The murderous terror attack in Israel yesterday, where unfortunately 8 Jewish people were killed, brought me back to the terror attack which occurred exactly 10 years ago in my home town of Kiryat Motzkin.
Although in my youth, there were many, and difficult terror attacks, I was never close by to where the attack happened, thank G-d. I always heard about it from far, until that day in 2001. It was summer, August 12th in the late afternoon. I had just gotten into the car on my way to the Tel Aviv area.
I was in a very good mood, even a bit excited, because I was on my way to my second date with my wife-to-be, Rivky.
I turned on some pleasant music and started my journey from my parents home, when suddenly there was a huge explosion in the background.
I always thought that there will never be an attack in Kiryat Motzkin, because the terrorist surely never even heard that this city exists. But it happened.
In a distance of about 500 meters away from where I was, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a Restaurant called “Wall Street”, just in the city center.
What happened in the minutes following the attack is hard to describe in words. You see an entire city go into enormous pressure. Rescue vehicles are rushing madly from every direction to the scene. Personally, from all the fear and pressure, I steered my car in the other direction to get away from there as much as possible.
The first reaction you have is to call your family to hear that everyone is ok. However, that’s not an easy thing to do, since the phone lines crashed due to all the calls being made.
The pressure is extremely heavy, and it takes many long hours or even more until everything goes back to semi-normal.
During these hours it is the hardest time. You hear that there are casualties and you are going through tense moments, you just want to find out it was not anyone in your family or from your acquaintances. When you finally hear that everyone is ok, you calm down, but just not quite.
Your heart still hurts, you know that some other family’s life will never be the same. You have never met them, but you feel that they are your relatives.
This is the way the Jewish People is, this is the kind of nation we are. We sympathize with tragedies which happen to others, even if we don’t know them, even more so when we’re talking about people who were killed in middle of the day just because they are Jewish!
From Luzern I send a big hug to all those families who have lost their loved ones yesterday.
A Refuah Shlema (speedy recovery) to those who were injured.
And to all our brothers and sisters in Israel:
We love you!
Rivky and the children join me in wishing you a Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Chaim