On The Surface

As you drive into Nitzanim you notice nice cute houses. The houses are yellow with red roofs. As you reach the beautiful green traffic circle with pretty flowers planted you can follow the signs to the area office. In the office you can get a nice map of the area with each house plotted out. You can drive through the neighborhood and see b'nei akiva madrichim in their laced up shirts running activites for young kids. You will see people carrying boxes into their little cute houses. You will be greeted by smiles, and people asking you if you need any help. If you walk into the houses, you will be greeted with a smile. They will ask you where you are from. They will be terribly insulted if you don't sit for a minute and eat or drink something. If you left right then you'd leave feeling that everything is going great. If you stay, and talk to people you'll find a different story. You'll find the story of the 11 year old girl who does not know how to get in touch with her friends, or where they are. You'll find the story of the 15 year old boy who does not know which school to choose, or how to go about choosing one. You'll find the story of the 2 year old girl who cries herself to sleep at night because she wants to home. You'll find the story of the 28 year old father who can't fathom how others can put up flags already. You'll find the 19 year old boy who needed to just get away from this fake life, he borrowed his parents car and went to Kfar Saba. You'll meet the mother of 7 who feels like a prisoner because she can't take her hat off in her own home, because she is now so close to the neighbors. You'll meet the 3 girls who are jump-roping who tell you their home is in Neve Dekalim and they're just here בינתים. You'll hear about all the stuff from a 400 sq meter house that didn't fit into a 90 sq meter caravilla. You'll hear an 18 year old girl who can't describe her house to her friend looking for it, becuase it looks like all the others. You'll have parents cry on your sholders because they don't know what else to do. You'll be able to pass tissues to your new friends who are crying as they watch on TV neighbors being pulled out of their homes, and from their shul. You can go for a walk with a mother of 5 who asks how to explain it all to her kids. You can sit with some of the evacuees who try to come to terms with what happened. You can listen to adults ask about faith, as they had prayed and believed that this would not come to be. You can try and comfort two young siblings who are scared now of new people, because they might try and take away this house from them too. You can talk to a young grandmother who speaks with love of what they built and cries as she tries to come to terms with the facts that she can't go back. You can help paint a young boy's room orange, because he doesn't want to go to sleep and forget. Mostly, if you stayed long enough, you leave with a heavy heart. Because you would know that in this quaint cute yellow/red house community there is so much pain, and while you were able to put on a bandaide to their wound, it was like throwing a stick into running water to start a dam.