Dear  All,

Sitting in synagogue yesterday, next to a young woman who had fled Hizbollah bombing in Israel’s northern town of Ma’alot, a phrase from the Torah portion zinged through my brain as never before. The Torah referred to the Jewish people as “am k’shei oref” – a “stiff-necked people.” In the biblical context, this twice-repeated description is a criticism, of course, attesting to the stubbornness of the “desert generation” of Moses’s time and their inability to yield to the will of God.

Looking around the synagogue at my neighbors on Shabbat – many of whom have children, brothers, or dear friends fighting in Lebanon – I announced to proudly myself: “we sure are a stiff-necked people!” Thinking about little Galina from Ma’alot, now staying in my home after two weeks in a bomb shelter, I held myself back from shouting out in shul: “Thank God we’re a stiff-necked people!”

You see the word “oref” – “neck,” in Hebrew – is the Israeli term for the home front. Our oref refers to those who are running to bomb shelters several times a day in Israel’s north, to those who are sitting in them day and night (further north), to the many volunteers and other workers who are in the north lending a hand, and to the thousands of Israelis who have opened their homes to people who were strangers a few weeks ago. We are the oref, and we have no choice but to be stiff!

Let me tell you more about Galina. After two weeks of running day and sleepless nights to the bomb shelter, she and her family just could not take it any more. They arrived on my doorstep at 3:30 a.m., Friday. The adults were wasted from the tension and the long car ride, but Galina – who obviously had slept on the way – introduced herself to me with a smile missing two front teeth. She told me she was six-and-a-half and then sadly reported that she had to leave her pet cat and hamster at home with neighbors. Then, searching my face for reassurance, she said: “my cat would never eat the hamster – right?” (You see, Galina has been living in a “cat eat hamster” world for the past few weeks.) After ascertaining that her pets were “friends,” I reassured her that the hamster (and Galina) needn’t worry!

The next day Galina was up bright and early. She came downstairs in pajamas and reported that “it’s awfully quiet around here!” (Indeed, Israeli comedian’s like to point out these days how reassuring it is that northerners are running for peace and quiet – to the “territories!”) We took a walk around our neighborhood, in which many buildings are still construction sites. Galina chattered away in Hebrew quite matter-of-factly: “Oh, I see a bomb hit this building; this building was also hit; a bomb fell here too. . .” – until I got what she was saying! “No, honey, I tried to explain, no bombs have fallen here. These buildings are being built so that new people can move in.” She nodded, but her observation later in the day about another “bombed-out” building in my neighborhood helped me realize what a traumatized little girl she is! Indeed, when I gave her Lego to play with on Shabbat, she immediately built a large “canon to kill all the bad Arabs.” She then qualified its purpose: “but not to kill the good ones, of course, like the ones in my kindergarten class.” Pretty astute distinctions for a six-year-old under fire!

As the Torah portion approaches its final chapter, Moses beseeches the people to “stiffen your necks no more” and bow to the ways of God who “upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing. . .” Today, as the nation of Israel faces the challenge of comforting and providing for dozens more orphans, widows and strangers than last week, I pray for the day when we can indeed let our guard down and stiffen our necks no more. 

Barbara