#Eyes that do no smile 26.1.2024

[nataliesnews]

Eyes that do no smile 26.1.2024

I awoke on Tuesday or was it Monday to the news that 20 soldiers had been killed and sat down to write and could not. How much can I go on repeating myself?  It is so hard to think that overseas people are living normal lives. I know I have not responded to family birthdays and memorials but I am finding it harder and harder even to go out to lectures. I have no desire to do anything. I have sat looking at the computer for over an hour now trying to bring myself to write. I am trying to keep myself occupied but I have to force myself. And I feel guilty because I have a pension, a warm flat, food and money and many do not have that. I have had people for supper this week and also tomorrow I have invited people but have to force myself to do anything. The day is very stormy but I will try to go out later to be with the families at receiving the shabbat. I have been sitting  opposite the computer for an hour and each time I find another reason to get up and do something else. I know that part of my problem is not having family here and in the last months I have felt it more and more. I also woke up after a terrible dream of one disaster after another and could not get myself together. 

Towards Shabbat. 

All day I sat in the room. I kept sitting down at the computer and could not write. I don't even know what I did. I am having visitors tomorrow for lunch and part of the time was preparing. But I could not settle down to anything. The day was miserable. Very cold and continuous rain. I knew that the families were having a kabbalat shabbat but did not have the energy to get up and go but in the end I did. I took a taxi and when we came to the place where I thought they were having it near the home of Netanyahu there was no one there. Last night also after our lesson I had gone with the Baskins and also there had been no one there. But I had a wonderful taxi driver and he said no he would show me where they were, which was at Balfour. Later Tom, a young woman who is in charge of the tent, told me that when the weather is good, they stand closer to the home but when it is as bad as it was today they stand at Balfour. One of her relations is a captive.  I was so lucky in the taxi driver, Momo and I phoned afterwards to thank him again. We both loathe Netanyahu but he thinks we should go on with the war. I do not. I think that, as in the beginning, we should first see to getting the  kidnapped back, though I dread to think in what condition they will come back, the men too. 

I sat in the tent. I looked at the people, such sad eyes. No one even tried to smile.  You cannot imagine. It started pouring with rain. They are amazing.Immediately there were umbrellas for those standing outside. People did not leave. It is good that they moved the kabbalah towards Shabbat. There was a different feeling about it. But I don't think that I have ever had such a sad feeling and yet it left me uplifted. You, who live in the diaspora, have no idea of what we go through every day. When you open the news with ....."the army reports" such words and you wait to hear how many and pray there will not be a name you recognize. That is why I can no longer react to birthdays or days of yischor.....mourning . I feel there is a barricade between myself and the world. 

I went to strengthen the  families but came back feeling strengthened myself and am now sitting down to write. I got a lift with a family from the neighborhood and we spoke of how the demonstrations at Balfour had been child's play. How we never imagined the terrible situation we would be in.  The driver, the father of two young men who are now in the army, reminded me of how in the time of Lebanon and Begin how people had sat outside each day and held up the number of soldiers who were killed. I  think this is what we should be doing that now.