Rebuilding

I've been silent for a few days, waiting for the shock of the vicious attack in Itamar to wear off so I can begin to function again. I'm realizing now that it will be more than a few days until we are able to "get it together" again, but we are trying. Especially in Adar, we are praying that this time of mourning be changed into a time of happiness.


It's pointless to try and describe the fog I've been in for the past few days, especially because I'm sure most of you are in the same state. Trying to focus on the day to day, finding yourself distracted and unable to remember what you were trying to do in the first place. Thoughts returning to the surviving children and the life that lies ahead of them. Crying. A lot of crying.


I was in the shopping center yesterday, and the sadness and shock is palpable even among complete strangers. Women were wandering around half heartedly picking out Shalach Manot containers, seuda paper goods. There is a feeling of sadness, confusion, of helplessness, but most of all, of anger. A choking anger.


Anger that once again, our fellow Jews were brutally massacred in their own homes, and Anger that the terrorists have yet to be caught. Anger that CNN has the audacity to put Terror Attack in quotation marks, implying, "Well, they SAY it was a "terror attack", but we don't really know that, do we?" CNN, did you miss the part where there was dancing and singing in the streets of the Arab villages? That they were giving out candy to children in the street to celebrate this "victory"? 


There is Anger that we have to explain very difficult things to our children when they come home from school with a myriad of questions about things they should not have to know about. Anger that once again the world falls silent after these parents and children had their throats slashed in their homes, while other children slept or hid. Anger that an infant was murdered in cold blood in her father's arms.


Where is the outrage? Where is the battle cry? Where is the revenge? But no, we won't take revenge, because we know and have to believe that there is only one true Avenger, and only He will avenge their blood. We won't take revenge, because if we did, it would put us on the level of the savages, the animals who committed this heinous crime. We as Jews don't stoop, no matter how much Anger there may be.


There is Anger when I worry that once the murderers are caught, again, the Jewish Israeli heart will be misguided in it's kindness. A friend put it perfectly, "They'll catch whoever did this. But when they do, he'll sit in prison for a few years, and eventually we'll trade him back for a dead soldier." Anger. 


So, where do we go from here? As the days go by, it gets easier. Things start to return to normal for us. But for this family, even the entire community of Itamar, things will never go back to normal. My SIL said she once heard a Rav talk about working on being able to put these things in our back pocket, and move on. But what about the Fogel family? What about the survivors? They don't have the gift that is time, which put us further and further away from this. 


So for now, it's been suggested that we have gratitude. Gratitude for everything that we have, for being able to wake up another day with our families intact. And of course, prayer. Davening that these children should recover as much as possible, and go on to live full and productive lives, and that true peace should come to our land soon with the coming of Moshiach. But don't forget action. More building across the nation has been approved over the past few days to show that yes, we are angry, but we are not going to just lie down and take it.