As I opened Instagram for the 100th time today, my feed was flooded with a startling mixture of happiness and joy from fun weekends, and violence and earth-shattering news from a war happening miles away from me. How can these two coexist? How can I go about liking a post of my friend having a blast when the next thing is innocent children being harassed in a country that many of us call home? I can’t. As we navigate this unfamiliar path of war that most of us have previously only ever felt adjacent to, read about, or seen in a movie, there seems to be no way forward. There is no way to go on with life normally without addressing the elephant in the room. It feels pointless to go through school, through classes, without at least acknowledging the destruction and devastation happening right now on another side of the world. 

It feels unfair that so many of my friends at Jewish day schools are discussing the situation every minute, while my friends at my public school are not even aware of the war. It’s crazy to me that something that feels so huge and horrible to my Jewish friends and family, to my brotherhood and BBYO, with an impact that has already been compared to that of World War II, can happen without more of a commotion.

And it’s times like these when, instead of focusing on those things, the only thing we can do is focus on the things we can do. Whether posting messages on social media spreading hope and awareness, going to your local synagogue to pray, or joining an online BBYO program and feeling like part of a community during this time, everything makes a difference, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

We may not have the capacity to physically fight in this war, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to educate, raise awareness, and provide resources for people who want to help and contribute to the Jewish people. That doesn’t mean we can’t pull away this blanket of ignorance that many are under right now, shed some light on what’s going on, and start a conversation.