D. Iyar 5755
In honor of Ofra and Yoni, peace and blessings,
On the way to the Memorial Day ceremony in the village, my dear wife insisted on going to the mailbox to see what new bills we had received. And here - not accounts (at least not accounts we are used to) but a letter from her patient. We opened, we read, and now I have a break between lessons and I sit down to write you a few lines too. After some deliberation, though, yes, an answer is required.
The letter was short though, and would have sounded a bit like a farewell letter or divorce (along with the nice articles). I really hope not! We will, in any case, always be happy to visit you at your home (sip a cup of coffee on the occupied mound soil or take a peek at the ruined hostel anemones) even if you do not honor us by visiting our home.
Anyway, we were very, very happy to hear from you, why? That way, because it's fun for us to be with you and fun to know that sometimes you think of us even when we're far away. And I was also glad that it was important for you to bother expressing your ideological position before us, even if it is not exactly the same as our position, and even if you did not hope to cause us to abandon our faith and our home.
Without being a graphologist or a personality expert, it was obvious that the things expressed come from the heart, and everything that comes from the heart out of inner conviction, out of fervor of faith, out of idealism - is important to me.
Although I can in no way agree that "every word beyond writing in the news is unnecessary ...", in my opinion the opposite is true. The little note in your handwriting is worth more to me than a thousand trending articles. A dash of truth bursting from the depths weighs more than a thousand tons of stylish demagoguery.
And after reading, I wondered: Will I repay you as your reward. Will I answer at all. Really, really I am not capable, after all my spiritual world is much less certain and absolute than yours. Your position is so clear without doubts and doubts, so easy to hold, so solid and steadfast. How successful your education must be in its clear and unambiguous boundaries.
No, I'm not jealous, exactly. I am only satisfied if the spiritual storms and upheavals that pass over me, upon us, will find a sympathetic ear. And yes. Exemption without anything, impossible. And I ended up saying in a nutshell how many thoughts I had as I stood still, in front of the Cave of the Patriarchs, singing the national anthem.
Your loyal representative in the Ministry of Education wants to remove the "Jewish soul" from Hatikva. This is, admittedly, a visible and limited trend in scope, but in a big and hidden way another trend is hidden: to take hope out of the Jewish soul.
The first trend will be crowned with success, at least for an hour, in large parts of the nation the phrase "chosen people" smells of racism. A great effort is concentrated, today, in the blurring and extinction of every characteristic that characterizes and characterizes the Israeli nation, especially compared to the rest of the nations of the world.
A secular, fundamentally gentile culture, erasing every trace of holiness, of God's name and teachings, of a "virtuous people," will stand on the ruins of the ancient traditional culture that has been lost. There will surely be some remnants of Jewish folklore and Judaica left, a Bible as fine ancient literature, with a few grains of universal morality from the books of Isaiah and Psalms. The language, of course, will hardly remain.
The main line will be pluralism, humanism, American-style liberalism (and a few other entrepreneurs who have not yet been properly translated into Hebrew) and imitated Western art and literature (in Hebrew) and everything is immersed in a hint of pale Christian morality. To sum up: the hopeful utopia will be established in the Land of Israel, after thousands of years of exile and suffering. A secular democratic state that guarantees individual freedoms and equal opportunities. The main ambition - economic profit. Most happiness for most people.
This is, more or less, the common political platform of the PLO - the PLO. (In contrast, for Meretz it really is. For the PLO it is a short stopover). In one word: US Type B (at best). What values will occupy a place at the top of the education system? Minister of Education: "Non-drug use, protection from road accidents and education for safe sex." (Quote from a radio interview with Minister Rubinstein).
In this magical country there is no need to distinguish between a people and a people and between race and race. The "Jewish soul" will be nothing but a burden and will automatically disappear. And if so, "Ein LeZion Sufiya" is also a bit redundant, because between us (not to quote) there is something between Jerusalem and Los Angeles, in a world without a Jewish soul. And why not bring out that annoying phrase - "a free people" after all, in the long-awaited equality there is room for a few free peoples or even a night of peoples like in America.
Racist jealousy over the borders of the people, less understood and less rational, fanatic stickers on the borders of a country. In Hong Kong (or Las Vegas) of the Middle East, an economic-technological multinational technology rich in knowledge and steeped in contemporary culture (post-postmodern) will be established. A cosmopolitan peace state called ______.
But, actually, what does it matter what her name is? Is it a dream? Legend? No. If you wish, you can complete the bailinization of the State of Israel, which will become a "YUPPY" state with its eternal capital, Beilina Capitoline.
If you want, you can and can take out of hope the "Jewish soul of Homia" for at least an hour. After all, baseless utopian messianic movements occasionally manage to take the world stage for a few glorious moments.
But the question is different. The second, great, hidden trend - to take out hope, or rather, faith, from the "Jewish soul of Homia" will it also succeed? Is the hope two thousand years old, or in fact the faith and desire of nearly four thousand years - will it become extinct and disappear?
Will it perish and disappear, the belief in Israel as the people of God as a great human entity, which we answered "to keep the way of God to do charity and justice" as a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation" in whose divine unity lives a high moral To a life of freedom full of majesty and heaven, in the light of the divine idea, and to succeed in it the whole man. '
"And all this, precisely by knowing his divine advantage and by loyalty to his more rooted self" (Letters from the Rebbe Kook)
Is summer really the end of this belief? Is the Jewish soul rolling down from generation to generation in the depths of mystery, ascending and descending, longing and humiliating, humming and praying to her heavenly Father to restore his presence to Zion, to renew his prophecy as in ancient times, to build Jerusalem and the foundation of the Temple of David, Praying for thousands of years) - Does this soul breathe its last breaths?
Will it shelve its desire to revive every Jewish soul — to free it from the suffocation of dryness and spiritual smallness so that it can "live an infinite life within the limits of time and place" in the light of the divine commandment? And all of these, will they really melt in front of the TV screen and drown in the sea of modern prosperity and abundance?
These questions, as you may have guessed, are rhetorical. Here, in Hebron, the place where the beginnings of the Jewish psyche began, these questions are even a little ridiculous. The divine covenant between the people and the land, which has given rise to this wonderful, good and benevolent Jewish soul, which demands truly good for all man - this covenant has not expired or weakened in anything since our first ancestral feet passed through here.
The connection of life between the people and their land today, as in ancient times, evokes great desires, full of intensity and full of delicacy in the whole people. And this connection, and these desires, and all the plot that goes on about this country, nice, tormented, and about this complicated and wonderful people, does not belong to one generation or one faction. Deep deep who knew.
And how many doubts and hesitations and doubts befell every citizen of Israel who is truly seeking his way, to act and admire, to create and flow in the raging river of the nation's resurrection and independence.
I was carried away. I apologize. Not on purpose.
Really, there is no regular mishnah. Easier, much easier, in the simple world of B'Tselem. No doubts no doubts.
And I? I can talk and listen, explore and demand, endlessly. But to say my doctrine while standing on one foot (or in one or two articles) - this learning I did not reach.
You wrote that you can not come to terms with the occupation of another people, of which we are the most prominent representatives. I will confess and not be ashamed while Dina (Debbie) and I went out to conquer with another, we did not consult with you and did not ask for your completion. And to be precise, our son was also not consulted when we became the accursed occupiers, representatives of injustice and oppression.
The cute reporter declares that there is no need to check or find out, even without it, it is clear to her in her clear world that everything that was done in the territories occupied by the settlers (Judea and Samaria) in evil and fundamental injustice. Any examination or thought or interest can only interfere.
Well, I will not disturb her rest, nor your rest, my brother.
But what does that mean? In my (of the world) vague and complex world I allow myself to ask: maybe, just maybe, things are a tad bit, just a tad bit more complex, and a tad a bit less simplistic?
Anyway, this is what I do 24 hours a day. No. Not in the conquest of another, but in an attempt to deepen, without prejudice, without prejudice, and without pettiness in the Torah. In the Torah of Israel, which is both the Torah of God and the Torah of life. Learn and teach, save, and do. And the mission, the mission task, the many views and the many disappointments - education, education for moral confrontation. Education for tireless search for values, meaning. Education for the demand of true justice and law.
The work is hard, sometimes abrasive and exhausting, sometimes frustrating and discouraging - but always raises questions, doubts, questions. How to bridge the gaps and tensions between the desire for self-fulfillment and the desire to integrate into public action, between the positive and negative sides of modern culture, between the brotherhood and hatred of the people, and more and more and more.
The younger generation (it is no longer us), the youth, full, full of vitality, full of thirst. And the national, security, political and moral upheavals that excite us all, which shock all kinds of traditional perceptions - these two factors, each separately, and certainly both together, do not give rest, not even for a moment, to freeze on the yeast.
ANYHOW, I have to finish. But I must, must make it clear: "Wires that bound me in the distant past to the left, threads of a direct or annexed family, threads of shared education and brotherhood of youth - have not been untied or erased." Not "I put up a blocked wall between me and my friend, who were both from the same spiritual spring." - An inverted paraphrase of the second article you sent.
And I very, very much hope that your "hard and scorpion-like" friends, that is, the "settlers," the cruel and evil people of "occupation and oppression," will not bring you to the terrible separation of hearts that befell the unfortunate article.
And how will I finish?
In a journalistic article by Moshe Shamir or Shmuel Schnitzer? Maybe some interview with Arik Sharon or Geula Cohen? No. This is not my style.
I will remove the dust from a small passage from the number of "lights" of Rabbi Kook - a passage written about seventy years ago: "We accept that there will be a spiritual revolt in the Land of Israel and in Israel during the revival of the nation. The carnal peace that will come to a part of the nation, which will seem to have already come to their whole purpose, will diminish the soul and come days which will say there is no desire in them. The pursuit of lofty and holy ideals will cease, and in any case the spirit will descend and sink. Until the storm comes and becomes a revolution, and then he will clearly see that the resilience of Israel is in the holiness of worlds, in the light of God and in his teachings, in the desire for spiritual light, which is the perfect heroism that overcomes all worlds and all their powers "(Orot p.
And I will really end with the holiday blessing, that we will all all gain the long-awaited independence. Happy Independence Day.
with love,
Eli and Dina (The Conquerors)
Batsheva (the happy one), Zvi (the disgusted one), Nehama (the stormy one) and Shulamit (the peaceful one)
