Trauma and Humanity

These are the groups of people in my tiny country whose lives have fallen apart to varying degrees here in Israel and are currently suffering trauma of unimaginable proportions:

• Hundreds of families of people who are currently held hostage in Gaza. I can't believe those words are real.

• Thousands of families of those who were murdered on 10/7

• Tens of thousands of people who survived 10/7 and are still in a state of trauma

• Thousands of first responders and others who helped people survive on 10/7

• Hundreds of thousands of reservists between the ages of ~22-60 who dropped everything going on in their lives and ran to defend our home and people

• Hundreds of thousands of wives of reservists who are holding down the fort at home, under incredibly stressful circumstances with kids whose lives are in crisis mode.

• Hundreds of thousands of mothers and fathers whose sons went to battle and are out of communication for weeks at a time.

• Hundreds of thousands of families from both the North and South who have been temporarily displaced due to violent, murderous next-door neighbors. They are living among the rest of us.

The rest of us are all "only" dealing with the trauma of a country in crisis, and of course, every one of us knows someone who was killed, kidnapped, or experienced and survived a massacre.

The rest of us don't have the luxury of falling apart because those mentioned above need us to take care of them.

The rest of us are organizing anything possible to help our brothers and sisters in crisis, and the list is truly endless. We're feeding a literal army and sometimes the wives and kids they left behind. We're integrating perfect strangers into our lives because they don't have a home right now, and they need us. We're sending our kids to help with their kids, which also helps our kids.

It's waking up every day in an ocean of crisis while holding on tightly to each other in the most incredible display of humanity we've ever experienced.

עם ישראל חי