Each time the terrorists strike, I am unsure of how I will react. There have been periods where it is so predictable, that all I can think is "another one", as if shattered bodies and families are just part of some natural process that we have grown to expect, like the buds starting to form this late winter morning from soil soaked by winter rains. We know it will happen and our expectations are fulfilled.
Then there are other days, like last Thursday, when, despite some cynicism and anger about releasing 400 killers for one live Israeli and three bodies, on balance there is some justification. The sky, for a moment, seemed a little bluer and the end of winter a bit closer. Casually turning on the radio should have yielded no more than the normal political complaints and arguments, and perhaps some evocative song reminding me of an event years ago.
But in the instant it takes to hear the first two or three words from the announcer, it is clear that the blood of Israelis is flowing on the streets of Jerusalem again. In the same way as we know from a friend's tone if all is going well or not, I know, not from the words, but from the tone, that another homicidal Palestinian has decided that the smug judges of the terrorist movements have commissioned him or her to be an executioner.
And, on those days, when for some absurd reason my mind has ceased to focus on the tools of death being built by our neighbors, the surprise shatters tranquility's blessing, as I hear of how the carefully packed nails and bolts buried in explosives can tear apart flesh - and this numbs my soul. I know the father whose child received a last embrace moments earlier, the nurse who told her sick patients they would be better tomorrow, the student heading for an exam whose results he feared, the grandmother looking forward to spending another day spoiling her grandchildren, and the soldier contemplating a battle hours away, were even more surprised in the last instants of their lives.
We all know we will read of how fantastic a person each of these victims was. And correctly so. We will be reminded that we always need to look for the beauty and wonder of our fellow man, even in the most of commonplace of people.
If death is unexpected on a Thursday morning, it is also incomprehensible that murderers can be glorified for their precision in designing bombs that not only blow eyes from sockets and hearts from souls, but shred them with nuts and bolts and nails. That a society can revere death while we revere life, in such a tiny sliver of land we share, is beyond reason.
Yesterday's instant of death, unexpected and in such stark contrast with the redemption of souls of a prisoner exchange, was for some, as for me, one of those defining moments too difficult to place in a rational context. Who are these people who forsake all for blood, whose objective, a country, has been replaced by a desire for shattered bodies? A people that has advanced from honor killing of women to the point where they are not only willing to sacrifice their children, but also now leave them motherless.
Given the Arab mendacity, European smugness, journalistic imbalance, European and American leftist tolerance for anti-Semitism, United Nations one-sidedness and revisionist historians' blindness, my soul cannot rest tranquil as the souls of my fellow Israelis are all that remain of their bodies.
We have moved to a world where the bus linking hospital to university, from where bodies are mended to where minds are enhanced, can become the route of death. Why are we in the dock for trying to survive? What balance must be given between those who love life and those who worship death? We must, this morning, show love for those around us, because we know not when our moments together will end.
The next morning, the saving of one Jewish life, a captive for three years, seemed far more rational and understandable, as we saw the parties celebrating the return of terrorists to their homes; return, so they can renew their unrelenting desire to see more Jewish lives snuffed out, because we are Jews and want a land that is our own. And we contrast this with the somber memorial for three innocent slain young men.
It is too perplexing. Too incomprehensible. The mixture of the expected and unexpected. The killers glorified and the innocents viewed as acceptable targets for a people that seem to lack all sense of humanity. Condemnations of terrorists come from the same mouths that view building a wall of protection to prevent more bodies being torn apart as an offense worthy of debate. Where has the world's sense of humanity gone?
This year's spring flowers will not be as bright, because ten more souls have been snatched from us.
Then there are other days, like last Thursday, when, despite some cynicism and anger about releasing 400 killers for one live Israeli and three bodies, on balance there is some justification. The sky, for a moment, seemed a little bluer and the end of winter a bit closer. Casually turning on the radio should have yielded no more than the normal political complaints and arguments, and perhaps some evocative song reminding me of an event years ago.
But in the instant it takes to hear the first two or three words from the announcer, it is clear that the blood of Israelis is flowing on the streets of Jerusalem again. In the same way as we know from a friend's tone if all is going well or not, I know, not from the words, but from the tone, that another homicidal Palestinian has decided that the smug judges of the terrorist movements have commissioned him or her to be an executioner.
And, on those days, when for some absurd reason my mind has ceased to focus on the tools of death being built by our neighbors, the surprise shatters tranquility's blessing, as I hear of how the carefully packed nails and bolts buried in explosives can tear apart flesh - and this numbs my soul. I know the father whose child received a last embrace moments earlier, the nurse who told her sick patients they would be better tomorrow, the student heading for an exam whose results he feared, the grandmother looking forward to spending another day spoiling her grandchildren, and the soldier contemplating a battle hours away, were even more surprised in the last instants of their lives.
We all know we will read of how fantastic a person each of these victims was. And correctly so. We will be reminded that we always need to look for the beauty and wonder of our fellow man, even in the most of commonplace of people.
If death is unexpected on a Thursday morning, it is also incomprehensible that murderers can be glorified for their precision in designing bombs that not only blow eyes from sockets and hearts from souls, but shred them with nuts and bolts and nails. That a society can revere death while we revere life, in such a tiny sliver of land we share, is beyond reason.
Yesterday's instant of death, unexpected and in such stark contrast with the redemption of souls of a prisoner exchange, was for some, as for me, one of those defining moments too difficult to place in a rational context. Who are these people who forsake all for blood, whose objective, a country, has been replaced by a desire for shattered bodies? A people that has advanced from honor killing of women to the point where they are not only willing to sacrifice their children, but also now leave them motherless.
Given the Arab mendacity, European smugness, journalistic imbalance, European and American leftist tolerance for anti-Semitism, United Nations one-sidedness and revisionist historians' blindness, my soul cannot rest tranquil as the souls of my fellow Israelis are all that remain of their bodies.
We have moved to a world where the bus linking hospital to university, from where bodies are mended to where minds are enhanced, can become the route of death. Why are we in the dock for trying to survive? What balance must be given between those who love life and those who worship death? We must, this morning, show love for those around us, because we know not when our moments together will end.
The next morning, the saving of one Jewish life, a captive for three years, seemed far more rational and understandable, as we saw the parties celebrating the return of terrorists to their homes; return, so they can renew their unrelenting desire to see more Jewish lives snuffed out, because we are Jews and want a land that is our own. And we contrast this with the somber memorial for three innocent slain young men.
It is too perplexing. Too incomprehensible. The mixture of the expected and unexpected. The killers glorified and the innocents viewed as acceptable targets for a people that seem to lack all sense of humanity. Condemnations of terrorists come from the same mouths that view building a wall of protection to prevent more bodies being torn apart as an offense worthy of debate. Where has the world's sense of humanity gone?
This year's spring flowers will not be as bright, because ten more souls have been snatched from us.