The Twelve Step War

A Post Script to the war with Iran…

There seems to be a bit of confusion about the actual name of our recent war. Apparently, Netanyahu placed a note in the Western wall. It said in Hebrew, “The People will arise like a lioness and raise itself like a lion.” Or, the short version, “The People Will Arise Like a Lion”.

Then, Trump comes along and changes the name of the war, as if it’s the Gulf of Mexico or something, to “The Twelve Day War,” . This, of course, is reminiscent of the six-day war, but double.

So which is it? Lions? Or Days?

I decided to take a more therapeutic approach. So here is my Post Script to this war, from the point of view of all of those who tried to cope. I call it

The Twelve Step War

Step 1: Accept the reality

We are a nation of zombies, staring each other in the eyes, not fully comprehending. We were sleep-deprived, and the children drove us loony. The joke was that Covid married October 7th: fear of October 7 combined with entertaining the kids during Covid, gave birth to the war with Iran. Haha.

Step 2: Have faith in a Higher Power

We do not have a safe room in our house. I did not mind going to that bomb shelter, the miklat. It was actually a shul. The men were learning Torah. The women said psalms. There was a tiny baby with Down’s Syndrome, content just to be in his mother’s arms. Sometimes the women spoke together quietly. There was no panic, although we could hear the bombs.

Step 3: Embark on some soul-searching

At first we crouched down in our hallway and closed all the doors. Then, after Shabbat we realized, sadly, that the only casualties were those who were not in a safe room. So my daughter and I decided that we had better run to, not the shelter nearby, but the next shelter. We had to cross the parking lot and another street to get to it.

Step 4: Submit to the higher power

Everything is from G-d…so my husband wanted to stay in our little “safe” area. But then he decided to come to the shelter with us.

“If I get hit by a missile in the house,” he told me,” “You’ll probably kill me.” True.

Alternatively, I was afraid I’d die from embarrassment if he ran out with his mis-matched pj’s. His shirt had horizontal stripes, and his pants had vertical. I talked him into putting pants over his pajamas.

Step 5: Admit your failings.

OK, I need to do a repair, a tikkun, to fix all the mistakes I made as a mother. So I do this day camp for my grandchildren—“Savta’s Keytana”.

The name of the camp this year was “Tehilim Neged Tillim”, or “Psalms against Missiles”, although it doesn’t have the same ring to it in English.

Step 6: Be ready to let go

In the keytana,

We painted our papers and our hands and our floors,

Played with water, made mud out of the garden

Ate chicken and potatoes.

Ate more.

Ate “Cariot”, that super sweet cereal.

I was happy to have them, and at the end of the day I was happy to let them go…

Step 7: Show humility

I can’t do this alone. I need coffee.

Step 8: Show willingness to make amends

One morning they served chocolate pudding—“Milkies” we call them—in the miklat

The ChatGPT version of a Milkie.

“Oof!” My grandson groaned when he found out about the Milkies. “Why couldn’t I be there?” We had carried him in his blanket to the miklat two nights before, but he missed the actual Milkies. He was already home. His mother bought him a slurpee, instead.

Mostly, they did not want to spend the night at our house. Why should they run a 1/4 kilometer away when they could peacefully sleep in the safe room at their own houses?

“Who sleeps in your safe room?” I ask one of my grandchildren.

“Mommy and Abba on one bed. The mattress on the floor in between the beds with Miriam and Shani at one end, and Mordechai at the other. The crib fits in at the end of the beds with Sara and Yehudit shmooshed in it. Gitty and Elisheva are on the other bed.”

A pajama party. Who would want to miss it?

Step 9: Begin to make amends

I was talking to my friend in the Miklat about Milkies and other sundry stuff. She told me as a child she remembers running to the bomb shelter which was a few blocks from her home.

“I guess it was the Yom Kippur War,” Mali told me. “We reached the miklat, and apparently someone had kept wine there. That’s what I remember from the war: the smell of old wine…”

Some kids remember old wine and some will remember Milkies. Hopefully some will remember their grandmother’s chicken and potatoes.

Step 10: Check in with your progress

Yuval Haganon is a kindergarten teacher. (Kindergarten =gan in Hebrew). He thought he would do a sort of “debriefing” after the War. You know, he wanted to prevent PTSD for the children of our nation. Here he is, checking in with the progress of his tiny tots:

Today I came to the kindergarten after the war, and I was very wary. I’ll tell you the truth, I was worried about meeting the children. I really didn’t know how I was going to open it up with them. ‘OK, I said to myself, I’ll focus on whatever comes up.’

So I come into the classroom…

“Children, sweet children, I have a question: who is really happy to come back to gan?”

Literally no one said ‘me!’

So I said to them, “OK, so who was a little bit shaken from the sirens? Who was a little scared?”

Complete silence. No one said a word.

So I say to myself, they have post trauma. They are in denial. Someone has to lay out feelings. So I open up to them. I say, “You know, I was very shaken when there were sirens. I was even a little scared.”

And then Uri started crying, and I said to myself, ‘Great! Feel it! Let it all out! It’s fine to feel. It’s good!’

So I say, “Uri, why are you sad?”

And what does he say to me?

“I’m sad because the war ended.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“Because we made a miklat really really fun with lots of dogs and snacks!”

And then they all started sharing crazy miklat stories, that there were friends and food and music and that their parents were with them the whole time, and that they didn’t want to leave the miklat.

In short, Uri is not calming down. Uris is sad and does not calm down. He wants the war to keep going.

Step 11: Discover your plan and your purpose

Another boy comes up to him and says, “But Uri, don’t worry, there will be more wars.”

Then Uri says, “Not true! There won’t be any more wars! Iran died. We killed Iran, and there won’t be any more wars!” And he’s sad. Sad!

And then, the same child tells him, “But Uri, you forgot. There are lots of other countries that we can have a war with. There’s Australia, and there’s Japan, and there’s even Haifa!”

Step 2: Share the message

Then Yuval HaGanon praises the parents. “I don’t know what you did, but you did an amazing job.”

Parents, grandparents, fighter pilots and all who prayed for success: you were true lions and lionesses.

Thus ended the Twelve Step War.

P.S. A Post Script to the post script. We just had another missile. From Iran? No, from the Houthis! Those impudent brats.