Superhero lullaby

This is the song we have on repeat in our home at the moment. I'm sure many of you have already seen it. Due to the war our town has decided to cancel the annual Purim parade. Instead our younger children's school is having its own mini-Purim event and their class have decided that they want to perform this song as a thank you to all the school staff and families (including the headmaster himself) who dropped everything on October 7 and went off to reserve army duty to quite literally defend their homes and families.

For our young kids this song is their lived reality. These "superheroes" are their teachers, their friends' parents and siblings, school staff and neighbours.

Their school has taken in Israeli children from the north and the Gaza border who've been made refugees in their own country. They've heard first hand from these children about what it's like to live on the border with Lebanon in recent months under Hizballah bombardment, what it was like to be a child in Sderot or a nearby moshav on October 7 hiding with family in a shelter, praying the roaming Hamas gunmen wouldn't find them.

And they understand the response of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Israelis who left their regular lives as bus drivers, teachers, restaurant owners and lawyers, threw on a uniform and went off to defend all of us. They ask to watch this video over and over again because it is a great reassuring comfort to them, to know that we have a "people's army" of the mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and neighbours and teachers who have gone out to protect them, people who are doers and helpers, people who are doing all they can to keep them and all the children of Israel safe.

I know there are those who say "see, all Israelis are soldiers, you all deserve to die!" (yes, that is a quote from a "friend" overseas) If you don't believe we have the right as a people to defend ourselves then I guess that might be the way you view this song.

If on the other hand you believe that Israelis and Jews have the right to self-defense against murderous terrorists who make no pretense of their desire to annihilate us and wipe our country off the map, then this song is one of reassurance. In some countries they sing lullabies and tell children stories about imaginary monsters and things that go bump in the night. Our children know that there are real monsters right on our borders and that sometimes the thing that goes bump in the night is real too. This song and the real life heroes it is about is the comforting lullaby for all Israel's children that there are flesh and blood superheroes out there every day protecting them.