It took 45 minutes to drive to the synagogue in Dallas where the rally in solidarity with Israel was taking place.
I knew there were supposed to be at least 1000 people there and I wanted to be one of them because the terrorists need to know we’re not going away and my family/friends in Israel need to know we support them.
During the drive over I made a point to listen to a book about Bo Jackson because I needed time to decompress without any news.
I needed time not to immersed in news about Israel and to try not to worry about family and friends. I needed a few minutes to not offer support to others so I could recharge my batteries so that I could be there for people later.
Some of the stories I heard tonight filled me with the fury of heartache. It was exacerbated somewhat a by short man who wore lifts inside of his cowboy boots and smelled like someone who hasn’t found his way out of the eighties.
That greasy little man looked like old guy who still goes to clubs to hit on twenty somethings. Might be a good guy, might be a nice guy but I had a visceral reaction and when he whined at me about something stupid I barked at him.
During the drive back I worked on processing my feelings and I wasn’t surprised by my reaction because so much of this is personal.
So much of this is tied to the heart and soul, to the softest parts of our inside where our greatest vulnerabilities lie.
And when you feel a nice slide into those places you can only bottle up the barbaric yawp you need to issue for so long.
I tried to stuff some of it back down and not make myself crazy. Tried to move the puzzle pieces into places where things make sense.
But there are enormous questions that make it more challenging. Some can be answered and some cannot.
There are no valid explanations for the violence and barbarism that was shown this weekend. So I am not surprised that a greasy little man set me off the way he did.
He always would have been annoying to me. He always would have been someone who comes across as a dirt bag.
That didn’t stop me from thinking it might be unfair to him and that I would want people to give me an opportunity. But I didn’t think he was there for the right reasons either which is kind of funny since we never discussed it.
What that reminded me is that when you hear stories of children being put in cages, women being raped and babies murdered you cannot not feel something.
You cannot not want to do something about it.
I couldn’t walk across a magic bridge and try to rescue the hostages or fight those who want to kill Jews. I could only look at this guy and shake my head in anger.
Almost was shaking with rage for a moment, almost got up so that I could move seats or walk out.
Instead I closed my eyes, took three breaths and centered myself.
Because I wasn’t there for me. I was there because my friends and family in Israel need me. I was there because I am part of a small community that needed me.
My anger or discomfort is nothing compared to what others are dealing with.
So I sat with the fury of heartache and mastered it.
My generation grew up with Holocaust survivors. Most of Generation X was born within 25 or so years of the end of WWII.
More than a few of us had family members who fought in the war and more than a few of the Jewish kids had family members who were in the camps or knew people who did.
Many of the survivors we heard from were adults when they were taken. They were parents. They were professionals. They had homes and active lives.
When we heard their stories it was firsthand. It is a little different than some of what we hear today and I don’t say that to devalue any survivor’s experience. If you were a child or teen of course it would be different.
For the past few days I have had some very active memories of stories I heard and of course the tales of Israeli parents fighting to save their children sticks with me in a way that it couldn’t have when I was 17.
Stories about soldiers who are younger than my children or their contemporaries hit me harder than they did when I was a teenager.
Today a colleague called to ask how I was doing and told me they don’t have to ask what side of the fight or flight spectrum I fall on.
I think I know what side I am on but I never want it to be tested. I don’t need to prove whether I am right or wrong.
The fury of heartache doesn’t care anyway.
