by Avigayil
Berkowitz
It’s 8:00 a.m.,
Shabbos morning, and we hear a knocking on our bedroom door. It’s Uncle Steve.
“Don’t worry, we’re up for Parshas Zachor!” we say.
“No,
no! I just got an alert of a siren!” he says.
Fine.
He packed in with Aunt Lieba following close behind. Miriam and I are staying with
my great aunt and uncle for Shabbos in Ramat Beit Shemesh. Since we would be
sleeping in the mamad (safe room), they had warned us about the
possibility of a siren. “They’ve been talking about an attack for weeks – slim chance
that this will be the week. But don’t worry,” they said.
On
the way to shul, I asked Miriam if we should find out from someone if there
actually was a siren, but we decided it is too embarrassing We joked that it was
Hashem’s way of waking us up in time for Parshas Zachor because
sem girls don’t have a great track record for waking up on time! But we soon found
out that it was legit. We heard the sirens this time with our own
ears.
We
hurried between the sirens to the Shabbos meal at my cousin’s apartment. Her
kids had brought all the essential items into their mamad in case they
had to be there for a while. And so of course, our candy platter came in, too! After
the meal, we returned to Uncle Steve and Aunt Peggy, who joined us in the mamad
many times that Shabbos.
Coming
back to sem on motza’ei Shabbos, we began a very long night of running
down to the miklat three floors below and trudging back up the stairs to
get some more sleep before having to go back down again. Our miklat had
been converted into a dance studio, so there we all were, huddled together,
staring at ourselves in the dance mirrors at 3:00, 4:00, and 5:00 in the
morning.
Night
after night, through sirens and booms, we developed quite a few routines in
that little room. You heard some very loud conversations. One girl is
reassuring her mom that she’s going to be okay. Another girl is giving a full
TED talk on the Iron Dome with total confidence and zero engineering
experience. Then there’s the girl who keeps announcing every 30 seconds how
much time we’ve been in the miklat and another girl explaining
everything she’s done since the alert rang five minutes ago. In the corner,
someone is trying to make this a bonding moment. Meanwhile, two sources of
blasting music are clashing loudly.
Some
girls come down with wet hair and a towel turban; they were obviously showering
when the siren went off. There are those in wacky pajamas that they would never
want to be seen wearing in public as well as girls wrapped in blankets instead
of skirts and shirts. They are the ones who had to be dragged out of a deep
sleep by their friends. There’s a tight cluster of girls fervently saying tehillim
and a girl asking for an easy part of a tehillim mechulak.
Suddenly, everyone freaks out because of a big B-O-O-M. It turns out to be the miklat
door opening with five newcomers. One girl is lugging a bucket with a netilas yadayim cup
full of water!
During
the day, our seminary tries to provide activities for us to relieve some of the
tension that is felt in the air. They don’t tell us much about the news but do
give us instructions on what to do if we’re caught on the street during an
alert. (Basically, follow everyone to the nearest miklat.)
Amid
all the chaos, there’s one thing everyone knows: WE HATE IRAN!!! But there’s
another feeling unanimously experienced: We are privileged to be living through
and witnessing nissim geluyim in the holiest and safest place
on earth.
