Even better than that, I have discovered new depth in some of my Baltimore friends from way, way back who also live here.
One of these people is Joan (Joanie) Kristall.
She recently sent me an email, expressing her thoughts about the attacks in Paris. (ed. actually, according to the President of the United States, they were "setbacks".)
So I am introducing Joanie as my first "Guest Blogger". The title of her short essay is "I Was Stirred". I would add, "Stirred, but not Shaken".
I Was Stirred
On the way to my office on Mondays, I depart from the bus from Efrat onto a busy Jerusalem street. I walk up a hill, then down a hill, then up a hill once more before arriving at my sunny office on the second floor of an ordinary apartment building. What struck me yesterday was, on a busy, bustling, popular thoroughfare, there were large French flags lining both sides of the street, blowing in the wind.
My immediate reaction was, what a compassionate people we are! It shouted to me, "We are with you in your pain; we are with you in your sorrow; we have been there and we still are there, fighting the awful barbarism that has seeped into both of our countries! You are not alone!"
My second thought was, "In what countries are the Israeli flags flying high? Where is the outcry and compassion of the "international community" when our innocent sons, husbands, wives, daughters and children are killed, attacked and targeted in the streets of our cities?"
The members of the class I teach on Sunday morning, Group Therapy Training, came into our meeting room visibly shaken. Before Shabbat, they heard of the killing of a father and son headed to a celebration of a daughter/sister on the occasion of her upcoming wedding, a simcha, a joyous milestone, marred tragically.
They heard of the Red Crescent (Arab version of the Red Cross) ambulance failing to stop to help aid the injured.
Then after Shabbat, they read of the Paris massacre. They, my wonderfully sensitive students, were speechless....Enough! Enough! Enough! We, the warriors of Israel, had to pause to feel the terror of these events, the trauma of their occurrences. Once their speech came back and we talked out our feelings, we needed to move, to stretch, to reach, to bend, to breath, to shake and rid our limbs of the absorbed terror. How helpful that was and seemed to bring us back to a sense of balance.
What will enable us to endure the awful and terrible events that are happening on almost a daily basis?
The wise answer is kindness, life, simcha and, yes, compassion.
For all the evil that is entering the world, we need to physically fight and spiritually fight! We are in a battle and we cannot become, G-d forbid, the barbarians of our enemies.
About a month ago, our next door neighbors, a lovely young couple, had their first child, a sweet baby boy. I have yet to meet this infant, but I hear him each and every evening and also in the middle of the night....crying his lungs out! We share a common wall, so this little one's cries are clearly heard in our apartment.
I must tell you, it is music to my ears! This beautiful new life, in addition to today's bris of a new great, great grand-nephew, are precious Jewish neshamas born here in Israel. I can't think of anything sweeter and more deliciously needed at this very moment in time.
May the spirit of our good deeds and kindnesses fill the world with Shalom, with Peace.
