“There’s something going on,” Elka said to me the minute Miriam had closed the door behind her. “I feel it, Dovid. I’m scared”

Dovid

Y

eshivah felt different that Friday. Everyone felt it. Call me a scaredy-cat, or a baby, but as I walked to and from yeshivah, I could feel a chill in the air. A chill of fear. It was all around me and I could almost touch it. I nodded at the people I passed on the way home. They, like me, were rushing to make Shabbos as usual, but today we just nodded and didn’t stop to talk.

The house was a flurry of activity when I walked in the door, just like it is every Friday. Mama was on one side, sweeping the floor with little Yisroel balanced on her hip. I reached over to take him even as I heard Elka bathing Leiba. Miriam, calm as always, was putting the finishing touches on some of the Shabbos food, her methodical movements relaxed in the frenetic air of Shabbos preparations.

“How can I help, Mama?” I asked, sliding onto a chair and bouncing Yisroel on my lap.

“You already are.” Mama paused for a moment to look at me with gratitude. “Yisroel has been in my arms the whole day.” She adjusted the scarf on her head and continued toward the stove to check on the soup. “Just hold him. It’s the biggest help you can do.”

I looked down at Yisroel, babbling away in my arms. Was he feeling it too? Was it the tension in the air that was making him kvetch and squirm so much?

Elka emerged from the bathroom with Leiba all dressed and ready for Shabbos. I watched Elka guide her into her room and tuck her into her bed for a nap. She’s not so little anymore, our Leiba, but she knows the rule — if she wants to stay up for the Shabbos seudah during these late summer Shabbosim, she has to take a nap on Friday afternoon.

“Miriam,” Elka called, closing the door of the girls’ bedroom behind her, “you can wash up for Shabbos now. Leiba’s finished.”

Miriam gently put down what she was doing and slipped into the bathroom to wash up.

“There’s something going on,” Elka said to me the minute Miriam had closed the door behind her. “I feel it, Dovid. I’m scared.”