Just sitting and chilling.  Or if you feel the urge to use a fancier term, ‘decompressing.’ Barbara and I had hosted The Levines over chol hamoed, and we needed to calm down from all the excitement. Day One, we all went down to DCity and formed a committee to assist Barbara in purchasing the recliner that that she had long been pining for. That evening we visited friends, and the six of us squeezed into their sukkah, big enough for three, until it started to rain.

The next day we visited the Tzuba winery and shared a sukkah with three guys, brothers-in-law, married to three sisters. (These things must happen in the Five Towns). While we were sampling regulation-sized sips of the winery’s finest, these sturdy lads were sampling full-sized bottles of the same stuff. Their wives and children had been sent off to the enormous amusement park next door. (Are you guys done yet? Not yet.) I had to ask the obvious: Um, who is the designated driver? They pointed to the haredi guy, with a big beard and a bigger belly, who was with them. Him? He seemed to be the merriest one of all, but that was just how he is; he hadn’t had a drop of the liquid we were all enjoying. In addition to taking people around in his van, he is also a chazan. At one point, he burst into song; the three guys interrupted their quaffing to accompany him, and Richard, not to be outdone, joined in. Singing in the sukkah, that’s what folks do around here.

The following day, I joined The Levines for a meal at a quaint bistro in Raanana, after which, we headed the short distance to north Tel Aviv for the monthly folk club in a senior center near the university, something that is not on my usual travel plans. And finally, on Thursday, we drove through the winding back streets of a haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem (thank you, Waze!) to wind up on King George St, and join ‘the kids’ for a meal at Palamino, a restaurant with good food and, more importantly, a Happy Hour, two drinks for the price of one before 7PM. Why have one cocktail, when you can have two?, I ask. Even with all that running around, we had plenty of time to spend in our own sukkah, because every meal with The Levines is an adventure unto itself.

Our guests left on Friday, heading back to their mountaintop up north, leaving us to tidy up and get ready for the end of the Hag. No wonder that when I was sitting in my living room that Shabbat morning, I was fatigued but in an exceptionally good mood. Friends, neighbors, and countrymen were in shul raising a ruckus, it being Simchat Torah here in The Land, but my preferred activity these years has been to go through the Yizkor prayers very slowly, using the time to remember my parents, grandparents, sister, aunts, uncles, and cousins, none of whom I can contact with any of my newfangled devices.

Shortly thereafter, the hard-core kiddush club arrived, friend Ezra with his son Boaz – in desperate need of a haircut. At that moment, my thoughts were focused exclusively on creating a Bronx cocktail, substituting pineapple juice for orange juice (with gin, dry, and sweet Vermouth), then discovering that the results were not up to snuff. I pulled out some Bunnahabhain Scotch, and we sat in the living room with our cold brew coffee and herring, preparing to chat. We usually have a free-form therapy session. People can say whatever they want; few topics are off-limits. (Just don’t mention a former president by name, I beg of you.) Ezra and I were expressing our thoughts about what had been ‘the situation’ in Israel, especially the pros and cons of Dizengoff Square, when things began to change, as did my concerns and unwarranted feeling of well-being.

I’m a city boy; I’ve trained myself to ignore most ambient street noise. Even with my very good hearing, I had not noticed the explosions and the sirens in the distance. But Ezra had, and Barbara, with her hearing aids, had, as well. I wasn’t fully convinced that ‘something was going on’ until we saw the three helicopters in formation from our living room windows, and then heard the unmistakable sound of a fighter jet above our heads.

OK, now what do we do? Should we turn on our devices to find out what’s going on; I’m sure it’s not an issue if you’re under attack, as we seemed to be. But, I reasoned, what would be the point – as in, what relevant information would we glean from my iMac, woken from its slumbers, about something that was going at that moment? Probably not much of any use. And if we turned on our phones, what then? One thing I was certain of, if we, our friends and family, our neighbors, our community, were in imminent danger, we would hear about it – pronto. The sirens work quite well in our neck of the woods. And sure enough, a while later, the siren did go off, loud and clear. Ezra and Boaz raced off to make sure the rest of their family was OK; Barbara and I headed downstairs, where we joined some of our neighbors outside the safe room in our sub-basement. It was just for a minute; then the siren stopped, and we all went back to our apartments.

People from all over have been contacting us and inquiring how we are doing. We’re all a little tense, but we are safe. We are in a little corner of the Land that is outside the range of rockets from Hamas or Hezbollah. (Give them a few more years to improve their aim, and we would be in serious trouble. So let’s not.) Plus the border with Jordan has been quiet for many years, as they seem to have nothing to gain by getting involved. (And if that were to change, boy would we be in deep doodoo.) So I have the decided luxury of remaining calm, a blessing not shared by our many neighbors with friends and family off to do battle.

Someone we know asked if we should be feeling guilty. Here we are, he said, and everything seems to be going on as if little has been happening. Maybe, just the opposite; maybe we should all be ‘benching gomel,’ giving thanks that we, while not especially worthy, have been spared and given the chance to live another day. What does it say in one of the psalms, something about the dead not being able to praise God?

As you might expect, there’s a lot more to follow….