10 | OCTOBER 12 • 2023 J
N

essay
Thank You, God. It is an Honor Serving You.
D

ear God,
I don’t know what 
to say so I’m just going 
to start with the basics. You, of 
course, know everything, all our 
thoughts and feel-
ings, the comings 
and goings of each 
of us. What has 
happened and 
what will happen. 
I do feel and know 
You’re watching 
us and loving us 
during all of this. 
You’ve never left us, never left 
me, even when I feel desperately 
alone. 
I tell everyone how I talk to 
You, how I started talking to You 
when I was a scared teenager. That 
I learned about you from reading 
the translated prayer book at my 
temple. I loved that book and I’m 
so grateful to my parents for bring-
ing me to that place. 
I talk to You in the shower, on 
my walks, before and after I eat 
and use the bathroom, before I 
go to sleep and when I wake up. 
And even occasionally in syna-
gogue, though not recently. I cry 
to You when I’m scared or lonely. 
Sometimes I ignore You and focus 
only on my own thoughts. 
The truth is most of the time I 
feel painfully disconnected from 
You. But somehow I know to keep 
trying and to learn from others. 
I know You want us to love each 
other down here in this world. 
I haven’t always been so good at 
that. My kids say I’m spiritual. I 
often carry a Book of Psalms with 
me. Even though I’ve heard how 
powerful those words are, I still 
have to force myself to open it. 
I’m often a hypocrite. I criticize 
my spouse and others, including 
myself. I have been jealous. I have 
lied. I have been indifferent. I hav-
en’t always honored my parents or 
myself as a Jewish woman. 

As I sit here with my dog 
and cats on my back porch, my 
kids are still asleep in their beds 
upstairs. I encouraged Danny to go 
to the Kollel to learn and pray with 
the other men there. We are also 
preparing practically, researching 
bomb shelters — which one can 
we get to in less than two minutes? 
Reading preparedness websites, 
stocking up on food and water, 
getting advice. It’s sort of like we 
would and did in Florida when 
hurricanes were coming. We sent 
a video of our downstairs room to 
someone to help us assess if it’s safe 
to stay there. 
My friends’ husbands and sons 
have been called up to help protect 
our beautiful land. My teenage son 
is still too young for the army. 
We made aliyah as a family 
13 months ago. It is literally the 
land promised to us by You, God. 
You want us here. It’s what I’ve 
learned, and somehow I know 
this with my entire being, my 
mind, body and soul. 
It is here — this tiny piece of 
land on a spinning planet in an 
infinite universe — that we are 
plugged in. But still I sometimes 
forget my mission here. It’s so easy 
to get distracted. 
Nearly every page of the Tanakh 
bursts with passionate descriptions 
about the beauty, holiness and sig-
nificance of the Land of Israel. 
It is a Land that the Lord your 
God seeks out; the eyes of the 
Lord your God, are always upon 
it, from the beginning of the year 
to the end of the year. Deuteronomy 
(11:12)
I will return the captivity of my 
people Israel, and they will rebuild 
desolate cities and settle them. 
Amos (9:14)
Now I sit here, just after the 
High Holy Days when I didn’t pray 
or do as much as I could have, 
feeling the cool autumn breeze 
with a pit in my stomach. What 

is going on around me is literally 
incomprehensible. But we have 
once again come together as a peo-
ple, like we do in every generation. 
Our people’s story is filled with not 
just persecution, but also faith and 
miracles. 
We are here to be a light unto 
the nations. But how can we know 
light if there is no darkness? So, I 
sort of understand. 
I talk to You and I practice med-
itation. It’s hard for me — a few 
deep breaths in and out and my 
mind wanders. I think You laugh 
at me. Maybe You want to say You 
love me, that I’m enough. 
I sob for the people I see in the 
videos, moms and children and 
others experiencing such cruelty 
I literally can’t even process it. So 
then after another fit of tears, I go 
back to compartmentalizing. 
What do you want and need 
from me, God? 
I hear jet after jet flying over-
head. In between there is peaceful 
silence. Another deep breath. 
Where are You? 
People literally suffer through-
out this world every day, here 
in Israel and around the world. 
I know this intellectually. I hear 
about it. But it’s so easy to be indif-
ferent. To focus only on myself. 
Yes, my responsibility is first to me 
and my children, but they must 
know, we must know, that there 
is an enemy, seen and unseen. 
Sometimes the enemy is within 
us, and sometimes it’s the scary 
men with their faces covered doing 
unspeakable things to our fellow 
humans. 
Why are we not all screaming 
and crying — demanding an end 
to it all? We have so much power, 
much more than we realize. 
The worst place to be is in 
denial, to not know or to forget 
that you matter. You have to pick 
a team. 
I want people to know they have 

SO. MUCH. POWER. That send-
ing someone good thoughts and 
prayers, and doing some random 
act of goodness, really makes a dif-
ference. I want to tell them to open 
their mouths, even if it’s the first 
time ever. 
No one escapes death, which is 
actually the beginning. Or a new 
beginning. 
Here You’re so hidden from us, 
God, it sometimes feels impossible 
to lift the veil. 
But in those beautiful, 
life-changing moments when I can 
hear You and actually know You’re 
there… 
…ah, the breeze again. The 
Hebrew word for breeze is ruach. 
In Hebrew, we say ruach hakodesh, 
holy wind, to refer to God. It’s one 
of many ways we use finite lan-
guage to refer to the Infinite, to try 
to know You. 
But You know all this, of course. 
Soon, as my soul is set free of this 
body, I will once again be reunited 
with You and Your infinite loving 
light. 
For now, I’ll speak to You as if 
I’m already there, and trust what 
You’ve been telling me. 
God, please keep my children 
safe from harm and protect us all 
during this time as we turn to you. 
Ease my mother’s heart. She is 
so worried. Tell her You are always 
caring for me and help her to lis-
ten. 
Danny has returned. We are 
sitting outside together, computers 
opened. Soon we will go look at 
the shelters nearby and come up 
with a plan. 
 

Mindy Rubenstein is a mom, author, 

artist and spiritual business consultant. 

She grew up secular on the west coast of 

Florida, discovered Torah Judaism as an 

adult, and has spent 16+ years learning 

and growing religously and spiritually. She 

made aliyah in 2022 and lives in the forest 

of Kiryat Tiv’on overlooking Mount Carmel. 

Find here at MindyRubenstein.com.

Mindy 
Rubenstein
Times of 
Israel

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