Thursday, January 01, 2009

Feeling I should be doing more

Family and friends from the US keep emailing and calling wondering how the situation is here.

According to the news, there is a war going on about 1 hour south of here. But I would never know it.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I am just going on with my trivial day, complaining, laughing, cooking, cleaning, living. No real fear.

I send my girls off to school and my husband off to work - without a thought. My son is somewhere in the desert learning how to shoot a gun and live like a soldier and I am doing my thing - without a thought - that there are families - Jewish families - suffering. Scared. Unsure every moment of their days.

I want to be doing more, but honestly, because of the language barrier, am afraid to. I want to take in a family from the south. My parents would have done it. We always had exchange people coming through our house when I was a kid. But I seem to have a block about it. I am afraid of what??? Of making a full out of myself? Of not being able to communicate, when I "should" be able to? When I could be doing a huge mitzvah - how ridiculous!

What is wrong with me?

And I don't just have to take people into my home - I can bake cookies - which I love to do - I donate candies and treats. Clothes. toys.

But I haven't. Why not?

I keep my head in the sand. I won't read (as we have no television) the news, or watch the clips on the internet. I don't want to know. It upsets me. I get stuck in real emotion when I know too much. I get scared and I can't manage. So I choose not to know. So I go along in my life as if everything is just fine.

I want to be doing more, but I can't or won't or don't want to?

Sounds horrible.

**UPDATE** Because I wrote about it and it made me feel bad, I pushed myself to gather together all the candies in the house that have not and would not be eaten, a couple unused toys and a sweater or two, and called the woman on the yishuv who collects and distributes to needy people. In this case, she was specifically collecting for the children of Sderot. I feel a little better now that I made that effort, but it still doesn't feel like enough...

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