When I think about this war, my memory is exact. I remember every moment, every detail before I walked calmly into the safe room and pulled the heavy door firmly closed.

I had been sitting in my husband’s armchair at the head of the table, turned toward the elongated windows facing the parkway. The branches of the Jacaranda were still bare, but the yellow jasmine flowers embraced the fence of the garden below. Rays of sun shone through the glass onto the page of my siddur, warming my finger that rested lightly on a line of brachot that I murmured, ahead of the Shabbat Zachor prayers that I would participate in, in the Beit Shemesh synagogue a few houses away.

The peaceful “Zachor” morning silence was suddenly shattered by the rising wail of a siren.

Shabbat Zachor is the Shabbat of remembrance, the Shabbat when the yearly Torah reading reminds Jews that they must never forget the evil attack of Amalek as they fled Egypt. It is a reminder to fight, and wipe out forces that have acted with unprovoked extreme malice towards Jews throughout the centuries, including Shabbat Simchat Torah on October 7th, two and a half years earlier.

It was not the first siren in my life. I cannot keep score of that wailing sound that causes my heart to stop momentarily, my stomach to turn, and my mind to instruct my senses.

Sixty-five years in G-d’s country holds so many memories: joy and sorrow, wars and unfriendly peace, love and hate, soldiers and civilians, children and grandchildren, and dozens of great-grandchildren, the last one born only four days before the Lion Roared.

I remember the colossal joy in the wake of the Six Day War in 1967. It followed the fear of annihilation days earlier. That phenomenal victory saw holy sites miraculously returned to Israel after being held by Jordan for nineteen years.

I remember the tragic events of the Yom Kippur War in October, 1973, followed by U.S. President Nixon’s visit in 1974, and his toast to Prime Minister Golda Meir at the presidential dinner. Nixon viewed Golda as a biblical Deborah, a woman leader, for whom he hoped that history would record, as Tanach did of Deborah, that after her service, peace would fill the land for 40 years and longer.

But that did not happen.

I remember Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s plane landing at Ben Gurion airport on a Saturday night in November 1977, an historic first visit to Israel by an Arab head of state. The entire world watched that incredible event — the first step toward possible peace between Egypt and Israel. It continued with Prime Minister Begin’s historic visits, one to Alexandria in July 1979. Begin’s return from Egypt late on Friday afternoon saw a line-up of Jerusalemites on the sidewalk in front of the Prime Minister’s residence on Balfour Street. We were there with our children, dressed and ready for Shabbat, not as protesters, but as welcoming admirers, waving and applauding the Prime Minister as he stopped to plant a kiss on our daughter’s forehead.

Yet over the years plenty of sorrow followed days of joy: countless soldiers killed in battle, civilians murdered in buses, cafes, and in homes that were destroyed. Yet new cities, settlements, and neighborhoods rose on sand dunes, and on barren hill tops, and the expansion of a tiny backward country into a technological world power emerged.

Our children grew to adulthood. They all married, and raised families through further wars. During the Gulf War, I was distressed to see our grandchildren in a sealed room, donning special gasmasks, and the infant in a tent-like plastic crib designed to protect him from possible chemical fallout from a Scud missile attack. I watched apprehensively another generation of children in need of protection from the horrors of war.

Our youngest son, along with his two sons and additional grandsons serve in the IDF. One grandson is expected to complete his basic training in another day or two. The masa kumta, the march of the beret ceremony celebrating completion of basic training will most likely be cancelled for parents and family participation. I wonder, if and where the ceremony will take place — on some sandy, barren land somewhere in Israel while their families participate on zoom? Where will this new group of soldiers be sent to serve?

Many grandchildren are married, raising another generation of families as drums of war beat once again. Joy and sorrow endure. So too the miracle of survival, and all the miracles we have witnessed these last two years.

Sitting in the safe room, my memory of the past never leaves me, allowing my mind to wander. What will life be like for the infant born four days ago? What kind of life will she, her older sister and brother lead? Will wars never end? Or perhaps they will, and this new generation will merit true peace. Could it be?

That first siren gradually fell silent. In the stillness of the safe room I held my siddur in my hands and whispered another quiet prayer, not only for protection, but for the generations yet to come. For if memory carries the weight of the past, faith in Elokai Yisrael carries promise for a peaceful safer future.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)