Old/New World Discourse: Appreciating husbands who travel to India

Last Wednesday, en route home from ulpan, I heard the first broadcasted rumble of terrorism in India. That Wednesday, Computer Cowboy was in India.

That night, the next day, the next night and forward into Shabbat, my family received many phone calls and emails from friends here, in the Old World, and from there, in the New World. Most of our loved ones offhandedly acknowledging that they knew my husband had business on the great subcontinent, but that they believed it was only a matter of my reassuring them that he was in Israel during this present crisis. I could do no such thing.

I could pray. I could simplify life. I could reassure my children, whose routines are disturbed during ordinary travels undertaken by my husband, let alone during such dynamic ones. I repeated to all comers that only Hashem Has the ability to Guarantee safety.

In fairness, my husband was not in Mumbai, though he usually changes planes there. This trip, he had elected to route through the relatively safer haven of Frankfurt, having not seen any wisdom in transferring in Dubai (there are limited numbers of routes to Bangalore).

I am still numb about the senseless, to my mortal self, deaths. I can write nothing eloquent about those losses. All I can do is to urge and to participate in more mitzvot, in general, and to urge and to make more donations to Chabad, specifically. As for my husband, BH, he davened Birkhat Ha-Gomel today, the first day, following his return, b'ayan tov, when services included a Torah reading.
 
We have not yet debriefed. It is not so much that Boy-Getting-Taller broke his nose in his martial arts class, last night, which he did, or that several of us have had a significant bout of flu, which we have had, so much as it is that some matters take time to form, to find words for, and to feel okay about uttering.

During the days while my husband waited in India, having been unsuccessful, understandably, in getting an earlier flight out of the country, we spoke little about the events that were occurring. It was not only that we didn't want to frighten each other so much as that the human voice has limits when speaking the profane.

Before we made aliyah, folks asked us why we were moving to a "war zone." Years before that, before 9/11, some of those same folks claimed that the New World would always supply safe haven. Almost two centuries ago, India became a friend to Yids and seemed liked it would, forever, be a safe business destination.

I believe the only safety is the safety Hashem Creates. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Likely, my husband will continue his international jaunts. I don't think Europe is any safer than Asia. I don't think anything is guaranteed. I will continue to pray for his safe passage.