Shabbat morning started the way it always does. Coffee at 6:30. Synagogue at 7. Prayers finished at 8:10.
Then the siren tore through the air.
High-ranking military officers and officials standing nearby scrambled to figure out what was happening, whether it was real, a mistake, a drill. It was none of those things. Israel had struck Iran. The Ayatollah and senior leadership were dead within minutes. The war we had been sitting on the edge of our seats waiting for, preparing for, knowing was coming, had finally arrived.
That was six days ago.
Since then, the kids have not had school. Work has been closed. No public gatherings. Families across the country have been injured, and some have been tragically killed. The rockets and the sirens have become the rhythm of our days and nights.
And still, the messages keep coming. From friends in New York, in Los Angeles, in Boca. “How are you? Is everything ok?” We have been getting that question for two and a half years straight, and there is still no clean answer to it. The truth is somewhere in the middle of fine and not fine, of safe and scared, of holding it together and exhausted.
We are ok. We are also not ok.
We run to the bomb shelter six times a day. We sleep with one ear always listening for the early warning. We have an app on our phones that tells us the probability of an incoming rocket at any given moment, so we can figure out the best time to shower. That last one sounds like a joke. It is not.
We have company over for Shabbat meals and count out loud how many people can fit in the shelter. We daven three times a day and walk in knowing exactly where to run if there is a siren mid-prayer. We track flights through Arab countries because that is the only way to get out of Israel right now, for those trying to reach family in the States.
This is our normal. Not the normal we moved here for, not the normal we imagined when we made aliyah. But it is the normal we have built, the one we operate inside of now. Anyone who has lived through sustained conflict, the Ukrainians, others who have spent years like this, understands. The word resilient gets used a lot, but resilience is not a renewable resource. At some point, it costs something.
What makes this week different from the 130 weeks before it is the weight of what has finally happened. We knew this war was coming. The intelligence was there, the context was there, two and a half years of buildup were there. And now here we are, six days in, no clear end date, and a country that is at once braced and relieved and grieving and alert.
The timing is not lost on anyone. We just finished Purim, the holiday where we celebrate the defeat of a Persian enemy who sought to destroy the Jewish people. Now we move toward Pesach, the holiday where we mark our escape from tyranny and our long, hard journey into the land of Israel. Some families this year are flying to Taba, Egypt and trekking back across the border on foot, recreating that original journey. The symbolism of doing that in the middle of a war with Iran is not subtle.
Soldiers have been called up. Families are managing alone again. Wives running their households, putting their children to bed, preparing for Pesach while counting how many days until their husbands come home. We see it around us and we keep asking ourselves, what more can we do, how can we show up better, how can we stretch further.
We hope this ends quickly. We are also prepared for it to take longer, if longer means it is finally finished. What we want, more than anything, is to come out the other side of this and find something that resembles a real life again. A normal that does not require a shelter count at the dinner table.
We will get there. We believe that.
Am Yisrael Chai.