... for me.
