The Mamad

I currently have both my kids, and their families, staying with me, as my building has a convenient mamad.

As I’ve already written about HERE, I’m not really a believer in mamads, per se, and I’m definitely not a believer in following instructions to stay in my mamad for three hours a pop, and then also allowing my phone to scare for the 21 hours before there is even a siren.

Call me crazy.

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So, yesterday AM I had a whole big discussion with my son in law, who told me the neighbours (who aren’t frum) want to know why we are risking our lives by not running off to the mamad in a panic, in the middle of the night, ensuring that everyone will have PTSD from sirens for a very long time to come.

Rivka, you need to do your hishtadlut, he told me. (He’s a very sweet person). Meanwhile, my daughter told me she made her peace with us getting toasted in the apartment whilst reciting a Tikkun HaKlali.

That’s the way you’d want to go, right Ima?

It’s kinda funny, all this.

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Anyway, back to the discussion with the SIL.

I told him: I’m doing three Tikkun Haklalis, and I’m accepting that whatever God decides, that what He decides.

(Or at least, I’m trying to).

For sure, it’s different for parents who feel responsible for small kids, and have that whole ‘guilt’ thing playing out. We’ll come on to that part shortly.

The point is – my SIL then told me that a bunch of people had just been killed in Petach Tikva, who were sitting in their mamads as instructed by the Home Front Command.

Then, I started scooting around, a little, and I learned that the Arab family in Tamra who were killed three days ago were also sitting in their mamad.

Bottom line: sitting in a mamad is absolutely no guarantee of anything at all.

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If people are sitting in their mamads and putting God in the picture, still – dayenu. The best of both worlds, amazing.

But, most of the people sitting in their mamads are not doing that.

They are glued to their phones, or to the radio, the news, the instructions from the Home Front Command, who tell them to remain in a stuffy, airless, scary, hot space with a bunch of panicked people, mamash soaking in the stress, for an hour and a half, until the ‘trouble has passed’.

(If they are serious about staying there until the ‘trouble has really passed’, they should build an apartment-sized mamad and never leave home. Seriously.)

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In the meantime, my kids have a small baby who was in a routine, but the last four days, they’ve been dutifully waking him up to take him into the mamad, as instructed.

Yesterday, the baby was really unwell. High fever, very distracted and agitated, mamash all over the place. Crying all day and all night. While the dad went to get the baby Nurofen, I asked my daughter if I could do some ponging on him, with the tuning forks, to try to figure out the emotional / spiritual side of what was bothering him.

What came up, massively, was a feeling of being ‘ungrounded’, and having a really bad reaction to all the uncertainty.

Long story short, each time they were waking him up from his good night’s sleep, with that sense of urgency and underlying panic that accompanies sirens and instructions from the Home Front Command, the little guy was picking up the vibe that something really scary is going on.

By day three, he was literally stressed out of his little mind, and was having a bad physical reaction to it all.

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What to do?

On the one hand – parental guilt and worry, that we aren’t doing what we’re meant to be doing for our kids. On the other hand – doing what we’re told we’re meant to be doing for the kid is causing the kid some obvious and immediate emotional damage, and causing him huge stress.

I don’t have an easy answer, but the point is, this is not such a black-and-white thing, to keep waking up small people with a big wave of urgency and stress.

Doing that all by itself is putting some serious stress on the immune system and the psyche.

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And, just being in the mamad is no guarantee of anything, anyway.

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On Sunday night, we were at the Rav’s evening prayers, when the sky lit up with a whole bunch of something, said to be rockets from Iran.

We were all outside in the Rav’s courtyard, reciting the ma’ariv service. The praying and singing and clapping went up levels, it was a very spiritually uplifting experience, and experience that really underlined in a very real way Ein Od Milvado.

Afterwards in his comments, the Rav said all this will be over by Thursday, and the flights will resume again.

That seems a little incredible at the moment, and to be clear, in other places, the Rav has said this is going to continue for at least a month, and we are in the war of Gog and Magog.

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It seems to me – both options are possible.

So much depends on us, and our teshuva, and our willingness to turn to God, to turn to prayer, and to understand that saying three Tikkun Haklalis a day is at least as good hishtadlus as running off to a mamad in a panic.

The rockets don’t last forever.

The matzav changes from hour to hour, and from day to day.

If you look at history, especially, what happened in WW2, it was the places that seemed the safest for Jews – like Hungary in 1944 – that ended up with the most trains to Auschwitz. Meanwhile, Eretz Yisrael was due to be conquered by Rommel imminently… Until God stepped in and stopped that from happening, miraculously.

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Wherever we live right now, there is teshuva to make, emuna to strengthen, a real relationship with God to forge.

The antisemitism in places like the UK and the USA is sky-rocketing.

So many Jews are still in their little bubbles, thinking that it’s business as usual.

It’s not. God is knocking on everyone’s door, one way or another.

Here in Israel, He’s getting our attention with demolished buildings and wars within wars within wars.

It’s impossible to ignore – that’s it’s minus, and that’s also it’s plus.

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In chul – it’s the quiet antisemitism on the street, that is already not so quiet, and already, not just on the street.

Increasingly, the knock of Jew hatred is being heard in the world, on everyone’s doors.

The question is: how are you going to respond to it?

May Hashem help us all to return sincerely to only relying on Him.

(And to stop listening to all the navi shekers out there, who think all this is just fodder for blog posts, podcasts and pushing some dead guy’s claim to come back from the dead as the Melech HaMoshiach.)