Naama Herz is a 19-year-old Israeli woman from Kibbutz Ramot Menashe. She returned to Israel in late August after spending a year in St. Louis as part of the Shinshinim program, which was sponsored by Temple Emanuel and Shaare Emeth.
A year: 365 days, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds, in which my heart is not whole. When I look back on the past year, I see how much I managed to do. I flew to the U.S. for a year, visited Israel, returned to the U.S., came back to Israel, received my army assignment, traveled the world, mourned my dog—and that’s just a small summary of what I did. Despite the difficulty of this year, I managed to laugh and be happy, truly happy.
But when I stop and think, I realize there are so many families that haven’t laughed in an entire year. They haven’t smiled or been happy. Their loved ones were massacred or kidnapped on that cursed day.
I remember that my friends fought in Gaza and are now fighting in Lebanon. They are exhausted and frightened, but they understand that the purpose of why they are there is more important than anything. I think of their mothers, who probably haven’t slept a single minute at night. I think of how the entire country is in shelters.
Two weeks ago was the first time in my life that I had to wake up to a siren and run to a shelter. Only then did I understand the magnitude of the difficulty for people who live an hour from me, who woke up to sirens every day for a whole year—or 20 years, depending on which border area you’re talking about. There are so many families that no longer live in their homes and have been evacuated to the center of the country.
And we haven’t even mentioned the terror attacks and the fear of walking around Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or even Be’er Sheva.
So much pain that the heart can no longer contain.
365 days, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds. A year in which my heart is not whole.
