Moment of reckoning

So here we are. Exactly where we knew we would end up even though many of us had convinced ourselves otherwise. We knew the ceasefire wasn't a real ceasefire -- even before Hamas sent its first round of Enjoy-the-Ceasefire rockets within an hour of its commencement. They weren't consulted (yeah right) so they weren't playing.

We citizens of central Israel, meanwhile, have become very adept at integrating warning sirens into our day:

• We pick our grocery stores according to the best shelter arrangements by location (it's all word-of-mouth and is based on size, friendliness of store staff, toilet arrangements); 
• We decide when the best time of day to shower is so that we don't end up wet and running to the shelter in a towel; I know some teenagers who have this all figured out. I'm too old to care about getting caught in public in my towel.
• We get really peeved when the sirens go off when we are watching a good movie while riding the stationary bike at the gym; Ten minutes to get to the shelter, wait out the boom, and get back to the gym really disrupts the story line of a TV movie.
• We try to figure out if it is worth the drive to Tel Aviv to see a dance performance at 7:00 pm because that is another popular bombing time; I mean who wants to get dressed up just so you can pull over on the side of the highway, jump out of the car and lie on the pavement in your good clothes?
• We wonder if we need to wear pajamas in case we have to jump out of bed in the middle of the night for another shelter rendezvous. Okay, towels are one thing but nudity is a totally different story.
• And when the guy painting your house mentions that his son is one of the Iron Dome soldiers you want to kiss him and thank him for contributing his sperm to such a worthwhile project.

The problem is that very few of us olim really considered the implications of Hamas being so irrationally suicidal that the Israeli government might actually have no choice but to introduce a ground war. Don't bother saying you knew it was coming -- I am out there everyday with the rest of you and I can tell you that there was a lot of sidewalk discussion about soldiers sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Truth be told, we didn't mind.

And then it happened. 

I know I wasn't the only one refreshing Google News for the millionth time yesterday when the news bulletin popped up. I felt like I had just hit a brick wall going 90 miles an hour. Somehow you can feel total panic and numbness at the same time. And then as the numbness starts to subside, fear begins to fill the void almost instantly. Nature really does abhor a vacuum.

Then as you try to regain any inkling of clear, rational thought, you start to remember everyone you spoke to the previous week who mentioned that their son was sitting near the border with Gaza awaiting instructions. 

All of a sudden the war is real. All of a sudden you are scared -- not for yourself, but for the implications for all of us. All of a sudden your clever mental adjustments for sirens fall away and if you are me, you start to cry. I am not a big crier, but it just overcame me. I couldn't help it and I couldn't stop it.

So as we go into Shabbat -- July 18, 2014 -- I wish all of Israel quiet. I wish all the members of Hamas to be swooped up in the Islamic version of The Rapture so they can all go straight to their 72 virgins and I can go back to my otherwise wonderful life here. I really do not want to lie on the ground in my good clothes.