The Shabbat after Operation Rising – roaring – Lion, we are celebrating a family gathering at our home in Jerusalem. Our teenage grandchildren from around the country are at the Shabbat table. They’re delighted to see one another. I listen to their rapid Hebrew talk. The Rehovot teens describe the night their apartment building shook all the way from the ground floor to the eighth, when the ground-to-ground ballistic missile hit nearby. Their building has a shelter, but it is too far for them (on the eighth floor) to reach in time. They took cover in the stairwell. And yes, it was scary. 

Their favorite shopping mall had its many glass windows blown out (who knew?). Everyone asks if that was the same missile that struck the Weizmann Institute of Science, where the Ullmann Building of Life Sciences and the Institute for Environmental Sustainability were decimated. Was there a second missile or were there multiple warheads? 

The Binyamina teens report that their uncle on the other side of the family had the windows of his apartment blown out in Tel Aviv. The uncle covered the empty frames with plastic wrap, and the family went to stay with his parents, our in-laws, who live closer to Gaza and therefore have a more protective reinforced safe room. 

One of our sons, who has done hundreds of days of military duty in the past year and nine months, needs to investigate sites where missiles have penetrated our defense. He’s silent on the where and what of the hits. So are our active-duty grandchildren soldiers at the table. There is evidently a lot that cannot yet be revealed about this 12-day war. The level of destruction of the missiles that hit was unsettling and scary for us all. 

One of our graduating grandchildren is soon enlisting in the IDF, another will be doing National Service, and one will attend a pre-army yeshiva. 

The teenage talk includes comparisons of how their year of high school ended with canceled or quickly reorganized graduation ceremonies and the canceled or postponed matriculation exams. Should they take the internal grade without the test, or should they sit down to re-study and take or retake the matriculation exams? 

Who among their peers in the Diaspora could have such a conversation? 

Mixed in with our enormous pride and satisfaction in these Sabra grand-offspring is a bittersweet feeling that this generation of teens has so much with which to cope. I’m grateful to the creator and the IDF that we’re all physically intact. 

I think back to my Connecticut high school years with prom dresses and beach parties. The soundtrack was The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Supremes, and Bob Dylan. Soulful songs such as [Yuval Raphael’s] “New Day Will Rise” and [Eden Golan’s] “Hurricane,” based on authentic, familiar tragedy, would have been unthinkable.  

At the same time, the seeds of something different were already planted in me. I got permission from the librarian to bring a transistor radio to the usually hushed school library to follow the news of the Six Day War.  

A decision to make aliyah was about to blossom from those seeds. Its impact on my family-to-be would be profound. 

Here in Jerusalem, our family is gathered for a modest, quickly rescheduled Shabbat together to celebrate my husband, Gerald Schroeder, and me marking our golden wedding anniversary.  

We were American-born new immigrants in Jerusalem when a mutual friend introduced us. The friend reportedly told Gerald that even if we didn’t hit it off as a couple, he should get himself invited to the Shabbat dinner parties I frequently hosted for our circle of new immigrants.  

I decided to marry him when we were traveling North together in a car I’d just bought with my new immigrant rights. We had a flat tire near The Roaring Lion sculpture in Tel Hai. While Gerald was changing the tire with such ease, I thought it might be a good idea to marry him. He’s fixed a lot of “punctures,” and I’ve cooked up a lot of dinner events since then. 

We’ve also experienced a lot of military conflict. Who might have guessed that service in Lebanon would be part of the lives of all three Israeli generations of our family? Who would have guessed that our grandchildren would be trading shelter stories at our 50th anniversary dinner? 

I’m not complaining.  

If I went back to my decision to live in Israel, I would do it again. So would Gerald.  

A notable part of his youthful career was attending the testing of nuclear bombs. He left a position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study at a Jerusalem yeshiva. (One of his yeshiva classmates was our matchmaker.) He then pivoted to an international scientific career as an Israeli. 

Even though we’re not Sabras, we’ve developed enough of the tough, prickly skin to make the quick switch from war mode – hurrying down the 50 steps to our shelter at the jarring, spine-chilling commands on our cellphones – to me tweaking menus for the vegetarians and carnivores in the family, despite delivery disruptions. Before one of the hottest Shabbatot of the year, Gerald needs to check if the air conditioners and the Shabbat hot plates will short-circuit when we sit down to eat. 

And here, at our table in Jerusalem, we share reflections, Torah talk, and songs with our children and grandchildren. 

Jubilee years are announced by the blowing of the shofar. It’s Shabbat. No ram’s horn blowing. The sound of the shofar can be a battle cry or the announcement of the messianic age when the roaring lion lies down with the lamb.  

At our golden wedding anniversary, we intensify our prayers for that golden age.