My wife and I were given tickets, so on May 15 we went to see a play, something we seldom have time for. It was a stage version of “The Sound of Music” (Rodgers and Hammerstein, 1959).
The audience had turned off their cell phones and were attentive and polite. In the middle of the first act, as the seven children of the von Trapp family were singing “Do-re-mi,” dozens of phones started ringing across the auditorium. We realized it was an emergency alarm. A hundred red spots on maps on our phone screens displayed the threatened communities across Israel.
The theater director came on stage, halted the performance, and announced there would be a 10-minute recess. Everyone waited calmly in their seats. There was nowhere to go, as the bomb shelter would never have held a thousand people.
Minutes later, the play resumed to thunderous, defiant applause and the children, unshaken, continued singing joyfully. After every song, the boisterous reaction was repeated.
This reflects more than an indomitable spirit. Not even daily missiles from Yemen will deter Israelis from celebrating life. Neither missiles, nor music festival massacres, nor arsonists’ fires (new ones ignited every week), deter them from celebrating life.
Evil enemies wish to destroy us, but we will continue forward, like the Jews who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem with a trowel in one hand and a weapon in the other to protect against attack (Neh. 4:16-18 [10-12]).