An Unforgettable Tisha b' Av – Letter from Kfar Vradim

Chaverim,

It's hard to know where to begin. So much has happened in the last 36 hrs. or so, and so quickly, but let's start not with Tisha b' Av but with Shmoneh b' Av. Yesterday we had hopes for another quiet day; it had been much quieter in the area on Mon. and Tues. during the 48 hr. lull in the airstrikes, Hezbellah knew not to send rockets then, it would have hurt their PR image.

And Wed. morn. did begin quietly. I was talking to one of my Board members on the phone, we were making plans to shop for food to put in "care packages" for soldiers (we've been preparing baked "goodies" and buying treats for units serving in the area…), but as we were talking, the warning siren went off. It was the 1st of 12 such sirens over the hours ahead… we didn't know it yet, but during that time 210 Katyushas and other rockets fell in the Galil, and a fair amount of them in our area. A house was hit in Kfar Vradim, luckily with minimal damage, the other one landed in an open wooden area. In the meantime, we continued with our plans to get together (in a large shelter) for Tisha B' Av. And get together we did, though under the circumstances, we only had 8 people, many village residents are away in the center of the country and some are abroad; we had planned also to have congregants from our kehillot in Karmiel and Tzfat join us, but after the barrage of yesterday, they all decided to stay home, no doubt a wise decision.

At any rate, the words and haunting melody of "Aicha" had a special resonance for us that evening, but as I said that evening during our service, we may be going through a very hard and painful period, but Baruch Hashem, we are far from Hurban … we left feeling very good, strengthened by davenning and being together. And so last night we went to bed, and it seemed quiet, for some reason I decided that we could sleep in our bedroom, rather than the fortified room (the laundry room) where we've slept almost every night since this began. About 1:30 A.M. came the siren… we dashed into the laundry room, but before we got there we heard two loud bangs. We knew they were close, but only this morning we discovered that they had both landed in the village. Both hit houses, each about half a kilometer away from our house. One was lightly damaged, but the other suffered a direct hit. I went over there immediately when I heard; I know the family, they're not cong. Members but they did a Bar Mitzvah with us some years ago… I arrived to find a huge hole where the entrance to the house had been; the house is still standing, but inside there was rubble everywhere the kitchen and many other rooms destroyed. I saw the mother, she was very happy to see me, obviously very upset, but they were just thankful to be alive… Luckily, the kids were in the center of the country and she and her husband were sleeping downstairs in a room below ground level, (had they been in their bedroom they wouldn't be here to tell the tale…). I told her that we'd be here for them, not just now, but long after this terrible war ends...

Now it's late afternoon, and for the last 2 hrs. it started up again, we had 7 more alarms, and we heard plenty of "nefilot" (landings of Katyushas). In the middle of it all our friend (and colleague) Jonathan Perlman called from America; he'd already read in Haaretz that there were "nefilot" near Maalot… Anyway, I think some Katyushas might have fallen in the village, but I don't know for sure. I do know that many landed in the area; we saw lots of smoke in the distance towards Tarshicha, an Arab village next door to us. Turns out that there was a hit there, killing 3 Bedouin who were outside… I saw on the news that 4 were killed from hits in Akko as well. Apparently over 100 rockets hit our area in the past 2 hrs…

Right now it seems quiet; hopefully the barrage has ended. I had planned today to go to the Shalit family (Gilad's parents) in Mitzpeh Hila nearby, in order to bring them letter sent to me from campers from Ramah in the Poconos, but with everything happening outside, I couldn't get out. Linda (my wife) was also planning on getting out to see a family in the village with an autistic son( she works w/ autistic children as an Art Therapist),hopefully she'll get there later tonight.

Earlier today, (when it was quiet) I was in the central shopping area. I ran into one of our members who is a psychologist. Since war broke out the Home Front Command has assigned her and her husband (also a psych.), to work in shifts providing "emergency counseling" to people in trauma in the area. She told me many stories, including that of a 19 yr. old Christian Arab from Tarshicha, whose family had sustained a hit and whose mother was traumatized; he said he wished he could join the army and go over there and kill Nasrallah… turns out many of the people seeking help have been Arabs from the villages in the area, and many of them, (especially the Christians) are just furious about the fanatics of Hezbellah…

So what does a Masorti rabbi do in these circumstances? I try to do whatever I can… be it translating emerg. info. from Heb. to Eng. on the village website, to helping the staff at the Post Office put mail in the P.O. boxes, buying food for our "care packages" project for the soldiers, but of course primarily just talking with people and trying to provide encouragement and a sympathetic ear… I admit that sometimes I find it just a trifle frustrating ( I mean in normal peaceful days) being out here far away from the center, serving a small kehillah that sometimes has a hard time even getting a minyan, but at times like this I see just how important our presence really is here. So many people really appreciate that our kehilla is here, they feel connected to us, (now we just got to find the magic formula to get them to come to shul…!). As difficult as it is here now, I know my place is here with my kehilla and with my friends and the whole community in Kfar Vradim; it's home, anda s we all know, "there's no place like home"!

Sorry about rambling on so long…
Hoping for a quiet night, and that all of this won't last too much longer!

Kol tuv,

Zvi Berger
HaMinyan HaMishpachti HaMasorti
Kfar Vradim