Shalom Dear friends

It is Friday afternoon here, and we are at the last minute Shabbat preparations.

As I write this message, katyusha rockets continue to fall on Haifa, Kirayt Shmona and Maalot.

Here how it works; you are watching TV or listening to the radio, and every few minutes, the broadcast is interrupted with a message from the Civil Defense, notifying that a siren just sounded in … – a list of places – and residents of these places are required to go into shelters or safe areas.

The drill is to go to the shelter, and wait 15 minutes – which is the suspected duration of a barrage – then you can come out until the next time.

Luckily – here in Yokneam – it's been quiet since Sunday. (My son Noam is still a bit apprehensive when he goes outside). On the other hand we can still here the rockets falling in the nearby valley. And thus – the war of "Peace for Israel" continues. Or may be we should just call it the War of Independence continues.

Let me tell you about Sgt Or Shachar (21) from Kibbutz Yad Mordechai.

Kibbutz Yad Mordechai is located just north of the Gaza strip, and is well known for its heroic battles of survival in 1948.

Or Shachar was killed on Aug 5th when a Hezbollah mortar hit the personnel carrier which he was commanding. (The commander of a personnel carrier is the first one to lift his head up from inside, in order to see the surroundings, and is therefore the most vulnerable).

Or is the son of Yossi Shachar, whose grandfather Meir Finkelshtein was one of 23 members of the Kibbutz who fell in the 1948 War of Independence, defending the kibbutz against Arab invasion. Meir Finkelshtein was killed 58 years ago from an Egyptian mortar shell. His son Yossi never got to know his father.

As he tells the story of his fallen father, and now his fallen son, the sound of Israeli artillery and terrorist kasam rockets can distinctly be heard.

And so the War of independence continues.

Let me tell you about Maj. Natan Yahav, 36, of Kiryat Ono.

Natan – nicknamed Nati – an electronics engineer at Motorola Israel , left a widow – Sharon and 2 orphans Noam (5), and Yahely (2.5).

Natan was named in the name of his uncle, who fell in the war of Independence.

And so the War of Independence continues…

May it end – once and for all – quickly…

From this Shabbat's Haftorah Isaiah 49:

19. For your ruins and your desolate places and your land that has been destroyed, for now you shall be crowded by the inhabitants, and those who would destroy you shall be far away.

20. Your children of whom you were bereaved shall yet say in your ears, "The place is too narrow for me; move over for me so that I will dwell."

21. And you shall say to yourself, "Who begot these for me, seeing that I am bereaved and solitary, exiled and rejected, and who raised these? Behold I was left alone; these-[from] where are they?"

22. So said the Lord God, "Behold I will raise My hand to the nations, and to the peoples will I raise My standard, and they shall bring your sons in their armpits, and your daughters shall be borne on their shoulder[s].

23. And kings shall be your nursing fathers and their princesses your wet nurses; they shall prostrate themselves to you with their face on the ground, and they shall lick the dust of your feet, and you shall know that I am the Lord, for those who wait for Me shall not be ashamed.

Shabbat Shalom

Hanan Caspi