I felt compassion; however I still struggled to be totally empathetic — to feel the pain.

I have long forgotten what he’s collecting for. But over the years he’s been coming to the shul every year between Succos and Chanukah we’ve become friends. At Minchah though he looked very different from his normal jovial self. He looked pale shaken and worried.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“What’s the matter? I’m leaving tomorrow! I must get home!” He was incredulous at my question.

I didn’t understand. “Why are you leaving? What happened?”

“Why am I leaving? Don’t you listen to the news? My family is in Ashkelon. They’re traumatized by the incessant sirens which seem timed to inflict the greatest psychological fear possible. The siren sounds as the children are just falling asleep and my wife is forced to wake them and rush them to the crowded bomb shelters. That’s what’s wrong.”

I lowered my head in shame shocked at my own lack of empathy for my fellow Jew.

We decide to say Tehillim at the end of davening.

Everyone there knows they should stay yet somehow as we begin Tehillim too many of the men suddenly have to leave.

How do I feel the pain of my fellow Jews when I’m 6000 miles away? How can I feel their fear and anxiety?

We thought Yerushalayim was protected and untouchable; we assumed Yerushalayim was beyond the reach of our enemies. And then the news arrived. On a Shabbos evening in Israel when it was still Friday afternoon in the States we heard that a missile had been aimed at Yerushalayim.

On Sunday I called my children in Yerushalayim. My oldest son told me how my grandchildren were playing downstairs in the courtyard of the building. As the air raid sirens wailed the older children herded the younger ones into the stairwell where my son found them huddled and frightened.

I felt compassion; however I still struggled to be totally empathetic — to feel the pain.

Intellectually I understood the fear of the people of Israel; however the missiles seemed to be for the most part missing their mark and baruch Hashem most people were escaping unscathed.

Although I spoke to my shul about the need to feel the pain of our fellow Jew and the need to empathize with their fear and anxiety a part of me was still in denial and did not quite feel their pain.

A few days later there was another siren heard in Yerushalayim this time during the early afternoon hours when most children were in school. That evening I called my son to find out where everyone was during the attempted attack.

My eight-year-old grandson Eliyahu picked up the phone and asked as only an eight-year-old can “Mi zeh?” (Who is this?)

I told him it was Zeidy and that I was happy that he’d picked up the phone as I wanted to know where he was when the siren sounded.

He told me he’d been in class and as soon as the siren went off the rebbi stopped teaching and took all the boys to the school’s bomb shelter. Afterwards a few minutes later the rebbi and the boys returned to their classroom.

“Were all the boys scared?” I asked Eliyahu

A pause.

“Not really. Only one boy was really scared.”

“And who was the one boy?”

He answered me in a near inaudible voice. “Ani. [It was me.] I was scared.”

That is when a sense of dread and anxiety overwhelmed me. That is when I finally felt the fear of all of my brethren in Eretz Yisrael.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 437)