Gilad is home

It's so hard to put into words the overwhelming feelings I have had today. I woke up at 5:30 am, not thinking anything special, but unable to sleep. At 7 am Alen called from on her way to work to say that Gilad Shalit would be released this morning. I told the kids they could not watch any cartoons and put on the tv news, something we rarely watch here. Sasha said that all the soldiers had come home but Gilad Shalit did not come home.

We watched the build up on tv for awhile and then I dropped the kids at day care and got in the car to work. On my way to work I was listening to the radio news and several text messages came in from security updates I got. Then I sat at work with one eye on Haaretz.

I talked to my boss about how one of the people being released today is the woman who blew up the Sbarro restaurant in August 2001, right after Alen and I moved to Jerusalem. His friend's daughter, Malki Roth, was killed in that bombing, and her parents started Keren Malki in her memory to help families of children with disabilities.

I read online about the other woman who everyone was talking about today - the one who lured a 16 year old boy from Ashkelon over facebook and got him to Ramallah where he was shot. I remember when that happened.

I went to the bank. The person who served me is someone who has worked there since I lived here. He said no one's mind is on work today. I started talking about the Sbarro bombing and the bombing at Moment cafe that happened in March, 2002. I was a block away when it happened, though I did not tell him that. He told me about a customer who was right in the cafe and was miraculously unharmed. We agreed that we should hear only good news.

I came home and watched Gilad return to Mitzpe Hilah. We postponed dinner to watch Noam Shalit talk to the press at 6 pm. In our Sukkah at dinner Gabi said, "I don't understand why 1,000 Palestinian prisoners are exchanged for one person. It's a damn iska (agreement)."

We talked about how Sasha was less than 2 months old when Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. I tried to imagine what 5 years has meant - to him, to his parents. That's Sasha's whole life, all his growing, all his years.

I once heard Elan Ezrachi talk about how Israel is considered a "high context society" - where what happens to the nation affects each person. I have never felt it more strongly than today. The kids' day care provider was telling me how she had the kids watch the news and how people would be asking, "do you remember where you were when Gilad Shalit was released?" I was too overwhelmed to think of what to say. Then she asked me (maybe a little suspiciously), "were you watching this today"? And I reassured her, yes, yes, the tv, the radio, the internet, yes, I've been glued to it.

And all day I'm wondering - what does it mean to be a parent, to be a child, to be a citizen of this place. I so often wonder what I am doing here. And I have thought of something I heard on the radio - how one of the Hamas leaders, I think it was Haniyeh, told a reporter how he admires the Israeli spirit and commitment, how the Israeli people cared so much about one person.

And I thought of the poem, "Each of us has a name", and of how what has gone on with Gilad Shalit has expressed the notion that he who saves one life is as if he saved the entire world.

And I've felt sad because with all the joy of Gilad's release there's still the overwhelming sadness of the situation we are living in and the sense of intractability. And the fear - that the release of people who have taken innocent lives will lead to more terror attacks, that any one of us could become G-d forbid Noam or Aviva Shalit and any one of our children could be Gilad Shalit. And amazement at the nobility and persistence of the Shalit family, how they have stood their ground and fought for this day, and incredible joy that it is finally here.