My Daughter, the Evacuee
My daughter Hallel was supposed to start her 2nd year of university this fall. But she didn’t. Because all universities are still closed because of the War. And even if they were open, the village on the northern border where her college is located, was evacuated. As was the nearby kibbutz where Hallel had rented a small apartment.
Which means that Hallel is now one of the 130,000 Israelis who are evacuees, more citizens displaced from their homes than at any other point in Israeli history.
But Hallel (as you might remember from the video I once made about the beit midrash she built out of mud) isn’t your average human being. She doesn’t only love nature, she’s a certified survival-course instructor. Hallel feels as at home in a sleeping bag in a tent as she does in a bed in a house. So even though she is entitled to free housing, she has chosen instead to live in a tent alongside friends in Mitzpeh Ramon (where she volunteers with some of the 3000 evacuees who’ve relocated to there.)
Wherever she is on planet Earth, she puts up her tent, and she feels at home.
Which makes me think of a shiva I attended earlier today…
And sitting with a grieving mother from my neighborhood whose son was tragically killed in battle this past Friday.
Seeing this mother’s strength, her faith reminded me that a person who is deeply connected with Hashem, deeply connected with the Jewish people, also can never be homeless. She is in her Land, no matter how embattled. In her people, who stand beside her at her time of tragedy. In Hashem’s tent, no matter what storms rage in her country and family and even her own heart. In that tent, she is always safe. In that tent she is always at home.
May Hashem bless this beautiful family with comfort among all the countless mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, Amen.
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