Why am I here now?? |
March 24, 2026. I am in Israel. A tourist, lost in the crowd. Stranded in the war. Amid the incoming rockets and blaring alarms, I am repeatedly asking myself a simple, existential question: WHY AM I HERE NOW?
Rather, all my family and friends are, and very vocally so. “Are you so reckless, crazy, suicidal, nuts? You are 77 years old, have a family in NY, you’re half blind, can’t walk a block without catching your breath! You can’t help us! Get the heck out of here, you don’t have to be here, it’s not your fight! Grab a bus, taxi or camel to Taba, Sharm or Amman and spend the damn money on a flight back to America!” I can’t. Not NOW.
Why haven’t I left? Why haven’t I even tried to leave? WHY am I consciously (and perhaps foolishly) exposing myself to physical harm and rising odds of death? I don’t know. I am tired, in a funky mood, sleep-deprived due to the constant alarms. The only thing I know for certain is that I am not going back. NOT NOW.
I have struggled in vain to explain my position to my loved ones here – “I want to support you emotionally, help Israel, wife on vacation w her Christian family in South America, bad NY weather, nothing to do once back” – anything that might help explain. Their collective response: “Baloney! Quit stalling and get your behind on the first El Al plane you can catch!”. But I am not going back – no matter what. NOT NOW.
My inner dialogue continues. And, why ME?
“Why ME, indeed? I’m unremarkable. I am not nationalistic or religious at all. I don’t believe in G-d, any god. I never felt any antisemitism until age 15 in the Communist country of my birth until a beautiful gentile girl rejected me just because I was Jewish. Israel never felt like home, even when I lived here as a teenager. Yes, I am also a son of Holocaust survivors – although I do not look upon it as a badge of honor, I strongly believe that my generation bears at least HEARSAY witness to the atrocities endured by my parents’ generation. Yet I come here every year, to reconnect – with what? Obviously with family and friends”.
But is that it? I did reconnect – for five weeks already. Why am I not going back? Why not NOW? And, moreover, why HERE?
“Why do I keep coming back to this infinitesimal piece of land that can’t even be seen on most maps? What is here that cannot be found in other places? Presently, I can’t even visit the places I want to see because of the damn barrages of rockets. For example, some 40 years ago we used to park in the parking lot outside close to the Wailing Wall. Some 20 years ago they tore it up to build a building, and they found a city – the City of David. I had of course seen it on previous visits, but I just wanted to see the newest discoveries – and I can’t even do that”.
And why not NOW? I thought that was an easy one. “To support my people during the war. And my people are not getting any younger, I lost a dear one two years ago, so I come back to be with them. One of my dear friends, age 86 who is usually very optimistic, uncharacteristically started talking about illness and imminent death on my arrival. Nothing was wrong with her but her mood. After three evenings with her, she stopped and returned to her bubbly self. Yes, it felt great that I could help her emotionally, but what did this have to do with the war? It could have happened anytime. She was well and I could leave”.
But I didn’t. I can’t. I know it in my gut. But my gut can’t talk. I cannot leave NOW. Things started gyrating, formulating in my mind, in the beginning slowly, then racing.
“I lived a fairly full life, in various places in the world. I had many adventures, loves and family, misfortunes and near-loss of life. But I am and always have felt like a stranger in strange lands. I have nothing in the world. Nothing that is completely MINE – that totally defines me, as a person, who I was and who I am”
“I am a Jew. I am an Israeli. This infinitesimal piece of land I am standing in right now is the only thing that fully defines me. This is Israel, and the land of my tribe – and it is mine, TOTALLY MINE! I did not get to choose it and it did not choose me. We are one, from beginning to end, and what happens to it and my Tribe happens to me, whether I am here or anywhere else in the world”.
“And even if the Sons of Darkness, of every kind, even of our own, their acolytes, followers and useful idiots and all the other true believers in all the “-isms” in the world, succeed in destroying this world as we know it – and of course try mightily to destroy us first, because we know right from wrong and defend it with our rifles in our hands, and that is what upsets them most – if I and my 86-year old friend survive, then we will be able to bear witness to this”.
“And make no mistake, these human Dinosaurs are extremely cunning and powerful in their own right, and strongly supported by their Holy Books. And countries keep gradually falling under their spell, even America, until there may be none left – except us, who will keep fighting. And if my 86-year-old friend and I survive, we MUST be here – to be real, not hearsay, WITNESSES”.
“And even if in the end we also fall, and they put more mosques above the Wailing Wall, and more madrassas around the City of David, the Wall and the City will still be witnesses. And if they destroy the Wall and the City too, to erase us completely from history, as is their want, these old stones will still be witnesses. And if they break the stones also and nothing is left, then if my 86-year-old friend and I survive, we’ll hop on some camels and high-tail it to Petra, wait out Armageddon there until the Sons of Light vanquish the Sons of Darkness, as they surely will, and we will be REAL, not HEARSAY, WITNESSES, for them and all the vanished and anybody who is lucky enough to have been left and will listen”.
Now I know. And I can explain it to all, in simple language.
THIS LAND IS MY LAND! MINE TOTALLY! AND I AM AND WILL BE HERE WHENEVER I WILL NEED TO BE A REAL WITNESS! THIS IS WHY I AM HERE NOW!! IT IS MY FIGHT ALSO! AND WE NEED MORE REAL WITNESSES!!
N.B. For the War between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness cf: http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/war and Wikipedia. For Armageddon and Petra cf: Wikipedia