The 8:10 AM siren that sounded across Jerusalem this past Shabbat broke the morning with its familiar urgency. A few moments later, the muted thuds of interception arrived, signaling that the defense systems overhead had done their work. No ambulances followed. No smoke rose. The city exhaled.

Sirens are never welcome, but their timing sometimes lands with unexpected emotional weight. This one came a few days before Purim, on the day when we read the additional Torah portion commanding us to remember what Amalek did to the Israelites on their journey from Egypt. That passage, Parashat Zachor, is brief, but it carries centuries of resonance: a reminder of vulnerability, of cruelty directed at the weary, and of the moral responsibility to remember.

This year, that message collides with another moment of historic consequence: the confirmed death........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)