Beckye,
Thank you for reaching out, for your concern. Aryeh and I are at an Ayeka Educators’ Retreat
that he is running in Kiryat Anavim, just outside of Jerusalem. There were sirens here last night –
as there were in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Efrat, and much of central and southern Israel.
It is a crazy time – yet much continues as usual. We have all learned to feel, deal with, process,
cope, and return to routine and day-to-day life with remarkable fluidity and grace.
The period of the kidnappings, finding the bodies, and the abduction and killing the next day was
actually far more traumatic than the missiles are. War – unfortunately – is part of life here.
Abducting youth and murdering them – Arab or Jewish – is simply unfathomable and somehow
morally and emotionally harder to get through. But we will and we do because we have to.
My personal ‘take away’ from all of this is simply to try to do more ‘good’ in the world. That is my
way of battling the evil and darkness of hate and revenge and smallness of vision all around.
My prayers are for the soldiers’ safety and strength and for our government to find the wisdom to
make the right decisions and for the world to see this reality in all of its complex nuances…
With love,
Sandra