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Chaverim,
It's hard to know where to begin. So
much has happened in the last 36 hrs. or so, and so quickly, but
let's start not with Tisha b' Av but with Shmoneh b' Av.
Yesterday we had hopes for another quiet day; it had been much
quieter in the area on Mon. and Tues. during the 48 hr. lull in
the airstrikes, Hezbellah knew not .to send rockets then, it
would have hurt their PR image
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And Wed. morn. did begin quietly. I was talking to one of my
Board members on the phone, we were making plans to shop for
food to put in "care packages" for soldiers (we've been
preparing baked "goodies" and buying treats for units serving in
the area…), but as we were talking, the warning siren went off.
It was the 1st of 12 such sirens over the hours ahead… we didn't
know it yet, but during that time 210 Katyushas and other
rockets fell in the Galil, and a fair amount of them in our
area. A house was hit in Kfar Vradim, luckily with minimal
damage, the other one landed in an open wooden area. In the
meantime, we continued with our plans to get together (in a
large shelter) for Tisha B' Av. And get together we did, though
under the circumstances, we only had 8 people, many village
residents are away in the center of the country and some are
abroad; we had planned also to have congregants from our
kehillot in Karmiel and Tzfat join us, but after the barrage of
yesterday, they all decided to stay home, no doubt a wise
decision.
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At any rate, the words and haunting melody of "Aicha" had a
special resonance for us that evening, but as I said that
evening during our service, we may be going through a very hard
and painful period, but Baruch Hashem, we are far from Hurban …
we left feeling very good, strengthened by davenning and being
together. And so last night we went to bed, and it seemed quiet,
for some reason I decided that we could sleep in our bedroom,
rather than the fortified room (the laundry room) where we've
slept almost every night since this began. About 1:30 A.M. came
the siren… we dashed into the laundry room, but before we got
there we heard two loud bangs. We knew they were close, but only
this morning we discovered that they had both landed in the
village. Both hit houses, each about half a kilometer away from
our house. One was lightly damaged, but the other suffered a
direct hit. I went over there immediately when I heard; I know
the family, they're not cong. Members but they did a Bar Mitzvah
with us some years ago… I arrived to find a huge hole where the
entrance to the house had been; the house is still standing, but
inside there was rubble everywhere the kitchen and many other
rooms destroyed. I saw the mother, she was very happy to see me,
obviously very upset, but they were just thankful to be alive…
Luckily, the kids were in the center of the country and she and
her husband were sleeping downstairs in a room below ground
level, (had they been in their bedroom they wouldn't be here to
tell the tale…). I told her that we'd be here for them, not just
now, but long after this terrible war ends...
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Now it's late afternoon, and for the last 2 hrs. it started
up again, we had 7 more alarms, and we heard plenty of "nefilot"
(landings of Katyushas). In the middle of it all our friend (and
colleague) Jonathan Perlman called from America; he'd already
read in Haaretz that there were "nefilot" near Maalot… Anyway, I
think some Katyushas might have fallen in the village, but I
don't know for sure. I do know that many landed in the area; we
saw lots of smoke in the distance towards Tarshicha, an Arab
village next door to us. Turns out that there was a hit there,
killing 3 Bedouin who were outside… I saw on the news that 4
were killed from hits in Akko as well. Apparently over 100
rockets hit our area in the past 2 hrs…
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Right now it seems quiet; hopefully the barrage has ended. I
had planned today to go to the Shalit family (Gilad's parents)
in Mitzpeh Hila nearby, in order to bring them letter sent to me
from campers from Ramah in the Poconos, but with everything
happening outside, I couldn't get out. Linda (my wife) was also
planning on getting out to see a family in the village with an
autistic son( she works w/ autistic children as an Art
Therapist),hopefully she'll get there later tonight.
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Earlier today, (when it was quiet) I was in the central
shopping area. I ran into one of our members who is a
psychologist. Since war broke out the Home Front Command has
assigned her and her husband (also a psych.), to work in shifts
providing "emergency counseling" to people in trauma in the
area. She told me many stories, including that of a 19 yr. old
Christian Arab from Tarshicha, whose family had sustained a hit
and whose mother was traumatized; he said he wished he could
join the army and go over there and kill Nasrallah… turns out
many of the people seeking help have been Arabs from the
villages in the area, and many of them, (especially the
Christians) are just furious about the fanatics of Hezbellah…
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So what does a Masorti rabbi do in these circumstances? I try
to do whatever I can… be it translating emerg. info. from Heb.
to Eng. on the village website, to helping the staff at the Post
Office put mail in the P.O. boxes, buying food for our "care
packages" project for the soldiers, but of course primarily just
talking with people and trying to provide encouragement and a
sympathetic ear… I admit that sometimes I find it just a trifle
frustrating ( I mean in normal peaceful days) being out here far
away from the center, serving a small kehillah that sometimes
has a hard time even getting a minyan, but at times like this I
see just how important our presence really is here. So many
people really appreciate that our kehilla is here, they feel
connected to us, (now we just got to find the magic formula to
get them to come to shul…!). As difficult as it is here now, I
know my place is here with my kehilla and with my friends and
the whole community in Kfar Vradim; it's home, anda s we all
know, "there's no place like home"!
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Sorry about rambling on so long…
Hoping for a quiet night, and that all of this won't last too
much longer!
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Kol tuv,
Zvi Berger
HaMinyan HaMishpachti HaMasorti
Kfar Vradim
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