WE

brought along more babies as they arrived, and after five years, we graduated to a bigger tent, because we’re fancy like that. Our camping collection grew as we purchased bedrolls and portable fans and cool flashlights.

We skipped last summer because we were mid-move, but the summer before that we went to a Golan campsite run by sweet and rugged Sarah and Tal. The kids tumbled out of the car, kicked off their shoes, and just like that, shook off a long winter of small apartment indoor living. My husband and I smiled; the four-hour drive had been worth it.

As evening set in, we spread out snacks and fruit on a nearby picnic table, and I sank onto the porch swing Sarah had set up in front of the tents. My husband headed off to the shower house and I swung back and forth gently, the setting sun on my face, a breeze whistling through the palm trees.

And then I bolted upright, because I was no longer alone.

“Um… there’s a dog,” I tried to call out. My voice came out as a squeak, mainly because the dog had settled itself onto the swing next to me. Like, right next to me. On the swing. Next to me.

I tried again. “There’s a dog!” I called out, too frightened to move a muscle.

My husband came sauntering back from the showers, towel slung over his shoulder. He froze when he saw me. Or, us.

“Ariella, that’s not a dog. It’s a coyote.”

The flap to the tent popped open.

“Actually,” said my then-seven-year-old son, sticking his head out for a second, “it’s a fox.”

It was a fox.

And we couldn’t get rid of it.

My husband slept sideways by the tent flap to protect the kids from any foxy nighttime visits that trip.

Apparently, it was the summer of animals because the next thing we knew, an actual giant dog wearing a collar inscribed with the name “Luli” decided to join our campsite. The kids loved Luli, and I just stayed on my swing, avoiding both foxes and dogs but happy that everyone else was enjoying.

There was the summer we went to the deer park in Odem way up in the northernmost part of the Golan and bumped into Mishpacha writer Ari Zivotofsky. He watched my kids playing around the deer’s compound and then said cheerily, “Well, we’re here to see if we can take one home to shecht.”

We were all only slightly traumatized.

We went to Tzuk Manara more than once, because while it might be a tourist trap, it was worth it; every time we went it was a day of fun and adventure, and we didn’t mind repeating the cable car rides across the valley, the archery classes, or the log slide. And when we climbed out of the cable car at the top of the mountain, there was a little train that drove us along the Jordan border. All we had to do was stick our hands out the window, and then we could proclaim that we were in Jordan.

The main theme of our summers became peace. We didn’t chase excitement or luxury or even adventure. We just reveled in the way the mountains made us feel, in the small-town attitude of the good people of Kiryat Shmona and Dafna and Odem. We watched our children turn into little mountain goats and loved every second of it.

T

his summer, we have no plans. We wouldn’t have the audacity to complain about remaining in Yerushalayim, but it’s just another thing our enemies have taken from us: our summers of careless peace.

And to think that behind our canceled summer are communities of people who have been forced to leave their homes, who are refugees of war. I think of Sarah and Tal of Golan Campsite, of Relly from Golan Suites, of all the nameless kind people we’d gotten to know over the summers. Where are they? Are they okay? What of the beautiful campgrounds we called home several days a year? Are they still there, or have they been incinerated by a Hezbollah missile, trampled by regulation army boots, torn up in operations?

Did it all ever exist, I wonder, because right now, it’s as distant as Never Never Land. Unattainable, unreachable, and remarkable only through our memories.

We teach the kids about disappointment and changes in plans, how only Hashem knows and Mashiach will come any minute and we’ll be camping up north probably even this summer – and in all honesty, we’re speaking to ourselves as well. Because even if, as we get older, we get better at masking our feelings, we still feel them. And after a long winter of war and pain and sadness, camping under the stars in the northernmost part of this country we love would be a dream come true.

For today, we shelve that dream, and we pray for the wellbeing and safety of every member of our nation in all four corners of our world. We daven that we should all be gathered in Jerusalem soon, free to roam to the north and south of Eretz Yisrael in peace and prosperity.

Ariella Schiller has six published books and is contributing editor at Mishpacha. She lives in Jerusalem with her family.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1021)