The latest post from Dr. Binyamin Klempner who was a guest in Episode 276 of The Yakking Show. You can read all his updates since the October 7 terrorist attacks in the Updates From Israel category.
So many tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. When I’m doing yoga, maybe I’ll be in Savasana Pose or Child’s Pose, and things are quiet, and I’m alone, I’ll start to cry. Sometimes the tears make it out of my eyes. Sometimes they just well up in my chest and get stuck. Constipated tears. I was speaking with a soldier today who had saved a woman during October 7th from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. She handed him her dead baby. She pleaded with him to revive the dead child. He just stood there holding the dead baby. He told me he found out who the woman is. He wants to be in touch with her. I told him that when he visits her he should tell this story,
There was a woman who lost four sons to cancer. After she buried her fourth son, for all practical purposes, she stopped living. She didn’t leave her apartment. She stopped working. She stopped speaking to her parents, siblings, friends, husband and other children except for the bare essentials of communication. To make a long story short, eventually her mother and her husband got her to go to a wedding. She didn’t want to be there. She was sort of tricked into going. When she got to the wedding hall she walked straight into a phone booth, pretending to be on the phone, in reality, crying into the phone. After some time there was a knock on the phone booth door. An old woman stood there. The crying woman, not looking at the old woman so as not to expose her tears, waving the old woman away. The old woman persisted. Finally the crying woman opened the phone booth door and told the old woman to go away. The old woman looked patiently and caringly at the crying woman, and said to her, “I know you’re not on the phone with anyone, I know what you’re doing. You’re crying into the phone. You’re hiding here so that you won’t need to go into the wedding hall.” The crying woman, although shaken to the core, insisted, “Go away! I’m on the phone!” The old woman continued gently but firmly, “Listen to me! I survived three years in the Concentration Camps. I lost my husband and all of my children. I lost my parents and all of my siblings. After the war I arrived in America and remarried a Holocaust survivor like myself. Two weeks after the wedding he had a breakdown and lost his mind. He’s insane and unable to grant me a divorce. This is how it’s been for forty years. I support myself by going to weddings and collecting charity for myself. I cry everyday. I cry all day long. I don’t know what happened to you that you’re in that phone booth crying, but I do know that the people in your life tell you to stop crying and to get over whatever happened. But I’m telling you that you should never stop crying. You should continue crying. And you should cry all day long. But you should make your tears matter. Your tears are precious. Cry. But cry for the right reasons. Cry for things that are important! No go into the wedding hall and dance! And cry as you dance!”
Telling the story to the soldier I began choking up on my words with tears coming out of my eyes. The soldier, also with tears in his eyes, said that when he meets the woman he’s going to tell her that story.
Along the way I spoke to a soldier along the side of a highway. We spoke about the Summer Olympics in Paris. He said that there was an interview with a ninety-two-year-old fellow who had been an olympic gold medalist diving champion in his youth. This old man said that from the moment a diver’s feet leave the dive platform to the moment the water catches him, he’s in a chaotic freefall. What makes a dive beautiful is the grace and serenity in which he falls. Connecting it to the war and current circumstances, the soldier said that those of us living within the Land of Israel are currently in a free fall. We don’t know when we’ll make contact with the water. But the most important thing we can do as we fall toward the water below, how far below, we don’t know, is to fall through the chaos with grace and beauty.
Most of the soldiers I made coffee for yesterday had just arrived. One group of combat soldiers just finished training three weeks ago. Green. Real green. But, for all their greenness, calm, sincere, and polite. A fit group of soldiers. They’ll do well. But I do wish this war ends soon.
There we were, three-hundred meters from the border of Lebanon, the two soldiers spoke about the explosions being just “a normal” part of life. Just then…BOOM…Right near us. A rocket. Close enough to feel the shock waves. Close enough to see the flames of unspent fuel. Close. Too close. Just for safety we went into the roadside bomb shelter, although it didn’t feel much safer than being outside. One of the soldiers I was in the shelter with said although he’s only doing check-point duty, not actual combat, the incessant booms has him screwed up for good. He was embarrassed to have PTSD without having been in close quarters or field combat. I told him not to apologize. Ten months of incessant booms is enough to cause PTSD. I confided in him that I sometimes wake up from my sleep hearing the sound of a boom, or gunfire, but there was no boom and there was no gunfire. Just my own PTSD. I told him that when I hear something drop in the apartment above me, I’m momentarily alarmed with the thought, “Was that a boom?” Often, when I hear the hum of machinery, especially a fan, I prepare myself for a drone. PTSD. He knew exactly what I was talking about and was comforted that a civilian shares his experience. We discussed how being, for the most part, forgotten, first by the international Jewish community, now by the citizens of Israel’s “bubble” (i.e. Tel Aviv), only confounds our PTSD. Vietnam War Syndrome. Soldiers returning home to less than a hero’s welcome. I held their pain. Took it on as my own. Ten months ago, when this war first started I visited the troops, schlepping in supplies. Now, ten months in, I visit the troops, burdening their pain. Schlepping out some of their hurt and trauma.
In the meantime, I’ve begun working on the next stage of all this. The creation of a suicide prevention and PTSD recovery center for IDF vets. It’ll be located in northern Tel Aviv, near the Universities and near the train line, so that it’ll be accessible to vets throughout the country. I’ve been asked why I don’t join up and get a job with the Ministry of Veteran Affairs. There are two reasons for this. The first is because the MVA is bureaucratic, only marginally effective, heavy on protocol, and unimaginative, the last thing a soldier who is thinking of pulling the trigger on himself needs. The second reason is simply because I’m too out-of-the-box for them to even consider hiring me. In fact, about five months ago I applied to work for the MVA. They laughed me off. We’re still bleeding. We’re still torn apart. And, despite it all, the white blood cells of healing have already begun their work. Despite it all, despite still being in the throes of sickness, we’ve already begun the healing process.
If you’re interested in getting involved with this life saving project please email me.
Here is the link to the mock-up of the brochure for the project.
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The war still goes on. Support it, deny it, either way, it’s your war.
If you’d like to donate, the soldiers really appreciate your support!
Here’s the link: 
https://thechesedfund.
Many, many thanks and much gratitude to all of you who have given so generously. You’re the exceptions to the rule. YOU’RE AMAZING!!! YOU’RE THE CIVILIAN HEROS!!! You know who you are! Thank you!!!
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Also, here’s the link to my book, purchase a few copies for your local libraries.
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Stay Safe! Stay Strong! Stay Courageous!
Sincerely,
Binyamin Klempner