Alien Encounters

There are beings from different planets among us. Really.

One of the strange aspects of modern society is that it has become possible to interact with aliens. Yes, that’s right, aliens. Beings from a different planet!

They are appearing here on our planet, disguised as regular people. But when you speak to them, it’s clear that they are from a different planet. (There seem to be, broadly speaking, two races of aliens, with some similarities and some differences.)

Life on their planet is very different from life on mine, here in Israel. There’s no war with Hamas, no threat of massive rocket attacks from Hezbollah, no fear of Iran, no concern about a massive armed uprising in the West Bank. Many of these aliens are not involved in the wars taking place on my planet. They raise their children in a world where the daily concerns are mundane and they have nothing significant to worry about beyond satisfying their lifestyle. I find it a little jarring when I hear them talk about their alien way of life as though it’s the most important thing in the universe.

One race of aliens speaks English, one speaks Hebrew, but the words have a different meaning. Some of the English-speaking ones talk about great stress on their planet, yet their lives and families are not at risk. Many of them seem to be only vaguely aware of what’s happening on my planet; it just doesn’t seem to be real to them.

With the Hebrew-speaking aliens, it’s even stranger, because they are actually living here in Israel, yet the war is just not happening for them. Their existence is no different than before October 7th. I suppose it’s somewhat understandable - after all, these aliens appear to be immune from the war, and none of them have died in it. Still, it’s strange that they live and walk among us, yet are oblivious to what’s really going on. They use phrases like “sacrificing one’s life” to refer to their sitting safely in a comfortable room indulging in intellectual pursuits, while in my world the phrase refers to people who are ready to actually sacrifice their actual life and sometimes actually do.

(The Hebrew-speaking aliens are disturbing in their behavior as well as their words. They seem to be here in Israel, they are capable of helping us with the wars, but they generally refuse to do so. Instead, they claim to have special powers that are crucially helping us. But these aliens weren’t even here in any significant numbers until extremely recently, so how could these powers be so crucial? Plus, they’ve never managed to demonstrate them. And they didn’t seem to work on October 7th. And in fact, it doesn’t even seem that they themselves believe in their efficacy. And last week, they significantly cut down on using them, despite the increased threat from Iran and Hezbollah. Yet they nevertheless want us Earthlings to part with our hard-earned resources, which we need to finance the war and operate and defend the country, in exchange for these alleged powers!)

All these aliens physically appear to be located on the same planet as me and my community; some of them even in the same country, the same city. But they’re actually living in a different world - in fact, seemingly in a different universe.

UPDATE: CLARIFICATION: Some people misunderstood this post as a criticism of Avromi Perkowski, the person highlighted on the cover of Mishpacha. Nothing could have been further from my intention - he does wonderful chessed at no charge. My criticism was for Mishpacha using this as their cover story, which Mr. Perkowski himself tells me he did not want.

On another note: I’m leaning towards banning certain commentators here. I write posts about genuine life-and-death issues and how to come to terms with them, but these people completely ignore the topic, and instead obsess over such things as whether the girl murdered by terrorists had a neckline that was too low, or whether a moving song about living in a war features a few words here and there sung by women and are sexually provocative, or try to distract the discussion in other ways. What do you think I should do?