It has begun...

It's started. I don't even know what to say, what to feel. Regardless of what is right or wrong, how can one go through times like these and not be affected? It permeates through whatever walls -be they intentional or defensive- that we put up, and one can't help but hear about it everywhere. The woman at the butcher who has a cousin there; the old man who can't stop crying because his great nephew is in prison while his wife copes with packing boxes and dealing with the little ones. There's no end. The shul is filled with hushed whispers.
Last night, we were watching the news, and we learned that the Arabs (or Palestinians, or whatever they are), in their joy, rented inflatable baloons that appear to look like Katsam rockets. These are to be flown near the evacuation route that the settlers are taking...
Tonight, I ate alone. We were at the kitchen table with the news on. Then, the talking head announces that it's "jew versus jew in the middle east today, with the advent of the disengagement plan..."
You see? This is an important lesson, one that the world recognizes, yet sometimes we fail to: Chiloni, Daiti, Charedi, Mizrachi, Chassidish, Litvish, MO; in the end, it boils down to one word, the sum of all parts: Jew. The media knows it, and the stress that that anchorman put on that one word belies its irony; when all is said and done, we are all jews. This is a lesson on infinite levels.
We watched footage of settlers weeping, officers beating settlers, soldiers comforting each other and settlers. One officer yelling at his subordinate for disobeying his orders. A group of teenage girls, their beauty enhanced by their sorrow, singing to the soldiers; we love you as jews, but we would love you more if you would let us live in our home.
My mother went to her room to cry. My father got up to be alone. And I sat there, feeling very much alone, as I tried to blink away the moisture that blurred my vision. Hashem give us strength to make it through this test.
Originally posted Tuesday, 16 August 2005