My wife and I had come to Israel for our first grandchild’s wedding, expecting to stay only 10 days. Instead, that very Shabbos, the current war with Iran began, and our return home was delayed for nearly two additional weeks. During those anxious days of sirens, shelters, and uncertainty, I found myself writing.

Leaving Israel Under Fire: The Waters Will Flow Outward

We received a rebooking confirmation from El Al soon after our original reservation was canceled at the last moment five days earlier. Although we appreciated the airline’s and airport authorities’ concern for our safety, changing conditions on the ground and shifting travel restrictions had me checking the El Al app constantly, afraid I might miss some vital communication or direction. In the end, the only real change during the week was a gradual advancement of our departure time to near sunrise on Sunday morning, two weeks after we had originally planned to leave.

About an hour before Shabbos began, El Al and the US State Department announced that, beginning Tuesday, six flights would depart from Israel filled with American citizens. I hesitated to sign up, worried that El Al might cancel our confirmed Sunday booking and move us onto one of those flights.

Shabbos at our boutique hotel in Modi’in Maccabim Reut was a mixture of simchah and bedlam. Another 60 guests had checked in for a local family’s bar mitzvah celebration. A not insignificant number of the displaced Israelis from Ramla were still roaming the halls and lobby at all hours — or at least it sounded that way. The hotel had lost its boutique appeal several days earlier.

Friday night dinner was “on the house,” courtesy of the hotel management, as an acknowledgment that things had not turned out as they — or we — had expected. Another gracious gesture. On Shabbos morning, we ate early, enjoying the Israeli breakfast before the regular crowd shuffled in.

There were only a few warning alerts and sirens during Shabbos day.

By then I had come to notice the different approaches people took to the Home Front Command alerts. We usually slept in our designated night clothes or kept them close by. We would grab our jackets — the hallways were usually cool — and walk briskly, but without panic, to our mamad (safe room). There we would meet our new best friends from London, also stranded at the hotel for the same reasons and taking much the same approach.

We stayed in the shelter until the all-clear. Based on their prior experience after October 7, our hosts in Rehovot would enter the shelter when the warning alert sounded and wait at least ten minutes to see whether the siren would follow. The displaced Ramla residents at our hotel often ignored the warning and ran to the shelter only once the siren sounded. Then they waited five minutes and left, all-clear or no all-clear. The bar mitzvah guests usually came in at the warning but also departed before the all-clear after a siren had sounded.

We may have remained in the shelter longer than necessary. But entering calmly at the onset of the alert made far more sense to us. Even if the alert proved false, the warning gave one time to move deliberately rather than scramble for jackets and critical papers, or worry whether there would be room in the shelter.

After Shabbos, the El Al app confirmed that our flight was still on for early Sunday morning. We repacked our suitcases for the fourth time when another alarm sounded in the hotel.

We assumed one of the children had pulled it, but we evacuated to the courtyard in any event — again joining our new best friends from London. After a few minutes, with no clear direction, we went up to the reception desk and were told that the false alarm had originated in the apartment building above the hotel and that there was nothing to worry about.

By 10:00 p.m., the real countdown to leaving in about five hours had begun. Earlier in the week, that was about the time El Al had canceled our booking. We could not sleep. I was afraid of missing some urgent communication that might require an immediate response to preserve our tickets. So we spent the evening and early morning hours watching Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and HGTV renovation shows. There is nothing quite like an all-nighter with home renovations in Laurel, Mississippi.

Our driver was due at 3:00 a.m. Around 2:30, he let us know he was on his way. We were relieved.

Then, at 2:35 a.m. — another alert.

Another missile aimed at the center of the country, toward Tel Aviv and near the airport.

Would we miss our driver? No. The alert ended around 2:50, and when we came downstairs he was waiting for us.

During the drive, I saw on one of my WhatsApp channels that shrapnel, or perhaps a missile, had hit Ramla again. A few moments later we passed the exit sign for Ramla, just south of the airport. There was nothing visible in the distance. It was apparently a “minor” impact. So on we went, with an otherwise uneventful trip and drop-off at Ben Gurion.

El Al security cleared us, and we joined the ticketing line.

Off to the side stood a group of perhaps fifty men waiting outside the regular queue. This was the standby line — mostly young yeshiva bochurim, yeshiva students, willing to wait and wait in the hope of a last-minute seat assignment. One older man with a long salt-and-pepper beard stood out in the middle of them. It felt like a galus — exile — scene in modern dress, as all of them were plainly trying to get home, or somewhere, for Pesach.

After about a 45-minute wait, it was finally our turn to check in. Our suitcases were underweight, but then came our carry-ons. They had to be weighed as well. There were only 100 passengers on a plane built for 280. We could probably have brought a ton of gold aboard without affecting takeoff performance. But rules are rules. My carry-on was overweight. So yes, I became one of those people at the counter, unzipping one bag and transferring things into another even though it was all going onto the same plane. Otherwise: another $100 fee.

Finally, the golden ticket: two boarding passes for El Al Flight 1027, nonstop to Newark, departing at 6:55 a.m.

Then came immigration and passport control. Of course, my passport was not recognized by the machine, so off we went to the manned desk in the corner. The older of the two men behind the counter took our passports and began staring at us as though we might be carrying off state secrets. I could hear the Final Jeopardy! music playing in my head. It was 4:30 in the morning. Why exactly was he studying these tired older Jews from America with such intensity?

At last came the stamp of approval, and we were through.

There is nothing as exhilarating, on arriving at Ben Gurion, as walking down the great marble ramp toward baggage claim. I always kiss the giant mezuzah at the exit. But this time there was something nearly as exhilarating: walking up the ramp toward the departure lounge and our gate at the end of Concourse C.

We found our seats, bought a bottle of water, and since sunrise would be in less than an hour, I began saying the preliminary tefillos (prayers) I recite each morning.

Then a man approached and asked if I would help make a netz minyan — a sunrise prayer quorum — in the corner so he could say Kaddish for his father.

I was a little reluctant. But we had our tickets, I could see my wife, and boarding was still more than an hour away. So I wandered over to the area behind the only duty-free shop open in the airport — yes, somehow someone had made sure to staff that last duty-free shop — and placed my tefillin bag on the console beside two inexplicably placed vibrating chairs. I put on tallis and tefillin and began davening. Our eastern wall, as it were, was the back half of the duty-free store, lined with bottles of liquor. I was tempted.

Just as we were finishing Pesukei D’Zimrah (Verses of Praise), another alert sounded.

Another incoming missile.

Off we went to the shelter. Standing on the stairway, someone observed that we were safer because I was still wearing tallis and tefillin. With my concentration for the rest of davening completely disrupted, I returned to my seat and packed them up.

Around 7:00 a.m. it was finally time to board. With only one hundred passengers, there were no Groups A, B, and C. Just come up to the security table one last time for final clearance — and empty our newly purchased half-full water bottles.

We boarded quickly and found our seats.

Then the pilot came on.

Everyone had to exit the plane and return to the shelter down the hall. Leave your luggage. Take your passports and boarding passes.

So off we went again. The gate area was surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass, and no one wanted to remain there. On the other hand, few people were eager to walk all the way back to the shelter. So most passengers simply crowded into the large hallway connecting the gates to the lounge.

Later I saw on one of my WhatsApp channels that shrapnel, or perhaps a missile, had struck in the Lod area. The airport itself is in Lod. Would our flight now be delayed? Canceled?

We were redirected back to the security table, the agents repeated their questions, rechecked our passports, and this time things moved more quickly. There were no water bottles left to confiscate.

Finally, we were back in our seats after our “practice” boarding.

We pulled away from the gate. Then began the familiar El Al welcome and the standard safety video for an emergency water landing. It is the same magician every time, in English and Hebrew.

We will not survive a crash landing in the ocean, so why pretend otherwise?

What remained politely unspoken, of course, was what would happen if a missile hit the runway — or the plane — during takeoff.

We had exit row seats. The stewardess sat down and strapped herself in. Calmly, she assured us that once we were over water, we would be fine.

As it turned out, the pilots were simply finishing their final preflight checks while the video played.

Tefilas HaDerech (Traveler’s Prayer) as the wheels lifted off the ground.

Then the oddly reassuring pop of the chaff deployment — the countermeasure every El Al jet releases soon after takeoff to disrupt a locally fired ground-to-air missile.

And then we were over the Mediterranean.

Eleven and a half hours later, we touched down in New Jersey after an uneventful nonstop flight — the very reason we had chosen El Al to begin with.

We had arranged for a Lakewood-based driver to take us home. We were in no shape to schlep luggage onto an Amtrak train or rent a car. Unexpectedly, our driver arrived in a luxury SUV. It made for a very comfortable three-hour ride home.

A welcome home sign from our dear neighbors adorned our door. We were home after almost a month away.

We did not leave Israel thinking only about our own relief at finally getting out. We left thinking about the very different worlds that exist side by side in the Jewish state.

During our grandson’s wedding, and in the more religious settings we encountered, there was a seriousness about life, family, kedushah (holiness), and purpose. It was not always polished, and it was certainly not always modern in the usual sense, but it felt rooted. It felt like Jewish life lived with the understanding that there are things more important than comfort, convenience, or entertainment.

At the same time, Israel’s modern state has demonstrated extraordinary physical strength. It can defend, improvise, absorb, rescue, build, and endure under pressures that would break many other nations. We experienced a small part of that ourselves in those final days — the shelters, the alerts, the airport functioning under threat, the determination to keep society moving, and the stubborn competence of a country forced to live with danger as part of ordinary life.

But physical strength alone is not enough. Israel also needs spiritual depth, seriousness, discipline, and a clearer sense of what all this strength is for. It needs, somehow, a merger of both — the physical and the spiritual, the practical and the holy, the strength to survive and the Torah to give that survival meaning.

If that fuller merger of Israel’s physical and spiritual life is not yet here, then perhaps the more realistic image is the one described by Yechezkel (Ezekiel), chapter 47. The land is apportioned, ordered, and settled. Every tribe, every independent segment of society is assigned its own role, working hand in hand for the betterment of society. This is a fulfillable dream.

And then, from the Third Beis HaMikdash (Third Temple), the waters of Torah and the knowledge of a loving God will flow outward to rejuvenate the Holy Land, its inhabitants, and all who seek its good. Then our nation, Israel, will fulfill its role as a light unto the nations, with goodwill and peace among the Jewish people, among its neighbors, and throughout the world.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)