I want to tell you a story today.   As you know, I am knee-deep in bar mitzvah/visiting family/Half Marathon training.  In addition to that, we’ve got rockets falling and buses exploding again.  Living in this strange country where “life just goes on” despite things that would definitely grind the US to a halt, takes its toll on us in a deep internal way.

I spent yesterday morning flitting and flailing from thing to thing, not accomplishing much of anything, with a giant lump of emotion in the pit of my stomach: sadness, fear, agitation, anxiety and depression were my companions throughout the morning.  Oh, and did I mention rainy cold weather that has interrupted my race training and exercise routine. (And we know how without exercise, I am more likely to fall prey to my negative emotions. )

When my 9-year old came home from school I barked “Take the dog out!” and off he went without me even kissing him hello-how-was-school-how-are-you.  Clearly a bad state of affairs.

A few minutes later, same child bursts through the door, panicked and crying.  Clinging to his sweatshirt is the tiniest, wettest, most pathetic looking little kitten I have ever seen.  It is mewing wildly and trying to burrow into a warm, dry spot in his arms.

“Ima, I couldn’t just leave him there!”

We toweled the little dude off and assessed the situation.  ”We have to put him back.” I said.  ”His mom is probably out there looking for him.”  Reluctantly we dragged ourselves back downstairs and set him in the yard where my son had found him, in the cold and the rain.  We left him the towel but he climbed right out of it and into the rain frantically calling for his mom and for help.  I could feel my heart literally ripping in two.  My son’s grief was beyond words.

If…

If those innocent babies in Itamar hadn’t just been murdered.  If 4 lbs of shrapnel hadn’t just been blown into the bodies of 40 people waiting for the bus in Jerusalem.  If my friends’ kids hadn’t had to miss school today in order to sit in bomb shelters.  Then maybe, maybe, I would have steeled myself with the whole “Let Nature Take It’s Course”, “Survival of the Fittest is what makes evolution work” thing and this story would have had a very different ending.

We went upstairs and listened to the kitten mewing piteously for one hour in the rain and cold.  We prayed for it’s mom to return.  I called my husband who ordered me to leave it outside.  I spoke to my neighbors who warmed me not to touch it.  I emailed my friend J in the US.  J is a vet tech and specializes in the care of rescued and abandoned animals.  J, the one voice of dissent said “Em, bring him inside.  He might die anyway, but he deserves not to suffer.”  Then I remembered my friend O, here in Kfar Saba, an animal lover like myself, who takes in strays and knows people who maybe could help.

The rest of the day was phone calls and emails back and forth, while I wrestled with my conscious and my heart.  With the kitten back in the warmth of my son’s arms, we got him cleaned up and comforted.  He was only quiet and calm when fully encased in my son’s warm hands:

One of the things that convinced me to take him back inside, was when my older son, the bar mitzvah boy came home.  We were standing outside wringing our hands over it and L said “Ima, to leave it out here is Tzar Balei Chayim (cruelty to animals) and that is forbidden in the Torah.”  I am so proud of my bar mitzvah boy who is also an amazingly compassionate young man!

We found a vet who would take care of him until a foster family could be found.  While waiting for our vet appointment, our little guy, now sporting the name Lucky, fully warmed and comforted, resorted back to his natural curious kitten state and began exploring our apartment, (much to the great dismay of our Labrador Retriever, who was definitely in the “leave him outside” camp.):

Shortly before we were to leave for the vet, we heard more meowing and thinking it might be the returned mother, ran outside just in time to see a second kitten fall 2 stories from a tree and splat into the soggy ground.  Miraculously, our 2nd baby (now named Nessie (miracle)), survived the fall and he too came inside to get warm and clean.  The two siblings immediately clung to one another and would not part:

At the end of the day, we handed them over to a vet who will try to nurse them to health and strength, before either adopting them out or releasing them back to their streets, spayed and neutered, so at least their lives won’t continue this legacy of suffering.

The reason I am telling this story is because those few hours changed all of our lives.  Where before I felt hopelessness for this world where people kill children because they are the wrong religion, now I feel a hope I cannot explain.  My 9-year old, the one who started the whole saga said happily as we kissed our babies good-bye, “I will remember this day forever.”

I will too.

That got me thinking.  If just a few hours of compassionate action can have this much of a positive effect, just think how a steady diet of it could affect one’s life!  What a primary food!  And how I have over-looked it.

Lucky and Nessie, your tiny little lives taught us a great lesson today.  We wish for you a life that lives up to your names.

Now the rain has stopped and 20km of road are waiting to be massaged by my feet…

To find a Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in your Israeli town, click HERE.

To get help with animal issues like this in Kfar Saba, HERE.