It took several tries this morning before we connected with Hannah in Tzfat. She’s been busy, she said, and has a meeting in a few minutes.

From our first-born’s first Shabbat at home, we have been blessing our children every Friday with the traditional formula of safe-keeping (bemidbar/Numbers 6:24-26). It got a bit more challenging when they left home, but we nearly always succeeded in reaching them by phone before candle-lighting.

When we spoke with Hannah, there was a lot of noise in the background. After blessing her, I asked what she was so busy doing. “Getting ready for Shabbat,” she said. The only details she shared in the short call were that some people were baking challah, and a rabbanit (Orthodox female counterpart to a rabbi) was coming soon for candle-lighting.

A war is raging. Hamas calls for an international day of rage to sow fear and chaos, and tells Gazans to stay in harm’s way (just another example of using civilians as pawns, human shields). The Lebanese border is far from placid.

We’re concerned about … so many things: the anticipated calumny of false moral equivalence, the excuse (as if one were needed) for more anti-Jew attacks everywhere, the short duration of world-wide empathy, the blindness of Arab countries, the unhelpful threatening pronouncements of some Israeli mouthpieces. So many things.

And our daughter’s combat search-and-rescue unit is preparing for Shabbat. We are so proud.

(below is the traditional parent blessing for children)

Shabbat shalom ! שַׁבַּת שָׁלוֹם