“In Arabic we say that every situation has a word or phrase that suits it perfectly.”

I’m on the plane to Boston. Once there, I’ll pick up Miss Purple in the off-site parking lot and start the long drive home. It’s Thursday, September 12, and my brother, whom I left behind in the Jerusalem train station, where we parted, seems to have finally turned a corner yesterday. An excellent cardiologist has taken over his case, referring him to others who will examine other health issues plaguing him. He coughs less, breathes better.

On Wednesday morning we walked slowly to a nearby café for breakfast (his first endurance test for the day) and returned home through a small space left wild, some 3 city blocks long. Small if, like me, you’re accustomed to the vast forests of rural Massachusetts, but large enough for residents of a highly urbanized Jerusalem. I was moved by the trees and haphazard rocks, a few dogs and humans walking by, finding relief from the constant construction of new apartment buildings.

My brother walked ahead of me, nowhere as fast as he usually does. His walking is usually so brisk and purposeful, but not now, he’s not regained his energy. He’s not happy about that. wants to get back to work.

I haven’t slept well in Israel, for many reasons. I tried to describe it to my sister before leaving Israel. “Everything is so intense here,” I told her. “Everywhere you go you’re surrounded by big posters and banners featuring the faces of the hostages and words like: He’s your father, too, over a photo of an older man. In captivity 10 months over the face of a smiling young woman who you know is not smiling now. Or Our heart is also in captivity, with you.

I’m deeply moved by how an entire country resonates with these hostages and their families. When something like this happens in the US, most of us don’t feel so close to it. At the same time, I have no illusions about the implications of the devastation in Gaza.

“Everybody feels on edge here,” Ruth replied. ‘We have hostages who return to us in body bags. Tens of thousands of families who used to live in the south and north have become refugees with nowhere to go, we have an incompetent government, and there’s no end in sight. There’s a trembling in the air and everybody’s vibrating with it, like sharing a pulse that’s way above normal but you can’t slow it down even if you’re careful about how much news you watch on TV or listen to on the radio. You can’t relax or rest because anything can happen at any time.’

So what’s the right word or phrase to fully capture the situation? Exhaustion? Like Sami Awad and other peace activists, tired and burned out after 30 years of work, after the events of October 7 and its aftermath in Gaza and the West Bank?

If Israelis are high-strung and constantly anxious, Palestinians are terrified, Sami told me. “Checkpoints are closed, there are no jobs, no money. In Bethlehem people are sure that the government and settlers will finally use this as an opening to annex the entire West Bank, taking away more and more land, making the situation so untenable as to cause families to leave or expel them directly. They’ll make everything one big military zone and then hand over the land to the settlers.”

So is terror correct here, with peace activists receiving phone calls in the middle of the night from Palestinian and Bedouin villages that militant settlers are back setting fire to fields, trees, homes, and cars/ Some of it is reported in the media; most isn’t.

I sit here on the plane to Boston staring out the window at a blue, undisturbed sky. But I feel like Bodhidharma, another one of our ancestors who may never have actually existed, but is reputed to have sat facing a cave wall for many years. That’s how I feel, as though facing a wall

I always thought of that Indian sage who brought Buddhism to China as someone contemplating the very core of emptiness, but that may not be true.

He came from one land and traveled long and hard to reach another. The people were strange, their customs and language even stranger. He was introduced to an emperor who demanded to know what he gets for being so deserving, and he had to tell him: “Nothing.” That couldn’t have been easy. Had he been afraid for his life? And when the emperor, maybe in disbelief, asked him who the hell he was, he told him that he didn’t know.

Could you imagine talking like that to Joe Biden in the White House? To a Donald Trump?

What were his feelings as he stared at the wall in his cave? Did he miss India? Did he wonder what he was doing in China as an old man? He was an immigrant after all. Did he feel out of place, wondering if he’d done anything of value, or whether it all came to nothing in the end? Was he tired, burned out, alone?

Did he look at the wall in an effort to contain the upheaval, acknowledging the ups and downs but holding them loosely, finally seeing the emptiness at the core? Is emptiness the word I’m looking for? That’s not what I feel now, looking out the window. So many pictures in the mind, photos of people I love. A beloved nephew was called back to the army to serve in the West Bank not far from where Sami lives. What can happen there?

I parted from my sister yesterday afternoon. She’d canceled some work to spend more time with me and our parting was, as usual, emotional. “How are you getting to Mordechai’s home?” she asked me. “Should I drive you?”

“I’ll walk.”

“Are you sure?”

“I can bear strong emotions,” I told her, “but I need walks and open air to remind me of the big space.”

Is that sitting and staring at the wall?

We all know that things will change, the downward curve could go up again, we’ll smell renewal in the air. But in what direction will the clock move? A voice whispers: Life.

Is that the suitable word here?

It’s too early, too soon. There are times when even the hardest-working, well-meaning individuals feel small and powerless. Not because that’s what we are but because big historical forces are at work here and they dwarf our puny efforts.

In the Middle East, everyone agrees on only one thing: Nothing will be as it was. Waves will crash that have been gathering force over a very long time. Things will change. How?