October 8th 2024 - "Swords of Iron"

 Facebook asks me; "What's on my mind?"

As I sit here alone, an old man in my home. Who has trouble sleeping, my head full of woe and sadness from my life's traumatic encounters. Unable to find solace in restful sleep I sit and contemplate and speak to HIM who is and was and is all around.
As though in prayer, I plead as a Jew and a Levy. I plead to our creator as we are in the "Days of Awe" asking daily for forgiveness for our transgression preparing for our "Day of Atonement".

The hills are alive with the echoes of war
brought by an ancient vulgar seemingly,
never ending hatred.

The incessant sounds for over a year now
fill my old tired head with dread.
The sound of distant explosions
booming, one after another.

It is those louder explosions nearby
That makes me from my PTSD cringe....

As someone experienced in
the multiple harbingers of sudden death.
I have gone past the fear of injury or death.
For I have experienced it, up close and
personal.
And ever so sadly way too many times

The sounds the movement in the air
The adrenalin born of experience
Reverberate in my old combat tested ears.
The experience warns me
to waken as the body tenses
to be aware of
the ever present threat,
of imminent death by
the approaching harbingers of death.

In my heart I pray
that ALL those I love will be safe!
And as my ears perceive
the Iron Dome Tamirs
Those costly interceptors,
"life savers" race to intercept
The Iranian made rockets
of death
filled with explosives,
shrapnel, bringers of death

My heavy heart wants to sigh,
with relief when I hear
the loud explosions above me
as though the hand of HaShem
has sought out and smitten
the harbingers of radical Islamic
Iranian Hezbollah hatred!

Though expensive to make,
They spare us all-
Jew, Arab and Druze
from the "Evil Eye"
of gruesome death
As they spare parents
the grief from loss of life!

The dreaded cost of war...
As I sit here night after night,
I see their faces,
I hear their last words
I see the tears in their dying eyes
I held many of them close
as in an embrace
an embrace of human compassion
how so many innocent lives
have been needlessly
sacrificed on the altar of war
in sudden death!

And now once more this year
lives lost in a war
brought on yet again,
by our avowed enemies
filled with Islamic hate!

And through my windows
the stale foul air waffles
of fires started from their hatred
personified in explosive laden rockets.

Acres of once green trees
on the hills of the Galilee
Now burned in the nearby woodlands
Trees that had been with love for land,
planted by those Jews exiled
to foreign Arab Lands
Jews who returned after two millennium
To our indigenous homeland

When they arrived to the "Maabarot"
the immortalized transit camps
Their first job was to make our barren land,
green again with JNF trees.

So day after day
after their arrival
they toiled the hard soil
On the barren rocky hills
of the Galilee that surround us
To make our land smile again
As though in a whisper
it grew green
For the People of the Land
Had returned to our home.

Our story of 5785 years
regretfully suffers from the evil
that lurks deep within
The never ending jealousy
Surrounds us as regretfully
As it always has been

A jealousy deep, deep in the hearts
by those who feel spurned by HaShem’s love
A vile, vulgar ancient hatred
Incited and inflamed
By pretenders...
Those who preached
who claimed to speak
"In his name"

Rejected by us
Their Imans have imbued them
with their crass hatred
Not just among their deluded followers,
but cynically a whole world,
Deluded by falsehoods, deceit and
outright lies!
Through false words
and false narratives
those unknowledgeable of the truth
do not perceive,
that they are deceived.

My mind seeks rest from
this endless stress of the trauma
of never-ending hatred.

As a father I yearn for peace
for my offspring,
my beloved children
and grandchildren.

As a proud Jew I yearn for
peace for all the "People of Israel"
to live free in our
indigenous homeland.

But above all as HaShem
has taught us to aspire for life
in peace and goodness
for ALL his creations.

May it be his wish
That we will be blessed
With the sounds of life
And we will all sing dance
in praises in HaShem's name once more.

And may HaShem show,
our neighbors
that peace not death
is his desire, Amen.