Locational Memories I'd Like To Have

Why is it that whenever something looks as though it's going well in Israel, somebody has to come along and spoil the party?

We finally got the chance to see the back of Olmert. Things were looking up (well, let's face it, anyone replacing him couldn't do a worse job) and then the news last night that shook us.

Yet another terror attack.
Yet more families shattered.
Yet more blood seeping into the cracks between the pavement that winds its way throughout the Jerusalem we so love.

Yet more.

I have the luxury of having visited nearly every place where a terrorist decides to carry out his or her murderous project. When a car crashes into a group of people in front of the Jaffa Gate, I know exactly where they were standing, because I've graced the very spot myself. Similarly so with the recent bulldozer attacks. I've been there and these locations are not in any way distant to my heart, mind or memory.

On the one hand, this is blessing because I can immediately identify with what happened and empathize with the people involved. On the other, it is all the more troubling because I know that I could have been there, walking with my parents, or wife, or children or close friend. G-d forbid my child could have been one of the people who is fighting for her life in hospital at this moment.

In the week before Rosh Hashanah, I look towards the heavens and pray that those injured will be well enough to dip their own apple in the honey that oozes in the New Year.

My wish for (the new year of) 5769 is that the hospital beds are full of only one kind of patient - the ecstatic mother who is holding the healthy newborn she has just brought into the world.

For it is this vision that I'd rather remember (from my own experiences, watching Dana with our newborns) as opposed to the kind that enables me to identify the location of the latest terrorist attack.