So what can readers of all ages learn from the retirees sitting poolside in Boca, the white-bearded rabbi shuffling slowly across the street to shul, the frail great-grandmother stroking her fourth-generation descendant?

Resilience, for one thing. Take a look at my 80-something neighbor. I’d known her when she’d been graceful, active, what her generation called a “live wire.” Now, those slow steps she’s taking, an aide at her side, they hurt. A lot. But still she’s walking up the street, leaving the security of her recliner behind. Athletes push against the pain and win gold medals. Oldsters do that, too, without the screaming fans and hyperinflated salaries. And the 34-year-old bored in her job, but afraid of risking change — she can learn lessons from that old lady about leaving an uncomfortable comfort zone behind.

Want to see resilience in motion? Peek into that large room in our local community center, where 15 elderly women are sitting in chairs, moving their arthritic limbs in what are formally called “seated mobility exercises.” If you look carefully, you may see some of them wincing in pain. But you’ll also hear animated conversation, jokes, and laughter. Laughing when things are tough, finding encouragement through friendship: It works for the old folks, and it works, also, for the overwhelmed mommies in the playground.

It takes one kind of courage to slalom down the snowy Alps. It takes quite another to hand the keys of your car for good to your adult daughter or son, ending many decades of driving, turning off that ignition and knowing you’re giving away your independence. It’s hard to admit that slowing reflexes and fading vision are endangering pedestrians and drivers alike. It takes clear-eyed courage — the kind “older singles” sometimes have to draw upon when it’s time to say no to a promising shidduch that somehow doesn’t seem quite right.

If you’re reading this, you’re undoubtedly a caring and Torah-led Jew, who knows all about standing up for old people. You may visit your “elter-bubby” often, perhaps shovel the snow for that 90-plus neighbor. And that’s great. But while you’re doing chesed for the elderly, here’s some good advice from a writer who is (probably) older than you are: Learn from them, too.

They’ve got a lot to teach you.

Emmy Leah travels…

Backward in Time and Place

Beit Shemesh, November 11, 2024

A rude awakening. Six this morning, a shrieking siren blasts through my open window.

Azakah!

I rush out, shouting to my granddaughter and grandson-in-law, who are staying with us temporarily. They’re already halfway down the 30-plus stairs to our basement bomb shelter.

So there we are, in the miklat: my husband, already dressed for shul; me, in a snood and robe thrown on in three seconds flat; Hadar, wrapped top-to-toe in a blanket; and Yaakov, still in multicolored pjs.

Pajama party!

Jokes fly faster than missiles. For the first time, every child in Beit Shemesh will get to school on time. Missiles waking us early — can we claim a war crime at the UN?

Our miklat doubles as storeroom. I pull out costumes from the Purim box. Hadar puts a cowboy hat over her blanketed head, Yaakov dons a fez, and I balance a British “Bobbies” helmet on my snood. We take selfies, sending them to the family WhatsApp.

Fun, right? Well, yes — kind of. Silly hats, jokes, cheerful messages help.

Ten minutes later, we emerge, laughing and smiling.

Ten minutes after that, adrenaline draining, I’m back in my room, crying.

Thinking of earlier times and places when Jews sought shelter from our enemies….

Yerushalayim, January 15, 1991:
The First Gulf War

We’d arrived in Israel just as Saddam Hussein, yemach shemo, declared that if America attacked him for invading Kuwait, he would attack — for no reason at all — Israel.

Attack me, my husband and kids, including baby Racheli, born nine days earlier.

In our sealed room, we faced Saddam’s threatened gas-laden missiles, protected only by plastic sheeting and duct tape on the windows.

With trembling hands, I put my beautiful new baby in her gas-impermeable bassinet. And that night, in memory, I traveled to….

Auschwitz, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, 1944

In one night, three generations of my family were murdered — gassed — for being Jews.

Grandparents, aunts and uncles and their families, and little Shloime Nochum Hy”d, my mother’s one-year-old, the brother I never knew.

That night in January 1991, I begged Hashem silently: Please, no more gas. No more deaths. Three generations have been enough.

The Gulf War ended with just one casualty, on Purim. With that memory I travel even further back in time to….

Shushan, Nissan 3404 (357 BCE)

In the miklat, we’d enjoyed Purim dress-ups, and like the Purim story and the Gulf War, things ended happily. Apparently, we weren’t just enjoying a pajama party — it was an early Purim party!

Our enemy’s plot was foiled, the Jews were safe.

But life’s not that simple. What of the Shoah’s unimaginable cost? And today’s war, with the price rising daily?

Hashem’s name never appears in Megillas Esther: hester panim. His Hand was hidden — as in the Shoah, as it sometimes feels today. Yet Shoah survivors like my mother glimpsed His Hand in surviving and rebuilding, against all odds.

Today, we see miracles, too: a strong IDF, brave soldiers, resilient people. Occasionally, more open miracles: an Iranian president killed in a mysterious helicopter crash. Two hundred missiles aimed at Israel, just one casualty — a Gazan in Yericho, where the Shechinah first entered Eretz Yisrael. Glimpses of Hashem’s Hashgachah in a time of hester panim.

Back to Bet Shemesh, November 2024

The morning after the azakah: no sirens, no excitement. I open news sites. The missiles aimed at us came from Yemen. Nobody hurt, baruch Hashem. But bad news: Two killed in Nahariya by a Hezbollah missile. Hester panim.

The next day, a miracle: An alert kindergarten teacher hears a distant siren, takes her children to shelter — though no siren sounded in her area — and, in one minute, saves 20 children from a direct hit. A glimpse of Hashem’s Hand.

The hostages. Our soldiers. Thousands of Jews unable to return home. Tens of thousands of lives interrupted by frequent sirens.

And yes, four people in a miklat wearing pajamas and funny hats — but not really enjoying a Purim party. Instead, we’re all playing parts in the ongoing “Purim play” of Jewish history. A history of enemies attacking us for no reason, except that we’re Jews. A history of pain and loss, but also hope and salvation. A history of hester panim and unexpected glimpses of Hashem’s Hand.

We pray that this chapter in the Megillah of Jewish history will finally bring Hashem’s people comfort, safety, and peace.

Please, Hashem, peace….

Marcia travels back in time to…

The Blue Grotto

“Duck!”

At least that’s what I’m pretty sure the oarsman is shouting in Italian. Our wooden rowboat, swiftly propelled by a strong Tyrrhenian Sea current, is about to smash into a huge rocky cliff. I lie low, along with three strangers, as we race through an eye-of-the-needle opening at the cliff’s base. We shoot through a short rocky tunnel, enshrouded in darkness.

And then, heart racing, I sit up, adjust my eyes, and enter another world….

During 14 years of planning conferences twice a year, I got to travel to some wondrous places — alone.

After each conference, before jetting back to my family, I’d leave a few hours to see the city’s wonders from a unique perspective. Like biking around San Diego’s Coronado Island. Horseback riding on Oahu’s Dole Plantation. Watching the famous sea lions of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf basking in the sun and playing King of the Raft.

Amazing experiences. Yet something was always missing.

Someone to share them with.

Why is it that Hashem’s miracles are even more wondrous when shared with someone else… especially someone we love?

Like that time after the conference in Rome….

June 1986. From my desk in Maryland and all the way to Italy, I’d planned and managed that conference. When it was over, I took a whole day before returning home. I hopped a train to Naples, boarded a hydrofoil, and headed for… the Isle of Capri!

Capri is not your typical island. It’s more of a gigantic rock that seems to jut skyward straight out of the blue Tyrrhenian waters. After disembarking at the island’s bustling port city at the rock’s base, I rode the funicular — a cable car — up to the top, where all the action is. I checked into a motel and headed out for my first adventure: an outdoor café, where I paid a gazillion lira for a tiny glass of freshly squeezed orange juice so I could sit and watch all the jetsetters go by. Such fun! But how much more fun it would have been if I’d had someone with me….

Next adventure: riding the funicular back down to the base and hiring a boat to row me into the Grotta Azzura. The Blue Grotto.

Past the short tunnel, I sit up and behold a sight more breathtaking than anything I’d ever experienced. By some trick of natural lighting, the sparkling waters of the lake beneath us are the most astonishing color of blue — like nothing you’d ever find in any Crayola box. Around us, the stalactites, stalagmites, and black cavern walls all shimmer with silver light. I dip my fingers into the water, and they turn an eerie shade of silver blue. As we row around the large rippling lake, our oarsman’s Italian singing echoes throughout the massive cavern.

I marvel at Hashem’s unique creation. Mah rabu ma’asecha Hashem! Just one thing could make this moment more magical: if only I could share it with my husband, my kids, a friend….

October 2024. Why am I suddenly bringing up these wondrous, yet lonely, moments? I’m scribbling at JFK Airport in a nearly deserted American Airlines gate area. I just got off an EL AL flight from Israel, and I’ve got time to kill before my connecting flight to Washington. Once again, I’m traveling alone. This time, though, no one’s waiting for me back home. The kids are all married, living their own lives. And Sheldon is gone….

Yet as the memories flood in, I don’t feel alone. I feel Hashem’s presence. He’s been with me throughout this amazing trip. He’s not only gotten me safely to and from Israel (and through two azakot), He’s also accompanied me to places and shown me experiences even more wondrous than the Blue Grotto. Like watching my sister Miriam walk her son to the chuppah. Like going to the Kotel with both Miriam and Emmy Leah — on the first anniversary of the October 7 horrors. We were expecting massive outpourings of sorrow, grief, and despair. Imagine our surprise when, together, we witnessed an inspiring sight: a huge circle of yeshivah bochurim dancing b’simchah and singing Am Yisrael Chai! What a Nation!

Whenever and wherever I travel from now on — whether by myself or with others — I’ll know I’m not alone. I’m part of an Eternal Nation that’s watched over by an Eternal Being.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 928)