HIS WAY

(originally featured on JPost.com Blogs)

Now that the terrible fires are under control, people are once again wishing each other a Happy Channukah.

Last Thursday when I first heard the terrible news, I asked for a Ness Channukah...a Channukah miracle. After all, isn't that what Channukah is all about? I asked for rain, and in order not to be greedy since we haven't had any rain so far, I asked for rain just up north, to put out the fire.

That was Thursday night. We all heard about the terrible tragedy of forty-one dead. Of dunam after dunam of land and trees and houses being destroyed. A little miracle...just some rain up north.

I have to admit that I did get a little scared when Bibi called on the world for help. When has Israel ever asked for help? We are the ones who reach out first to help everyone else. And, between us, when was the last time the world helped the Jews? Not during the pogroms or the Holocaust or or or...

Then Friday morning I turned on the television. There were planes coming to help us! Greece was the first followed by Turkey!!! The story of Channukah is our fight against the Greeks...and lately Turkey has not been friendly at all.

And within hours more countries and more planes. By last night there were thirty-four countries here helping us put out the fire. Russia, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, France, Bulgaria, Britain, Italy, Romania Azerbaijan and on and on.

And each plane that flew overhead dropped water and/or fire extinguishing chemicals on the inferno!

Then we got the mother ship...the Super Tanker from America!!!

My rain. It was raining up north. He heard and did it his way!

No one and nothing can replace the loss of lives of the forty-one people who died so horrifically. Houses and trees can be replaced. People and memories can't.

I tried to think what I would pack if I had to get out in a hurry. My mini laptop, some pictures, a couple of pieces of jewellry I have from my Mother A'H, a plaster cast of my oldest son's hand from when he was two and a half in nursery school. A poem my youngest son wrote me. A Channukiya my daughter made me when she was three. I don't know. I hope I never have to know.

Today it rained in Jerusalem. Wonderful, cold, blessed rain. Yesterday it rained a different rain up north.

They came...they helped...they made it rain.

Another miracle in the Holy Land.

Hag Urim Sameach!

Have a good day...stay safe...and thanks for dropping in.