Stern - Shabbat Shalom...

Paula R. Stern..
A Soldier's Mother..
13 January '12..

I've got no time to write and truthfully, with something burning in my stomach, if I wrote, it wouldn't be good so I'll let it sit a while and figure if words will do justice to the injustice of others, of what a place of worship should be but all too often is not.

For now, I'll tell you that the soup is cooking, the sweet challah dough is rising. I have the heat on so the house is warm. It's gray and raining outside and I love it. So cold, so winter, so rare. It's family this weekend, quiet. Elie and Lauren cut tons of vegetables for the soup and left me instructions what to do with it this morning.

I've made three quiches (broccoli, mushroom, and corn) and soon a non-meat lasagna will go in. Today is Aliza's 12th birthday on the English calendar so I'm going to make her a case as well. The real celebration will take place in a few weeks, on her Hebrew birthday (or near it anyway).

What peace you find on a day like today comes from within the home. Yesterday and this morning, rockets were again fired at Israel; I continue to receive messages of hate. One came yesterday which I put through, insisting the Ahmadinejad didn't say he wanted to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. It was a play on words - instead of using the name "Israel" - he called us the "occupiers of Jerusalem" - well, duh - takes a brain and a map to figure out who he is talking about.

And then last night on Twitter a former Lebanese Prime Minister told his 79,000 followers that he had, apparently, accidentally greeted an Israeli and he was certainly sorry. If he had know, he never would have spoken to him.

How silly, how immature. How incredibly filled with hatred. How clear it is that the Arabs do not want peace. They can't even stomach speaking to an Israeli by accident. "Israel is our enemy" - I have not heard such truth from an Arab leader in a long time. Yes, Israel is your enemy. It isn't a great message to hear for those who want peace. It is a sad message, a dismal one.



And yet, like the rain, a message is what you make of it. Not all the time, but sometimes. The rain can be seen as dismal, terrible, messy and cold. Or each drop can be seen as a blessing. That's how it is here in Israel. We'll greet each other with, "it's supposed to be rainy and miserable, thank God."

I think it's the same here. There is truth in what this idiot admits on Twitter. He's clearly not intelligent enough to be diplomatic and I am grateful. Our greatest enemies are those who speak words that are lies; this one - this former Prime Minister of Lebanon is only a minor enemy - he lives in a country that is divided itself, abusive to its local Christian population, frantic that the Palestinian population will turn on it and try to take over, as they have in the past.

Hezbollah is likely to pull them into another war soon and just a few weeks ago, a Lebanese woman was seriously hurt when a rocket they fired towards Israel landed in a Lebanese village close to the border.

But that is all outside - for this cold and rainy Shabbat, my heart and soul are full. My children are all close, safe, warm - or they will be soon. The challah needs to be shaped and baked; the house filled with the smell of freshly baked bread.

Shabbat shalom.

Link: http://israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.com/2012/01/shabbat-shalom.html


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