“It’s a complex and delicate matter, something that people are liable to misinterpret,” she whispered, turning away from her yeast dough. “You’ve heard of the Eirev Rav?”

“Of course. The people who went out of Mitzrayim together with Bnei Yisrael.” I looked at the big green bowl.

“It’s a very, very sad reality,” she said, gazing at me. “The Eirev Rav is here even today, you know. There are people among us who are spiritually connected to the Eirev Rav.”

“What does that mean?” I asked in surprise.

“According to Kabbalah, in the generation of Mashiach, even some of our greatest leaders can have spiritual roots in the Eirev Rav, and fight against what is good and holy. V’hameivin yavin.”

I left Rabbanit Chana’s house feeling strangely agitated. Something about what she’d said to me didn’t feel quite right. And what would I tell Shainy? She had been so hopeful that I could help her.

I got on the light-rail train at Shivtei Yisrael. The atmosphere was very tense; everyone was watching their back and looking around suspiciously. We’d all lost count of the number of car-ramming and stabbing attacks that had occurred over the past couple of weeks. At Damascus Gate, three border patrol policemen got on. Just the sight of them made me relieved; I always feel more secure when they’re close by.

A minute later I wasn’t so glad anymore. They were coming toward me.

“Geveret, hands up, please,” one of them said to me. “We want to do a security check.” Police? Me? A security check? No way, couldn’t be. Imagine if they tried pulling of my veil! The train was just pulling into the City Hall station. I had to get away. Quickly, I got off the train.

My memory of what happened next is foggy. It’s as if I witnessed the scene from above. A woman all swathed in black lurches out of the train. Three border guards dash out after her. She tries to run, but her movements are clumsy; the policemen are quick and agile. She gets entangled in her shal, trips, and falls to the sidewalk. I’m looking on, an outsider, yet I know her knee is hurting badly. No one moves to help her up; why would they?

She tries to get up and ends up sitting on the pavement. I see three rifle barrels pointed at her. She sees them, too. The border guards are tall and strong. One of them is a Druze. They think she’s a terrorist.

She knows she isn’t. She’s just the opposite. She and her friends belong to an elite battalion that protects the whole Jewish nation.

“Hands up,” says the darkest of the three guards. She puts her hands up, and her veil flutters in the wind. Now she’s sitting in front of them with her face uncovered. And there are three of them. Three border guards. And she knows it’s not right that her face is uncovered. She has committed always to cover her face while out in the street.

“Ein od milvado,” she whispers again. She’s going to grab the edge of her veil and pull it back down over her face. She’s sure it’s a kiddush Hashem.

She’s such a fool, I say under my breath, looking back at that moment months later. Tomorrow, all the papers and websites will describe the Shawl Lady who was shot at Safra Square because she wouldn’t submit to a security check, and people will read it and say she had it coming to her. And people will say good, I hope she learned her lesson — but it’s my arm that’s going to be shattered and burned by a police bullet, and it will never heal completely.

Tomorrow, people will smile grimly to themselves over the paper tomorrow and say, “Too bad, she brought it on herself.” They won’t understand that it hurts more, not less, because I brought it on myself. And there won’t be even an ounce of compassion in their mean little chuckle as they call their wife over and say, “Look at this, Rachel. One of those Shawl Ladies got herself shot over by City Hall. There’s no end to their craziness…”

Tomorrow, Rachel will come over with a cup of coffee in her hand and a beatific smile on her face. Hashem, how can she smile when I’m wounded and it hurts so badly, and what’s so amusing about the fact that a bullet hit me, and why is she so glad that I’m learning a lesson, and what’s so delightful about the fact that my arm is wounded, bleeding, and scorched?

The second I moved my hand down, before I could even touch my veil, I saw the quick, cruel flash of the bullet coming toward me.

Afterward, there were investigations. Committees examined the trajectory of the bullet, the angle from which it was fired, and the evidence given by witnesses. They all concluded that the shooting was justified, because I’d been ordered to put my hands up, and I lowered one hand, and the border guards were afraid I was about to set off an explosive vest or pull out a weapon. But what good does it do me that the shooting was justified, after the bullet tore into my flesh, and how does that justification make the splintered bone in my arm whole again, or heal the burns around the bullet hole, and how can it wipe away my tears, or bring back my lost faith….

In those fractions of a second before the bullet reached me, I wanted to scream, “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t shoot me, this can’t be happening!

“Don’t shoot me,” I wanted to bellow, “I was just moving my hand for a second to cover my face like a bas Yisrael kesheirah. Look, I’m putting my hand back up like you said. Don’t shoot me — I have a little girl at home, and two boys in Vienna, don’t shoot me — Hashem is watching over me, because I’m one of His elite soldiers. No, no!”

The burning arrow of lead pierced through my arm, scorched the flesh and left a big, gaping, red hole, blackened around the edges.

My arm fell down, bleeding, and I sank down with it, screaming. I could feel the hot lead burning the flesh inside my arm, but I felt burning pride too. I knew — I was sure — that I’d been zocheh to be shot because I was doing a mitzvah, like all the kedoshim of every generation.

The wind that had played havoc with my veil, now gently, ironically, dropped it back over my face.

I was lifted into an ambulance, where paramedics bandaged me with gauze. It was painful, so painful as they pressed and pushed and pulled. They took me to the trauma unit at Shaare Zedek for preliminary treatment.

Perhaps someday you’ll pass by Safra Square, past the grove of palm trees, on your way to the Old City. Look at the pavement there by the light rail station, and you won’t see my blood on the paving stones. The municipal workers washed it away. You won’t see the bullet that scorched me, because the police investigator made sure to collect it and its casing. You won’t find my innocence there either, because it came with me in the ambulance and went into surgery with me.

And during the long days that followed, my innocence and I heard over and over again that I hadn’t done any kiddush Hashem, and I hadn’t done any mitzvah. I was wrong to put myself in danger over “this nonsense,” as everyone called it, and as Rav Stein in Bnei Brak told my father. It wasn’t a time of shmad — no one was trying to stop me from keeping any mitzvah — and I had no heter to endanger myself for a veil on my face.

So my korban, bleeding and scorched, remained with me, held in my splintered arm, without any takers. And that hurt most of all.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 691)