Whispers OF WAR

A disparate title to say the least. War does not come in a whisper, it seethes in a raging cauldron, rumbling to the fore until it at last pervades the earth with thunderous blows.

The Arabs have never tiptoed around their intention to murder all the Jews and wipe Israel off the map. That people and governments on this earth choose to feign ignorance to this fact can only be due to a perverse ambivalence, a pathetic disposition toward acquiescence and, of course, classic hatred of Jews.

Yet, there are whispers that war in the Middle East may come this summer, if not sooner.The waters are being tested, literally in the Strait of Hormuz with allied warships playing chicken with the Iranian regime in order to secure the passage rights of oil tankers, and at the same time, Iran's proxies of Hammas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah are ever poised to wage what they hope will be a war of annihilation against Israel. Now with the Muslem Brotherhood and the Salafists at the helm of power in Egypt, the deluge of heavy-duty arms pouring into Gaza is not even worth a headline in any newspaper. And Hezbollah has been rearming to the teeth under the "watchful" eyes of the UN peacekeeping forces. At the same time, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is being pressured by the U.S. and the European quartet to further curtail building on our own land and come up with more "confidence building measures" for our foes who are interested in anything but peace.
It's almost funny. Almost.


In reality though, we in Israel do not need to heed the whispers of war. We are always in a state of war.

In marking the International Holocaust Day, Prime Minister Netanyahu correctly pointed out that lessons have not been learned, as there is a disconnect on the part of the world powers between Iran's nuclear weapons program aimed at Israel and the Nazi's war against the Jews.
In the end, we Jews have only ourselves to rely on. And on God.

My friends and I all have kids in the army. In fact, it is fair to say, that everyone in Israel is closely connected with someone serving in the army, whether it be a dear friend or relative. No one is untouched, and the whispers of war resound with an unambiguous and decisive clamor. That we are all in this together is a stance that resonates throughout the land. For us, there are no slush piles of statistics. Each of our soldiers owns a face and countless hearts as well. This brings to mind a piece I had written during the last war in Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead back in 2009. It was based on a true event.

We were five friends, five mothers all in one row, standing in shul, side by side in prayer. We came together as we do every Shabbat, to pray with the community, and afterwards to catch up with each other's lives after another busy week. It's pretty much routine, only this past Shabbat, marking the second full week of fighting in Gaza, we had much more to pray for, and something else made it not so routine at all.


Five Friends - three of us having children either in Gaza or at a nearby base preparing to go in, and the other two with boys scheduled to enter the army in just several weeks. As we listened to the chazan (cantor) repeat the Shmoneh Esrei, we stare blindly at the windows of the shul in front of us. One friend has her house in view, the last one in the cul de sac directly across the street from the shul, when we all witness the slow-moving army jeep inching towards her front door.


Suddenly we are no longer staring blindly. Our friend gasps deeply, her eyes widen in trepidation and the rest of us stand paralyzed, not daring to breathe. Her son informed her before Shabbat that he would be going into Gaza. 


For a few long moments we lose sight of the army jeep as it passes the width of our window. Where is it? Is it parking? Is that it? There was no other house at the end of the street. Our friend measures her options in her mind - does she run out to seek the army personnel or just...wait until they find her?


Why run out? As long as she doesn't hear the dreaded news, all is fine. Her son is alive and well. Cherish those last moments of ignorant bliss.


Several seconds pass, and we see the army jeep turn around at the end of the cul de sac, making its way to leave the block. Perhaps a routine security round?
It drives down the street, past the windows of our shul, vanishing from our sight. Our friend cries tears of relief into her prayer book, and we hold her, each of us blessing this moment of reprieve.

As mothers, we know that today it is up to our boys' generation to safeguard our land. As it has been throughout the generations, it is our people's destiny to fight and to struggle for the preservation of our existence until such a time as our swords will be set aside for plowshares. Only that time is not yet here and, until then, we will do what needs to be done.


In reverence for our young fighters, respect for our wounded, and in deference to our dead, one can only hope that our government will not succumb to a peace deal that relies on false promises and on the dubious good graces of international forces. Let lessons of our past be learned; our security can only be entrusted to ourselves and to God.


We pray to God to watch over us, to give wisdom and courage to our leaders, to protect our soldiers and to heal our wounded. We pray that God brings safely home all of our boys. We pray that all of God's angels in the realm above, their golden-winged likeness safely sealed in our imagination, serve nobly as our relentless guardians. 

Yet, on the ground, on the front lines and in the trenches, ever is the sense that our angels wear green.