I am thirsty but the bus is so crowded I can’t get to the bag with the water. My eyes drink in the landscape that satiates the soul.

The man behind us — whose eight children are behind us next to us and under our feet — doesn’t stop talking because he is so excited about EVERYTHING.

“You see the palm trees the dates theDead Sea?”

Then he announces to his children with great enthusiasm that they will soon be going toMountGilboaand there he will teach them all about the war of Shaul HaMelech. The kids don’t really know who Shaul was or where Gilboa is but they know their father is excited about it and that they will remember. This man with all the excitement and love of the land and his children and life needed an escort to get on the bus because he has some kind of physical disability.

The bus is filled with ladies that live over the “Green Line.” I’m always amazed at these ladies the emunah the calm. You can see it in their eyes their movements. It must be they drink-in the land they drink-in the calm of the desert.

I am not a traveler.

Into the first hour of the trip the bumps already feel like being in the saddle of a bucking bronco. When the bumping starts the man with the eight children asks a lady if she could hold his baby who until then has been in a car seat in the aisle.

She takes the baby and holds it for the entire ride.

My siddur is also in that bag I can’t reach so this same woman asks her son to lend me his siddur since she is using hers. The boy gladly hands me his big siddur whose words are set up nothing like my regular one. They say a lot more than we do I notice.

The woman in the seat next to ours knows the exact way. She shows me the border that runs across theJordan. “It’s just a fence” I say.

She says “It’s an electric fence.”

That’s it I think this little fence is what holds back the tide of enemies.

We ride along the side of that fence for a while. The woman next to us opens her cell phone to show me how close we are to the other side. Her screen has a message displayed “Welcome toJordan I hope you enjoy your stay.”

My phone rings. It is one of my children.

The woman next to us hears me talking. When I hang up she says “You can’t give too much love.” Then she goes on to tell me about her friend whose son was killed in the army at 19 and how her friend always gave that son a lot of love and when he was killed she never felt not for a moment “I should have I didn’t give enough ” because she knew she had.

We pass hiking trails and I think how some like to battle nature fight with it conquer it climb rocks and climates. Others battle from within. They don’t even need to leave their chairs.

The skies are not as blue as I remember.

A soldier gets on at one of the stops. He lies down in the aisle head straight on the bus’s floor and falls asleep. Someone puts a blanket under his head. That sleep could save his life.

Sometimes I wonder whether soldiers when they see people relaxing and going on trips think You’re able to go on this trip because I guard the border and fight your battles.

And the man with the long peyos in the front seat who prays and learns — I wonder if he thinks You’re able to be on this trip because I daven and pray. And if the woman in the shawl thinks You’re able to be on this trip because I wear two shawls. And if the driver thinks it’s because he’s driving.

Everyone feels like they’re holding up the world — and maybe they are.