Samuel Johnson said that “when a man knows he’s going to be hung in a fortnight, it concentrates the mind wonderfully.” A corollary is that when a man knows he could be killed in a few hours by a rocket launched from Iran, it also concentrates the mind wonderfully.

Last Saturday night here in Israel, we learned that Iran had launched drones that would arrive with their deadly payloads in between five and nine hours. At least that’s the way I remember it when I saw the news Saturday night. Later I read that ballistic missiles take 12 minutes, cruise missiles two hours, and drones up to nine hours. All quite a bit less than a fortnight.

But the truth is, I wasn’t worried about any of that on Saturday night. I couldn’t imagine that Iran would ratchet up the ante with cruise or ballistic missiles. I knew they needed to save face. I figured they would do something symbolic. And why would they risk hitting Jerusalem where I live with its holy landmarks?

So there I was, lying in bed at 1:30 in the morning, flicking through Twitter to find out more about what was happening. I discovered that the drones were headed to the north and the south. My wife slept soundly in the crook of my arm while I refreshed my feed. My son, daughter-in-law and their daughter were in the bedroom at the other end of the apartment. I was not afraid.

Then I heard an enormous explosion, bigger than any of the explosions I heard in the first weeks of the war when Iron Dome would destroy a Hamas rocket in mid-air.

At midnight on New Year’s eve in Chicago, where I spent four years on the south side of the city in graduate school, it was a custom for many of my neighbors to go outside and fire off a few rounds. In general, I tried to be inside for the ten minutes of either side of midnight. So I came to know what a gunshot sounds like, or at least a bunch of gunshots. When I’d hear a gunshot outside of New Year’s eve, I’d usually convince myself that it was something else—a firecracker, or maybe a car backfiring.

The noise I heard last Saturday night could not have been a car backfire. I remember laying there while my wife continued to sleep peacefully and trying to figure out what I’d tell her if she wanted to know what had awakened her. But silence. My unconscious mind struggled to understand what I had heard. It sounded a lot like a rocket striking nearby and exploding. A flicker of unease passed through me. A frisson of fear. Then two more booms, not as loud or as rich and complex as the first one. And before I could process why there were three explosions and whether there could be some really poorly maintained cars making loud noises at that hour, the air raid siren exploded, wailing its relentless cry, telling us all to run, run, run.

I wish I could see a video of how quickly my wife and I were up and out of bed heading toward our children. But they were already up and moving. My daughter-in-law wheeling at high speed toward the front door followed closely by my son holding our granddaughter in his arms. The siren calls. We answer. Doesn’t matter how deep your sleep is. We were moving as one toward safety as if we had been waiting in the starting blocks to begin sprinting, knowing we had 90 seconds before the missile would land. Or the closest thing to safety we could find.

Our apartment is old—we don’t have a safe room, a room designed to withstand shrapnel with windows that can be closed on the outside. There’s a public bomb shelter nearby, maybe 90 seconds away. Maybe two minutes. Better to huddle in the stairwell away from the windows. As we did, joined by our neighbors across the hall with a two week old baby, I remember thinking only about the two smallest, youngest members of our group—the most precious ones—eager that they continue, somehow, to sleep or return to sleep, unafraid.

We heard one boom while we stood together, and then silence. After a few minutes, we went and got chairs for those holding the two children. When the sirens stop, which they soon did, you have to wait ten minutes to avoid falling debris from any interceptions by Iron Dome or the other defensive systems Israel has—David’s Sling or Arrow. Soon, we were back inside. I can’t say it was my best night of sleep.

We later learned that Iran had sent not just drones but those speedier cruise missiles and much speedier ballistic missiles. That big boom that I had heard was presumably Arrow or David’s Sling taking out a cruise missile or a ballistic missile somewhere far above our heads. Hundred of missiles had been sent our way to harm us. But somehow—the word “miraculously” comes to mind—only a handful of missiles made their way through the defense net Israel had ready. Only a single person was injured—a young Bedouin girl, who like us, had no shelter, but unlike us, had no stairwell to huddle in. Within a few days, she went through surgery and was out of danger.

We are different. Hundred of missiles launched with no one killed and almost no one hurt, is not normal. One physicist said it defied probability. It was impossible. Technology is inherently unreliable. One colleague told me that we had simply been lucky—that the handful or so of missiles that got through didn’t hit anything of significance. The airbase to the south that took most of the blows remained operational.

We are different. Israel was told by the world not to respond. Take the win! But this could not stand. You can’t allow an enemy to wake up your country in fear whenever they feel like it. The Twitter account Elder of Ziyon had the best image to capture the reality with the headline “Don’t Squander All of This Goodwill!":

We are different. Is there another nation that would be told to turn the other cheek? How would that goodwill, if we chose not to squander it, deter the next attack?

But we did respond. We’re not that different. Last night we hit a number of military targets in Iran. Is this the last round for now? Probably, but you never know.

Passover, the holiday of redemption awaits in a few days. It will be a heavy holiday. Over 100 of our brothers and sisters remain in captivity in Gaza. We have become all too aware that we have other enemies with bigger arsenals.

I can imagine a world where Hamas, having decided that six months of terror for those captives and their loved ones is enough, releases them in time for the seder on Monday night.

I can imagine a world where the world demands that freedom from Hamas. Not in return for a ceasefire, but simply in the name of human decency.

I can imagine a world where Egypt is pressured to open its gates to the innocent civilians of Gaza so Israel can continue the painful work of purging Gaza of Hamas and freeing the captives.

I can imagine those worlds, but I know only too well that none of those worlds are the world we live in. So we can only hope and pray for a different, better world, and do the work it takes to bring such a world closer, even if the world, or at least some of it, sees us differently. We are a bit under siege. But we remain strong, resolute. We will fight for our homeland. Maybe we are not so different, after all.