First Days

It's kind of hard to swallow the reality that our children are living here in Israel on this first day of school.

When I was a kid, we would go around the room and talk about what we did that summer. Camps, trips, holidays, and fun times with family and friends. It was a great ice-breaker, a good prompt for a first writing assignment, an opportunity for show and tell.

However, many kids in Israel didn't have particularly enjoyable summers. We started off barely finishing the previous year with the Iran*an w*r, on top of two years of w*r with H*mas and the Ho*this and H*zbollah. H*stages still missing, the country cracking down the middle, roasting in unbearable heat waves, wild fires, and pol*tical unrest and gridlock on the highways... that is how our kids spent the summer.

Many parents were away in miluim, in different corners of the country or G*za, in endless service, not always knowing why they were serving, what the goals were, or when it was going to end. People's jobs on hold, educational endeavors stalled, important career tests paused, relationships fracturing, patience exhausted.

For many, this was a summer of waiting. Of waiting and seeing what would happen next.

Too many parents were alone doing "chofesh hagadol" - with little or no support and a house full of kids with nothing to do.

And of course, for too many children, there was loss; the first or second summer without a parent, the parent still at home carrying all the weight of the household and the child-raising, alongside their own grief.

And now, they all have to face a new year, praying that we will find some healing.

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My son, whose first grade ended in Covid, has lived through plauge, w*r, and te*ror attacks, and an aliyah; all a complete upheaval of his world, started high school today (7th grade).

We began with pictures of a full Beit Midrash during tefillah, featuring young boys with brand-new sets of tefillin and fresh kippot on the backs of every head. He was so excited about going to school that he woke us all up at 5:30 am and basically jumped out of the car when I dropped him off.

He just came home and started telling me about his day. They started the morning by telling them about a soldier who was an alumn from their school who was k*lled in the w*r. They shared details about what happened to him, his bravery, and his commitment to Torah learning, all for the purpose of keeping his memory alive.

Walking into school, there are multiple monuments that lined the entrance, for the alumni who had been k*llled in this war. A precious tribute to these young men lost too soon.

I wish I could put my son in a bubble and protect him from this part of our reality.

I wish I could put all our children in truly "safe spaces" and let them grow up to be happy, healthy, and well.

I pray that this year brings uninterrupted learning, good friends and laughter, soccer games in the yard, gentle teachers, lots of familial support, good news, growth, good health, safety, and reasons to celebrate for all of the children of Am Yisrael.