Nail Polish in a War Zone: Keeping Our Sanity in a Time of Turmoil

Sometimes one little detail in a news story makes your mind wander.

I read one such story this morning, about a female IDF soldier who was preparing for a military operation in Gaza. She was in an Armored Personnel Carrier, holding tightly to the vehicle’s bars so she wouldn’t be thrown sideways at every bump in the road.

The reporter noticed that the nails of the hand holding the bars had been carefully done.

“That’s my lifeline to sanity,” she told him. “For me, looking at the nail polish reminds me of a bit of sanity.”

What a contrast.

In the midst of an ugly and hellish war zone, a soldier insists on retaining a relic of beauty, a relic of her normal life, a relic that reminds her that war doesn’t define her.

None of us can compare our situations to an actual war zone, but we’re still confronted by the constant turmoil of a news cycle that thrives on conflict and bad news.

Even in our personal lives, many of us have to confront all kinds of turmoil connected to family, health, career, marriage and so on.

Conflict can be so all-consuming it can come to define us.

That’s why the nail polish resonated with me. It’s a sign of defiance. It’s a soldier who says, “I must fight this war, but I must remember that life is so much more than this.”

In the Jewish tradition, we have an ancient ritual that also reminds us of the beauty of life: Shabbat.

No matter how much conflict may exist in our lives, no matter how demoralized we may get by a constant stream of negative news, we know we have one day of the week to reconnect with our sanity and our humanity.

We just need to remember the nail polish.

Shabbat shalom.