Sunday night, the warnings started rolling in. A massive storm would slam Israel Wednesday through Friday. Our Thursday event in Carmei Gat sat directly in the crosshairs.
We’d planned this pre-Chanukah celebration for weeks with the Helping Israel Fund out of Boca Raton. The setup was simple: first half for families with fathers currently serving in Miluim, second half for those whose fathers had served during the year but were home now. Mosaic menorah-making kits ordered. Drumline vendor booked. Ice cream truck confirmed.
Then the forecasts got worse.
Our rule is straightforward: if the roads are open and we can get there, we show up. We’d made a commitment to these families. Storm or no storm.
Thursday morning arrived with steady rain. By afternoon, it was coming down hard. The peak hours lined up perfectly with our event time. Most organizers would have pulled the plug.
The menorah kits were already stocked. The drumline vendor called to say he was coming anyway. The ice cream truck driver said he’d make it and bring doughnuts on top of everything else.
We went for it.
The community center filled up despite the weather. Tables covered in tiny mosaic tiles, grout, and menorah bases. Kids picked through blues and silvers and golds, designing patterns only they could see. Mothers helped small hands press tiles into place, creating Chanukah menorahs that would sit on their windowsills for years.
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The pizza boxes kept arriving. Hot, fresh, cutting through the chill that seeped in every time someone opened the door. Families who’d been running on stress and microwaved dinners sat together around tables, actually eating a meal someone else had prepared.
Then came the ice cream pops. The truck had made it through flooded streets, the driver delivering on his promise. He’d brought jelly doughnuts too, sufganiyot piled high in boxes. Kids grabbed them with tile-dust still on their fingers, powdered sugar mixing with grout on their clothes.
The drumline vendor started setting up his equipment. Another reservist, another guy trying to keep his business afloat while serving his country. He knows what these families are living. The cancelled plans. The missed bedtimes. The weight of uncertainty that settles over a home when Abba’s gear sits by the door, waiting.
He handed out drums. Small ones for the kids, bigger ones for the mothers. The room filled with the first hesitant taps, then stronger beats as confidence grew.
Then Chanukah music started playing.
The vendor called out rhythms. Showed them patterns. And suddenly the community center was pounding with sound, dozens of hands hitting drums in sync, off-beat, finding their own rhythm, creating noise that drowned out everything else. The kids were laughing. The mothers were smiling. For a few minutes, the rain outside didn’t matter. The storm couldn’t touch this.
Here’s what happened next.
The rain intensified. Roads turned into rivers. And the IDF, watching the same weather reports we were, made a call: send everyone home from the front. Get the soldiers out of their tents in Gaza and back to their families before conditions got worse.
The event we’d planned for families missing their fathers became something entirely different. Those same fathers walked through our doors, soaked from the rain but grinning. Kids who expected to make menorahs while wondering about Abba’s safety in a tent during the storm got to make them sitting next to him instead.
Lebracha, vlo leklalah – for a blessing, not a curse.
Fathers grabbed drums alongside their kids. They bit into doughnuts they hadn’t tasted in weeks. They watched their children’s mosaic creations take shape, saw the concentration on small faces, felt the normalcy of a Thursday evening that had nothing to do with uniforms or operations or the weight they carry.
The drumline vendor, still in his reserve uniform under his vendor shirt, led these fathers through rhythms. One reservist helping other reservists remember what it feels like to just be present. To make noise that means nothing except joy.
The storm that threatened to wash out our party delivered the one thing we couldn’t plan for: fathers and families together. Not just photos sent from the front. Not just phone calls squeezed between shifts. Physical presence. Hands helping small fingers glue mosaic pieces. Voices joining in with the drumline. Fathers watching their kids’ faces light up at the ice cream truck.
Sometimes the downpour carries exactly what you need.
The rain kept falling. The doughnuts kept coming. The drums kept pounding. And in a community center in Carmei Gat, families who’d spent months separated got a few hours that mattered more than perfect weather ever could.
We can’t control when storms arrive. But we can show up anyway, stock the supplies, and trust that sometimes the very thing that looks like a disaster brings the blessing you didn’t know to ask for.