Getting Sad News
Last night my daughter heard from a friend, a young man who is also very dear to my heart, who is a tank commander on the Gaza border. Unfortunately, the news from his unit was not good, one of his soldiers (who was also an old friend of his from yeshiva) had been killed and 2 other of his soldiers had been injured. This friend was taking the news hard, of course. But his morale was still very high. As the grandchild of 4 Holocaust survivors, he had total clarity that Hashem had given him this mission to protect Israel and the Jewish people, with Hashem’s guidance and blessing.
When I heard about the news from my daughter’s friend, it brought the reality of this War home in a way it hadn’t until then. This was on top of reading that Hizbollah, that seems to be chomping at the bit to join this War, is a far stronger enemy than Hamas. I went to sleep feeling like the darkness of the current situation was going to swallow me and my family and our future up along with this country I love so much.
I hoped I would feel better in the morning. My Mom A”H used to say, “Sometimes you feel like the world is coming to an end, but then you wake up in the morning and the world is still there!”
But when I woke up, the world was still here, but so was the darkness. The hopelessness.
So I cleaned my kitchen and made my bed and lay back down and did a visualization, of all my impossible dreams.
I envisioned my daughter’s friend as a grandfather telling his grandchildren gathered around him about how we won the Simchat Torah War, 50 years ago.
And I envisioned how the War will end suddenly, with a clear victory over our enemies to the south and north, leading to peaceful borders for many years to come, and miraculously, with no Israeli casualties.
And I envisioned my family in 6 months, busy hosting our tourist groups again, the War a distant memory.
I usually don’t connect much with the concept of Moshiach. We’ve been waiting for him for 2 millenia, why davka would he show up now? But this morning I yearned for Moshiach. I envisioned us Weisbergs and all of the people of Israel in all our beautiful diversity ascending to the Temple Mount, alongside all the peoples of the world: the Arabs and the Iranians, and the Europeans and even the New-York-Times editorial board united in crystal-clear clarity, that God, our Lord, God is ONE!
And then I remembered all the times I despaired and Hashem brought salvation in the blink of an eye.
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, baruch Hashem!
The end of the cursed enemies of Israel: Saddam Hussein, Quadafi and Bin Ladin, yemach shmam.
And I could imagine, for the first time since I heard the tragic news from my daughter’s friend… I could imagine, no, I could taste, a sweet honeysuckle drop of hope.
Jenny, thank you for this post. It resonates so much. Our neighbors with whom we share a wall lost their amazing son protecting Am Yisrael. Our shul has a five-page long list of drafted boys to daven for. And it all seems dark and hopeless. So fighting for that hope, that sweet taste of hope and belief in God’s miracles, that’s what I cling to and Be’zrat Hashem we should see it soon and clearly. Thanks again.