Bubbles and Roller Coasters

Warning: get ready for some clichés.

I recently read The Kite Runner. The author, Khaled Hosseini, remarks quite correctly, I think, that sometimes clichés are the most appropriate choice of words. Now, late Sunday night, looking back over the past couple of days, I realize that a bunch of clichés—maybe they’re idioms—best describe what I feel.

I feel like I’m in a bubble, like I’ve taken a ride on an emotional roller coaster over the past couple of days.

Wednesday was nuts. I studied for a big Hishtalshilut (Jewish history) test on the time periods of the Tannaim and Amoraim, which left me really wanting to learn some Gemara. (FYI: I’m really enjoying my learning here in Israel, but I realize that I miss learning Gemara.) I went to class in the morning and again straight through from three in the afternoon until 9:20 P.M. I ate dinner, had a job interview over the phone, and caught up with a bunch of people who I hadn’t spoken to in a while. By one in the morning, I was exhausted, but it had been a great day.

Thursday was exhausting, physically and emotionally. I had a huge Navi bekius test on fifteen perakim of Shmuel I-II. I hadn’t had much time to study for it on Wednesday, so I had to fit in time to study throughout Thursday. It was also the first day of the 70-80 degree weather we’ve been having here lately in Yerushalayim, so studying outside was actually really nice. Later, my dira ate Dira Dinner together (lasagna from Village Green), and I kept studying. At 8:30, when my bekius test was done, I thought my crazy week would be over.

About 20 minutes later, I was sitting outside checking my email. It was a beautiful night, and I wasn’t in a rush. All that I had to do that night was make chocolate-covered pretzels for my dira’s long-awaited Shabbaton and sleep until very late the next morning. Enjoying the leisure of a free night, I was pretty much unaware of the sirens I kept hearing. After having lived in Manhattan for a year, I’ve become pretty immune to the sound of ambulances and police cars. But moments later when I got a text from my school, reporting that there had been a terrorist attack, all of the calm I felt disappeared.

When I found out that Mercaz HaRav had been attacked, I immediately thought of my chesed family. I tutor a 17-year-old Israeli girl in English, and her family lives a couple of houses down from the yeshiva.

Until then, I had never actually felt the terror of a terrorist attack, and I mean terror.

Thank G-d, I felt safe in my school, but knowing that minutes from where I live, a bunch of students my own age were gunned down at their school was absolutely horrifying.

It felt like Tisha B’Av.

The night was taken up with contacting family in the United States, saying Tehillim, and comforting friends.

The next morning, I woke up at 6:30 to the surreal sound of girls singing. Despite the terror, it was somehow still Rosh Chodesh Adar Bet, the happiest month of the year. Outside my window, I could hear beautiful voices, singing Hallel.

An hour or two later, I received a text from school, saying that the funerals for the eight victims killed in Mercaz HaRav would be in a couple of hours and that we should know that the streets would be closed off.

Friday was spent busily preparing Shabbos meals for seventeen teenagers. By Friday morning, our small Shabbaton for the eight members of our dira had more than doubled in size as friends’ Shabbos plans quickly fell through. (Almost needless to say, we pulled it off, and our Shabbaton was a success.)

Motzei Shabbos, a friend of mine and I walked to the Kotel. When we got there, it was packed with people. We spent a good 45 minutes davening. It was good to stop and reflect after rushing non-stop from Thursday night and on. On our way back through the Old City, we heard singing and stopped to see what was happening. A group of 50 or so Bnei Akiva and seminary girls were gathered in the Cardo, the ancient shopping thoroughfare. They were sitting in a big circle singing together. One girl played the guitar. In the center, eight yahrtzeit candles were lit.

***

Actually being here in Israel has made this experience so much more real for me. Every one you speak to knows someone who is related to one of the victims; two of the murdered boys’ mothers work at my school. The boys’ hometowns aren’t just random locations listed in The Jerusalem Post—they’re places I’ve spent Shabbos. The 21 bus, the line that runs to my school, passes Mercaz HaRav. How many times have I walked past the yeshiva on my way to tutor?

Before he began teaching l’iluy nishmatam, the dean of my school told us that Mercaz HaRav has a mesiba every Rosh Chodesh and that boys had been setting up for the celebration, since Thursday night was the beginning of Rosh Chodesh. A number of boys chose to go back to learning rather than set up for the celebration. It was there in the library where they sat learning that they were killed.

Hashem yinkom damam.