Adar 5754
Hebron 1994
The city of the patriarchs, Kiryat Arba is Hebron, here on this rocky soil the first seeds of the nation sprouted. Here arose mighty spirits who placed the radical moral demand at the center of life as the taste of life - to do good, to bring healing to every sick and tormented, to dine every failed, every oppressed and hard day.
Love your neighbor as yourself. And you loved Hagar. To get all of humanity out of the ignorance and evil mud of primitive goddesses. These and such were the life-threatening threats of the "founding fathers" of the Israeli nation. These determined the Israeli character - compassionate, shy and reciprocal. Here grew the first families, full of sensitivity, caring and sympathy for people.
Here among the vineyards, in the pastoral landscape of Hebron, the tendency of the good in the hearts intensified, crystallized into a great state stream of faith and love. Here the divine-moral destiny of Israel and the connection of life between the nation and the land is determined.
And here, in this wondrous and holy place, something fell in Israel. A Jewish man stood up, stood in the shadow of the tombs of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and looked, looked at the hundreds of worshipers who prostrated themselves to the earth, who were unique to the Creator. He looked and waited, waited for a moment of helplessness, and a percentage of fanaticism opened fire and fired bundle after bundle at the hundreds of praying Muslims. Indiscriminate murder and massacre, mercilessly.
A few minutes of madness of one man, a lone man, who took no advice from anyone, who did not come in the mission of the nation and not in the mission of the Torah. A few minutes. A lone man - and an entire nation is struck by astonishment and shock.
Dr. Baruch Goldstein. An almost legendary huge figure. Hebron grants. In his life we have known him as a giant of grace, a tireless devotion to saving lives. Life of Jews, and yes, also of Arabs. I doubt if anyone of this stature lives in this generation.
A person who lives a life of nobility above any private account. Not day and not night, not eating and not sleeping and family - but all the powers of his soul are concentrated in one mission - to save, to revive. Life of Jews, and yes, also of Arabs.
Even in all the recent murderous atrocities inflicted on us by the various "Palestine Liberation Organizations," he was always the first to reach out, to women, to revive, to treat, not to give up even when everyone said desperate, not to give up until there was nothing left to save.
Some "dead" young soldiers were resurrected under his faithful hands, and some young soldiers and innocent civilians swelled their souls before his tormented, weeping eyes.
He, together with all of us, accompanied a father and son pure and innocent, on their final journey, with tens of thousands of incited Hebron Muslims rejoicing and rejoicing on the rooftops, accompanying the funeral procession with horrified whistles and screams "I will slaughter to Yehud."
He, like all of us, saw a quiet and complacent world, full of satisfaction at the sight of the day-to-day victims of the intifada, the victims of "peace," innocent people, women and children being murdered because of their Jewishness.
He, like all of us, saw the Israeli encouragement and support for Arab murder, as each additional space increases the desire to meet, to worship, to surrender to the most vile murderers of our time.
He, like all of us, saw Yasser Arafat, who all his life is a mask of abominable and planned murder, becomes the hero of the people of Israel and of the world, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (no less) when his gangs of murderers walk free and are nominated for murder.
And he saw how Hebron, the Cave of the Patriarchs, becomes the center of a murderous shift of Islamic fundamentalism, how enthusiastic young people, with murder in their eyes, emerge from the "religious" sermons delivered over the tombs of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
And at a certain moment, perhaps on the night of Purim, while the reading of the Megillah was torn apart by the shouts of "Itbah al-Yehud", at a certain moment, the frequent deaths, the streams of Jewish blood shed and planned to be shed, not on us, Kono, loss of human photographer, thread of sanity cut off. And out of the abyss of madness, he put on the enemy's garment, and did what he did. He put on Ishmael's garment, and did what he would not do.
We will not shy away from telling the truth. It does not seem to express the nausea and disgust, the feeling of disgust and horror that surrounded us at the sight of the horror. Who can resist the terrible madness, the jealousy of an individual separated from the ore of his nation. Who will not erase, and condemn, and condemn, and vomit the forms of abomination.
There will no doubt be little foxes, on all sides, dancing on the blood. Empty and reckless who will praise the act. Hypocritical politicians who will take advantage of the tragedy to unleash the blood of an entire public. There are those, evil-eyed and evil-hearted, who will jump at the opportunity, use the acts of despair and madness of a marginal group in order to discredit the names of all the residents of Kiryat Arba. They will probably say "Sodom and Gomorrah," "Greenhouse for the Killers," and other such nice nicknames that are ready to go.
No racist savages admired, no cynical instigators recoiled. We will express our truth of life without fear and without apprehension.
In what Dr. Goldstein saved and the beast did in full Hebron power, we will cherish and adore his memory. And as he trampled with madness all the foundations of Hebron's Israeli life - resentful and resentful, cried out to the heart of heaven, to the ends of the earth.
Nothing happened in Israel.
And what next?
No thunder was created, but to simplify the curvature of the heart. We will come out of this deep shock cleaner and more purified. The eyes of the blind will be opened. All the cheap demagoguery of our "culture" writers, the beauties of the soul, who rush to the door of the archetype - the animal killer - will no longer affect us.
Whoever is really permeated by three minutes of insane zealotry of a bitter Jew - how will he feel in his position before Yasser Arafat, who for decades has been committing systematic murder in the "innocent" Israeli public.
The preachers of false morality, who rightly condemn Dr. Goldstein, will no longer be able to see the hundreds of Israeli old men and women, boys and girls who were brutally slaughtered by Arafat and his order as victims of a "just national struggle." He could no longer see in his eyes the bloodthirsty, the cynicism and the mockery, the "suffering of the Palestinian people."
We only shake a little from the impurity of evil that has been revealed within us, and it seems to be nothing compared to the moral stench emanating from the murderous PLO cruelty.
Will he who directly condemned Dr. Goldstein still be able to stand in the stinking company of Faisal Husseini, who rejoiced and rejoiced when Iraqi scoundrels fell on innocent Gush Dan citizens.
No, my brother and brother, by no means.
Because we are going to Hebron, we will return. Not to indulge in ancestral graves, but to indulge in ancestral morality. We will find among ourselves the good heart and the good eye which are the roots of our life. We will return to suck from this place the pure morality, the love of man and the object of his ascension, the Israeli idealism that is the taste of life truly.
Not to create barren technocracy "Hong Kong of the Middle East" We came into the world. Not to "integrate into space" while losing all our uniqueness and independence.
"Go and gather all the Jews" - we will all unite, as one man with one heart, to be what we are - with a pure and good that radiates and illuminates the good of God to all the ends of the earth.
The hand of murderers is not oppressed, nor will we enter into a covenant with them, for we are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Eli Horovitz
The shock was especially severe for Eli. Eli was Dr. Goldstein's neighbor who lived in the building next door. In the early years of Kiryat Arba, they sat behind each other in prayers at the Nir Yeshiva, swimming together in the pool. Twice Dr. Goldstein saved Eli's life, once when he was called and arrived at the house within seconds and diagnosed severe pneumonia at Eli and called an emergency room who evacuated him to a hospital, and another time when Eli felt unwell during a Saturday tour of the park and Dr. Goldstein appeared there.
Letter from Rabbi Eli Horowitz to Rabbi Zvi Tao after Dr. Baruch Goldstein's operation in the Cave of the Patriarchs
In honor of my teachers and Rabbi R. Zvi Tao, peace and blessings,
Even after the defense class on Israel, I still have a few unclear points, and I will begin by saying - I am not an "opinionated person" as expressed yesterday, but a student who thirstily drinks the words of his masters, and if I ask questions, and pain, everything is "we have not learned our Rabbi" and " Torah is and I need to study 'and only immediately.
A.
You said "everyone is already condemning, the media and everyone, there is no need to add condemnation" and it is difficult for me to say:
1. The spiritual question is not a people in need of further condemnation, but whether the Torah condemns.
2. There is a public-educational question. I heard in the lesson that Yaakov (Klal Yisrael) condemns the act, both morally and publicly / security-wise, but in the general public, it will be announced as early as Saturday night that Rabbi Tao is not condemning, that is, supporting.
The distinction between Shimon and Levi, Pinchas ben-Elazar and the mighty Samson is easy in the Beit Midrash and impossible in the boiling cauldron of Kiryat Arba.
The educational institutions and yeshivas in Kiryat Arba also published a great deal of publicity that Rabbi Tao supports the work of Dr. Baruch Goldstein the 14th, and sees this as approval and a seal of approval for an educational, explanatory, and Torah line that governs our place.
B.
Following the underground affair, we learned that there are also good intentions in tattooing Israeli state pillars. The Kach movement, as is well known, and their supporters in Yesha, claim that the government of Israel is an evil government (both the Likud government and a government that enjoys a sweeping majority of the people) - because it does not act according to the Torah, and therefore commands to act separately and contrary to it. in her.
Why, then, the strong emphasis on pure intention, and almost ignoring (or, in any case, forgiveness) the anti-Clal Israeli intention?
third.
Emphasizing the words of followers who have a reward for good intention. In the sign of 1855 it is written: "A person who calculates to do a mitzvah and it is not a mitzvah but an offense and committed because he had no one to ask receives a salary like the daughters of Lot, but if he had someone to ask and did not ask, he is punished ..."
Dr. Goldstein the 4th has publicly denounced the Mira Datra (Rabbi Dov Lior), twice in the last few weeks. He refused to ask for advice and receive Torah guidance from a great sage student, who is assisted by Dashmia in leading the settlement. Is it possible for his character to build a lot that they had no one to ask?
D.
I still did not understand what you said, that the small and old children who were killed were also "thorns like thorns" and in that, in fact, to define the event in Hebron as a moral act, as the war of Abram to save Lot. And if so, there is no moral defect in it at all.
God.
The determination of collective guilt in the Arabs of Hebron because of "the poisoned atmosphere and the savage murderous diversion, which only a deaf and dumb person can remain indifferent to", certainly reflects the reality on the ground, but at the same time, it is a lesson about those murderers. Carry out murder plots. Is there no difference between actual terrorists and forced terrorists? That in the uprightness of our national stature, will they be able to remove from them the evil spirit of Hamas and live with us in good neighborly relations?
and.
You mentioned that this must be a non-coincidental event, and also on Purim, which concerned the clarification that there are no coincidences. It seems to me that the whole maiden is aware that something has fallen in Israel, and expect to see what God will see in His wonders. But while David was persecuted by Saul and knew that the act of God is - he failed to say "if God hid (?) In me", as the words of Rabbi (Kook) ztl in Ein EE, that the value of freedom of choice should not be diminished General Divine Leadership.
Our favorite city as a pharmacy, as well as the yeshiva (Shavei Hebron) to some extent. And I thirstily look forward to your illuminating and commenting words.
Your student,
Eli Horovitz
post Scriptum. There is a struggle in Kiryat Arba, today, a spiritual-educational struggle in shaping the ideal form of the warm and innocent public that lives here. Your remarks, which have been published all over this community (and I imagine in other localities as well) have struck deep echoes which have a great impact on them. They were interpreted as (surprising) support for Dr. Goldstein's actions and as a kind of acceptance of the need to act outside the accepted Israeli general framework.
In order for it to come to fruition full of the power of the blessing of the good eye, the study of the right, and the raising of the deed to its blessed root and purpose, it seems to me that it would have been desirable to add clarity to the above questions.