“I saw you from my window so I came down to help you,” she explains

W

hen an air raid siren goes off in Rechovot, I’m a front-row witness to the purest ahavas chinam.

The IDF has vastly depleted the stockpiles of Hamas rockets intended for our people, and after weeks of living on high alert, we’ve been able to pick up kids, do errands, and go jogging without automatically scanning for the closest shelter. So on that chilly gray January Monday, I’m caught flat-footed.

I’ve just finished my start-of-the-week errands and am heading home with all six of my kids in my Honda Odyssey. As we pass our babysitter’s house, the familiar wail of the air raid siren begins to rise and fall.

The next few minutes are among the most terrifying of my life.

It takes 90 seconds for missiles to reach us from Gaza. When we’re in our apartment and need to run to our in-home bomb shelter, that’s usually enough time. On the street, seat-belted in a car, with one adult and six kids ages one to twelve — it’s not.

My adrenaline kicks in, and despite my terror, I calmly tell my kids, “We’re fine, it’s all fine, yes, it’s an air raid siren, but we’re going to pull over and run to Morah Rivka’s  building, she has a maamad.”