Cheifetz Chashud

As I'm sure many of you have heard, last night at 8:30 pm terrorist entered Yeshivat Mercaz Harav and started spraying bullets. Eight students were murdered and 11 injured. In addition, Sderot, Ashkelon and other parts of Israel have been dealing with the constant barrage of rocket attacks. As Israel tries to defend herself, the world tells her to use restraint or worse condemns the counter terrorist missions. People are starting to feel the strain of the situation, they are our brothers and sisters out there getting murdered. We feel their pain and their loss, but yet somehow we have to put it in the back of our minds and move on with every day life. Last night things really hit home for us. First the attack on the Yeshiva students who were sitting and learning. Innocent lives snuffed out in a second for what? I went to sleep last night with heavy thoughts on my mind. You could imagine the jolt of fear I felt when I was awoken after 1 am by the blaring lights of a police van in the parking lot not 200 feet away. The policeman came on his loud speaker and said something that I could not decipher. My heart was racing but as I looked around everything seemed calm. The police man that I could see was smoking a cigarette. The next to wake up was Zvi and then Rivka (David had fallen asleep working in his office and did not hear anything as he works in the mamad). There was a loud BOOM. Car alarms were set off and people started gathering around. The "party" lasted another 5 minutes and then all was quiet again. I explained to the kids that some alert person found something suspicious and the police came and blew it up in case it was dangerous. They had experienced this before and were not afraid. We all went back to sleep after that.