And as I jumped from one pair of eyes to the next, my horror at their lack of horror rose within me until paralysis set in around my throat and I sputtered to a stop. Mumbled, “This was before…” which was both a very terrible and very true thing to say.

Then I excused myself, sat on my bed, and cried — for the Holtzbergs, may G-d avenge their blood.

And for the young mother who could still cry, without the weight of 1,200 thundering souls constricting her tear ducts. Sat on my bed, with the trillion-ton emptiness in my children’s eyes resting in my hands. Almost too heavy to bear.

I turned their lack of shock over and over in my hands, tracing its cracks, its origins — how, when, and why it came to be. And then I reminded myself that it’s December of 2024.

And my children know, the same way I know, that there’s a gan in the south that woke up on October 8 of last year, with only four pupils left among the living.

And they know, the same way I know, all the things none of us want to know.

They know about babies stuffed in closets, found orphaned but alive. They know about lines of cars and bags and clothing and things abandoned, stranded on the road never to be returned to their rightful owners, only next of kin. They know about paragliders and zip ties, tunnels and homes set ablaze, and all the unspeakable horrors I can’t bring myself to write here. But you know them. I know them. So inevitably, they know them, too, because that’s how it is with teens. Whispers seem to reach them first. Whispers seem to hit them hardest.

They know as well as I know that if given the opportunity, Evil would have murdered every breathing thing from Eilat until Metula and back again, themselves included.

Themselves included. They know.

I had convinced myself that the thick layer of normalcy I’d wrapped them in this past year was as strong as steel — a fortress hewn from love to keep the world’s darkness at bay. But it was never steel. It was mist and air. Smokescreens stitched from Lululemon bags, Alo scrunchies, and little “just because” gifts. Extra hugs and extra ice cream trips and soccer cleats. Just because.

And I thought I was checking in, you know. Except that I measured their changes with a wooden yardstick and took them for haircuts and tsked at their toes popping out of their shoes and the skirts that grew short and the lanky wrists that appeared out of nowhere and praised G-d that they were growing and safe and happy. But I didn’t track when the whys of the little ones stopped.

December 2023? April 2024?

To the mamad, let’s go.

But why are they sending missiles?

Because.

Why though!

Because.

That’s how it was with the whys until somewhere along the way, they stopped asking. Because they already knew the answer.

They want to kill you, because you are a Jew.

All the sugar in the universe can’t coat that. A truck full of Amazon “just because” things won’t make a dent in the face of that sort of understanding.

And please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying the kids are broken.

I’m saying that what was once a blatant truth, carried implicitly through the ages on the weary backs of our ancestors, has become painfully clear once again.

Eisav soneh l’Yaakov.

Except they know it in their bones now. They know it in their little pounding hearts now.

Explain to me how I — whose biggest teenage worries were scratched CDs, finding enough shells for my latest T-shirt haul, whether daily straightening would fry my hair—

Explain to me how I — unlike my parents, but just like my great-grandparents, and their great-grandparents, and theirs and theirs — how I am somehow raising children who will always mourn upon hearing of the murder of Jews, may G-d avenge their blood.

Will always shake their heads side to side and cry.

But will never be very shocked.

Because the death of a Jew will always be a little bit expected.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 922)