Welcome to some good ole fashion small town love.
Tzur Hadassah’s natural surroundings are a bit of a training ground for Tzahal ground troops. Every so often we’ll spot them midnight marching down our dead end street through the nature preserve, on their way to spend the night doing – whatever it is; the end of my block is as far as I see.
After this past weekend, we residents got a cry for help in the form of ‘Jewish mothers, our beit ha’am is housing 80+ hungry and tired soldiers from the Rimon Givati brigade for two nights, please do your thing!’
And so far it seems we have.
Yesterday, the kids drew pics after gan, and I made a pasta with homemade sauce.
After 9pm, when they started rolling in, I brought it over. I knocked on the door, behind which a group of exhausted 18-20 year olds were looking up at me. I saw the word ‘food’ (…or ‘confort’ …or ‘townie’) register on their faces.
“Thank you! Wow! Thank you so much!” They were so happy… I remembered hearing from my brother how little things like homemade food or someone sharing something with you can just make your whole army day.
It can also make a small town feel really good. This was a win/win.
A few things amazed me:
- How young they are.
- How old I am.
- How grateful they were!
- OMG am I like a ma’am now?!
- How much of a freakin country hick I am.
Since it all went down really late, I brought the kids over today, day 2, to see some evidence. Unfortunately, and expectedly, no soldiers were around. 
It’s wonderful to make a difference in someone’s daily life once in a while. It’s even lovelier to do it on a whole town-level.
On a random day.
During peacetime.
Whadya got: