A Roaring Lion, a Fallen Missle, and Keys in My Hand

Learning and growth are knocking on my door at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes sirens and booms announce their arrival.

At first, I was just going about my day.

In Tzfat, you learn to live with background noise. Sirens. Booms. My office is a safe room. I walked out of a session and back into the house. The kids mentioned later that they had heard the impact, but like me, they have learned to ignore most of the background music.

Then a message came through. Something had fallen near the mikveh of the Arizal. There was talk of some kind of yellow gas leaking from the projectile. We are only a few hundred meters away, so we closed the windows and assumed it would pass.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/5089c6_51f50ce1060940a2b5dcddda13a85c96/360p/mp4/file.mp4

The missile was dragged from above the Ari Mikveh, down the dirt road and left next to my building for pickup.

About twenty minutes later, my body wanted my attention.

There was a surge. Intense sensations in my arms and legs. Heat. Activation. And a voice inside, fierce and protective, rising up.

You are going to mess with my home? With the AriZal? We will see which lion roars last.

It was not subtle.

When I first heard about the name given to this war, Shaagat HaAri, the Roaring Lion, it felt almost fitting. Everyone in Tzfat knows who the Ari is. His quiet, enduring roar is what drew many of us here. And somewhere inside, there was a knowing. His roar will outlast all the others.

I had the gift, in that moment, of not being alone with it.

I was sitting in a chair. Feet on the ground. Face forward. Safe.

And inside, it was anything but.

The sensations intensified. Heat. Pressure. Movement. Some tears punctuated my words.

And with them, a clarity.

A kind of deep, embodied knowing.

Memories surfaced. Other times. Other places. Moments of feeling invaded. Attacked. Overtaken.

The feelings were familiar.

And this time, I was not alone with them.

There was someone with me who could hear it. Hold it. Not rush it.

So we stayed.

We let the space be what it was. We let the energy move. We let the knowing unfold in its own time.

And as I stayed with it, I met her.

A younger part. She learned to be tough. The one who had lived those moments. The one who had been alone in them. She learned to be tough.

She was not wrong.

She had been invaded.

She had been overwhelmed.

She had been alone.

That was true.

And now, something else was also true. Not more or less. Together. Inhabited.

I am here.

I am not leaving.

And I could feel something in me holding steady.

And I welcomed her in.

Not pushing her away.

Not asking her to be different.

Not rushing her to calm down.

Just letting her be here. Inside a body that can hold her now.

At first it felt fragile.

Like my life, my hope, my vision had been exposed and was at risk.

As I stayed with the sensations, memories began to surface. Of feeling that a small, hard won island of quiet - the tiny dalet amos I had struggled to carve out for myself - was being overtaken by chaos, by intrusion, by forces that aren't aligned or safe. Similar stories in different settings. After years - still feeling harsh and raw.

And as I sat with them, something else became clear.

Through it all, despite it all, maybe even with it all.

(Could it be because of it all??)

I have emerged.

With more clarity. With more ratzon. With a deeper commitment to keep building a life that feels like home.

There were times I was knocked down.

Times I fell.

And I got back up.

And fell again.

And got back up.

And learned and decided that I'm one who gets back up.

And here I am.

A massive weapon fell just a few hundred meters away. And we are safe.

Slowly regrouping.

Returning to the rhythms of a life that is still about growth, about contribution, about continuing.

And then I went back to work.

I moved into my next session, supporting a therapist in her own process.

When I came out, my teenage girls were animated.

Ima, you have to see this!

Then my neighbor called.

Shalva, did you look out from your mirpeset?

The THING is right there, under Haman.

It took me a moment to understand what they were saying.

A couple of weeks earlier, on erev Purim, my neighbors, with their impressive gaggle of teenage and young adult sons, had built a large Haman figure and hung it above the street. A hodgepodge of home harvested materials. Balloons, fabric, whatever they had on hand.

It made us laugh. It brought a lightness as we entered the chag. Somehow it even gave a small sense of control, going into a holiday about survival, while another Persian tyrant, thousands of years later, seemed not to have learned the lesson.

I stepped out onto the mirpeset.

And there it was.

The tank of the missile. Massive. Heavy. Placed almost neatly behind my white Mazda.

And directly above it - the hanging Haman!

Children stood gathered around. No school, nothing to do. Watching. Army personnel and police nearby, keeping distance, waiting for it to be taken away. I went down to get a closer look and move my car.

Someone nearby said, almost under their breath, thousands of years, and nothing has changed.

And for a moment, everything held together in one frame.

The threat.

The absurdity.

The danger.

The laughter.

The past.

The present.

A fallen weapon.

A hanging Haman.

And life somehow continuing in between.

And something in me noticed it.

The same fragile island that once felt so exposed, so vulnerable to intrusion, had just been targeted by chaos.

And here I was, standing right next to it.

Car keys in my hand.

An adult.

Outside my home.

With my wonderful, slightly wild, deeply human neighbors.

Able to move my car.

To make space.

To let the security forces do what needed to be done.

Keys in my hand.

Feet on the ground.

The next morning, Haman was lying flat on his face. Crumpled, half deflated, back on my neighbor’s mirpeset.

I guess he completed his job.

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