When Anxiety Eats You Alive

The new month of Adar (Bet) is upon us.

The month of miracles.

When our enemies conspire to kill us, and we kill them instead.

The stuff of legends, but in real life.

Queen Esther, the mother of Cyrus the Great, sacrificed herself and became the wife of the Persian emperor at the time, Xerxes.

After her fast and prayers, she went in and convinced Xerxes to eliminate Haman (of Hamantaschen fame - we eat his symbolic ears, dough with sweet fillings).

Haman, the descendant of Amalek, the infamous nation we are commanded to annihilate, once and for all.

There are multiple Amalekite branches today, one more bloodthirsty than the next.

Hamas, of course, Hizballah, the Iranian mullahs, the Houthis (with their fishy blowback, hehe), may G-d erase their names from under the skies immediately.

They will also be gone in short order, G-d willing.

And as reassuring as Adar is, the sights of children in costumes on Purim in the streets, we are still very much at war.

The mood is anything but celebratory at the moment.

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In fact, cities and towns in the north of Israel are preparing for an almost certain invasion of Lebanon to drive back Hizballah from shooting rockets and anti-tank missiles all day, every day.

They’re already doing it. 80 rockets were sent at us just yesterday.

They’re “lulling us” to get used to this, G-d forbid.

Of course, we are preparing, as best we can.

It’s one thing to buy provisions and flashlights and power banks.

It’s quite another to seriously ponder sleeping in an underground parking garage (the IDF’s current initiative in Haifa), since our building’s basement “safe space” is far too small and packed with junk, too moldy from the flooding all winter.

What if they start precision-guided rockets at Haifa on the 15th?

[The Israeli government has given a deadline of March 15th for whatever weak-sauce “peace efforts” Biden has tried to stir up with his envoy to Lebanon].

What if we have to pull kids from school, to endure THOUSANDS of rockets a day?

What if the Iron Dome and David’s Sling and the Patriot batteries are overwhelmed by those thousands of rockets and missiles simultaneously?

What if we can’t work or make a living for some time because of this, maybe months?

What will my Mom do if she has to deal with this, at her age? How will she cope?

How will our economy cope?

How will we rebuild?

I have to admit… even for someone like myself who’s generally an optimist…

Someone who always finds the silver lining in things, some analogue for the good in our current story from something in the Old Testament or other commentary or story…

It’s really hard, some days.

I like to joke that I need my yogurt to be an optimist.

It’s #kiddingnotkidding (eat your yogurt for a healthy microflora, kids!).

Even with yogurt, though, I’m feeling more anxious than I generally allow, these last few days.

Maybe I’m not as news-resistant as I thought.

Maybe it’s the many changes happening all around.

New projects, roles, etc.

Different schedule, back to the U.S. work week, essentially.

Of course, I pray and reinforce myself and my family in all the best ways I can.

But there are moments when it’s just impossible.

News of another soldier’s death.

More demonstrations against Israel, a massive campaign of delegitimizing Israel and Jews feeling unsafe in universities, on social media, in the middle of London and Paris and even New York.

Threats from Biden, threats from other allies, open threats and provocations and murderous attempts to harm Jews around the world.

Even the Hollywood idiots on some modern Golden Calf show.

Worst of all, a Jewish director disavowing his Judaism to please murderous idiots who would kill him in a heartbeat, just as well.

And yet, we read almost every day how secular, liberal Israelis are embracing their Judaism and its beautiful traditions, doing Shabbat, putting on tefillin, so on and so forth.

It’s beautiful. It goes against human rationality, maybe even against common sense.

But our very existence as Jews is anything but rational or sensible.

And that’s where the break in the dark clouds comes.

I would not wish a war against all but my worst enemies.

I’d rather not look for silver linings (although there are many to be sure), but the fact of the matter is, we’ve been here before.

Many, many times.

War, expulsion, demonization, being murdered and raped and gassed and otherwise physically and spiritually ground to dust… supposedly.

But nevertheless, we’ve not only survived, but managed to thrive despite the seemingly constant upheaval, at least one in every generation.

It’s written in the Torah, after all. Literally, it’s in there.

Basically, in every generation, Amalek will arise to attempt to destroy you.

You will find Amalek and kill him first.

It’s human nature to willfully forget, or to minimize or to try to blend in.

But our enemies have a way of reminding us.

Or maybe G-d has a way of reminding us when we forget, through our enemies.

Either way, they are trying to destroy us… by dividing us from the inside.

By exploiting our Achilles heel. Secular vs. religious, Ashki vs. Sephardic.

We’ve been here before. It won’t work. Not for very long, anyway.

But in the meantime, we’re in the thick of it.

Both strong and encouraged and readying ourselves for what’s coming.

This shit ain’t for the faint of heart, that’s for sure.

Anyone who tells you they’re not afraid is lying.

Tens of thousands of rockets potentially on our heads are neither easily defensible (barring some space laser-type stuff, who knows what we’ve really got in the arsenal), nor some far-away fiction for us.

Just 40 km separates us from the border where the highly trained terrorist army is sitting ready to attack.

We’ve already seen this playbook on October 7th. These guys are like that, but 10x.

Of course we won’t be surprised or restrained when we answer.

We’re not exactly sitting ducks like on October 7th, either, thank G-d.

We’ve got 300,000 troops on the northern border who are highly trained and ready to let her rip, in all senses.

We pray for them and their safety and strength, just as we pray for our own.

March 15th, my friends. Ramadan is here. Purim is coming.

We’re locked and loaded and G-d is with us.

Fasten your seat belts. Miracles are coming.

No Ghostbusters needed.