Like many of you, my whole body tensed up yesterday during the Iranian missile bombardment of Israel. While feeling frantic, I tried to calmly remain in touch via WhatsApp with my son, friends, and many nieces and nephews who were in their shelters. One of the things they all described was the intensity of the sound- missiles and interceptions. It was continuous and overwhelmingly loud.
My niece also mentioned that one of her neighbors decided to play the drums in the middle of the attack, lamenting how hard it was to try to keep her children asleep in the safe room through all this. Another family member suggested that maybe the neighbor was trying to drown out the sound of the attack. I asked my son what his Yeshiva friends were all doing while sheltering in their stairwell, and he said that were singing.
During this hour-plus, which felt like 361 days, I could hear the beautiful song of kindergarten students singing the Aleph Bet. I heard it coming from their classroom, the hallway, and outside my window, as they walked to the park and returned an hour later. Listening to them and hearing about the music and singing from my son and niece felt like a living Rosh Hashanah sermon. We must pray, we must act, and we must sing. We never know whether our prayers and actions will yield the intended fruit, but we don’t give up. We raise our voices a little louder to drown out the harmful noise however we can.
This Rosh Hashanah, I hope we all feel the anchoring power of our collective singing. I hope it can lift us above the destructive sounds around us, both literal and figurative. May it provides us all with comfort and peace, just as the Kindergarteners did for me yesterday.
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