FOR MONTHS, the threat of a major terrorist attack has been splashed over the front pages of Israel's dailies, and the whole country has braced itself accordingly, as have we in our own household.

But today, from before dawn, something else happened, too, that dissolved even the best laid plans for a suicide bombing, or for that matter, any other plans, be they of Arab or Jew. It has transformed instantly the geopolitical reality of the Middle East, diverting not only bloodshed, but just about anything else as well: snow.

Terrorism in Jerusalem, with or without a warning tip from our intelligence services, is not unusual. I am used to the cold uneasiness in the pit of my stomach, sending my children off to school when the busses have been explicitly targeted, and the little battle I have to fight with myself, to not keep them home. I'm accustomed to the guilt when I surrender to fear and order a taxi, castigating myself for the foolishness of imagining that one's fate can be avoided. I'm equally accustomed to the guilt of waving them cheerily goodbye, wondering how I could go on living if anything happened on account of such foolhardiness.

My children are different. They weren't raised in an American suburb during a Cold War that presented only one danger, World War III: a possibility sufficiently abstract and far-fetched that most of the time it could be forgotten. Like all Israeli children, they have grown up with the daily, immediate possibility of death, and they possess, as a result, a kind of bravery which their mother doesn't mind so much not having, as long as she can take pride in theirs.

So, terrorist threats are not uncommon. Snow, on the other hand, is rare. And snow that doesn't turn instantly to water on the ground, snow that can be packed into snowballs, and crafted into snowmen with carrots for noses, snow that falls not for a skimpy half-hour but steadily through the night, so you wake in the morning to an innocent world become white and trees turned to lace --- that kind of snow in Jerusalem is unfamiliar, exceedingly so, as rare as peace itself.

There's an old joke in these parts: one snowflake makes its appearance in the Holy City and the whole society comes to a halt. We're just not equipped for it. Snow tires? There's no such thing. Snow plows? Ain devar kehzeh. Busses stop running. Schools close. The municipal services all shut down. This, in spite of the fact that the last time it snowed in any meaningful fashion was about five years ago. Since then, whatever pitiful little flurries passed our way in the Promised Land were here one minute and gone the next, and whatever was under our feet turned to slush before you could count to ten. To one who was raised in a New England in which winter's bounty was unstinting, such snows would have been better left unsaid.

But this ... this white blessing that began descending and was still going strong when we peeked out the windows amazed at five a.m --- not only has it given us a chance to dig out our winter gloves in their burial places, deep in closet storage, and trudge out into the wonderland. It has kept all the children home. No one's on the busses, for there are no busses. No one's downtown in vulnerable crowded places, for there are no crowded places. Everybody's either stuck at home looking out, or out getting wet.

There's something about this kind of snowfall that brings out the four-year-old in all of us. Netanyahu, with his two young boys, must surely not be immune. Arafat, whose daughter, if I'm not mistaken, must be about three by now: Is he pointing to the snow at this moment and telling her Allah Akbar?

That phrase, meaning G-d is great, is traditionally exclaimed by an Islamic suicide bomber at the moment of his attack, to seal his martyrdom and acquire sure entry into heaven. The exclamation celebrates the successful perpetration of what he considers to be his holy mission: the killing of an infidel, a Jew who by virtue of living here is violating sacred Muslim soil.

No doubt there is somewhere in this country today a young man, hardly out of childhood himself, really, whose plans for the day have been thwarted, as they have for us all. (For purposes such as these, it's the young and fervent ones whom Hamas recruits, the young idealists, despairing of their predicament, eager for excitement and glory, like most young men.) Can he resist throwing a snowball? He, too, may be gazing out spellbound at the strange and overwhelmingly new world. He had thought to see heaven today, and there it is.