Thursday, April 29, 2004
Sparks From Israel
When Will We Learn
I am always shocked when I realize that the majority of Jews outside of Israel and a large number inside Israel do not support Yehuda and Shomron. My visiting friends were surprised that I supported them 100%.
‘So you don’t think we have to give back some land? But come on these guys are sending kids out to be killed every day what do we have to hold on to this for?’ And their Israeli guide adds ‘This is my country and I love it, but we don’t need these places like Gush Katif these Jews from Brooklyn come there and they only provoke the Arabs by living there. Why do they need to live there, it’s a big country?
#1 – Do you think Arabs kill Jews because of the occupied lands of 1967? Do you think Arabs kill Jews because they build communities in Yehuda and Shomron?
Why then did they kill 500 Jews in Hevron in the 1930’s? Was it because of the occupied lands of 1967? Why did they make a war in the first place? Because of the occupied lands of ‘67 which didn’t yet exist?
Arabs kill Jews because Arabs have been at war with us ever since we returned to our home and giving back conquered land will not stop them, but only encourage them to murder more of their babies and ours, because instead of throwing them out as any normal country would do, we reward them for their mass murder. I will explain why we do this in a moment.
#2 – Why does the thought of throwing out Jews, from the homes they built and paid for, from cities and towns that they built, fathers, mothers and children, not abhorrent to us? Why is this acceptable, and yet the thought of uprooting the neighbors, who are the true instigators, for they are the criminals that throw the bombs and murder innocent Jews, why is that abhorrent and racist?
To answer these questions that unfortunately I even need to ask we need to ask an even deeper question. Is the Holocaust something we cannot explain? Or do we believe we have a G-d that controls every detail of creation and He punishes and rewards? If so, why did He punish us with the Holocaust and what lesson can we learn from this punishment? And how does it apply to us today?
Learning from Tragedy
Often when tragedy strikes it is accompanied by a moment of truth. In these tragic moments our life flashes before us and our hopes and dreams, and often ‘delusions’ are shattered. What we failed to pay attention to in ‘whispers’ is made clear before our eyes in ‘earthquakes’. Just like paper-training a dog one has to rub his nose into something he fails to grasp, unfortunately we too need to cry when it’s too late in order to understand what could have been prevented.
With this in mind, let us look at one of the most horrible scenes, of the many punishments we incurred. When one sees photos of life in the concentration camp, there is one photo that is particularly gruesome, the photo of the section where Jews were forced to place their brothers into the furnace. They were promised life, for the price of their brother’s death. And so it goes.
Because we are taught that there is no explanation for the Holocaust, and therefore, there was no sin, and G-d is cruel, and we are innocent lambs, we continue down the path of tragedy without learning, even when our noses are rubbed into the evil we did, and continue to do to our brothers. Long before the war Aliyah was possible and millions of Jews could have been saved, but along with the freedom to go to Israel, their was also the freedom to leave the age-old shtetle and be a ‘German’ or an ‘American’.
And once the two doorways were opened the multitudes went fleeing to emancipation and cut off their beards and their roots and their leaders, like the spies in the dessert, discouraged Aliyah, while the tiny group who tried to encourage Aliyah was persecuted by their own brothers, much like the Jews of Yehuda and Shomron are persecuted today. The storm clouds loomed over Europe for many years before the Holocaust and if one truly believes that G-d orchestrates every detail of creation, then one must study the punishments in order to rectify our mistakes and prevent tragedy and encourage blessing.
Instead of understanding that Arabs or Nazis or Jew-haters anywhere, need no reason to kill Jews and that our only protection comes from our return to our land and the protection given us by our G-d in conjunction with a Jewish army. Instead of understanding that the Lands of 67, are as legitimate a claim to kill Jews as blood-libels were in the past, or pogroms. Instead of learning and understanding these lessons we continue to act like mice, willing to hand over other mice, hoping that now the cats will like us and give us permission to live.
But of course the cats only laugh at these foolish Jews and for the moment say ‘thank-you’. On the day that we learn the lessons of the Holocaust and begin to be ashamed of our behavior, on that same day we will realize that not only are we bound together because of Jewish rituals, language, traditions, or nationality. But behind these Jewish rituals is a ‘real’ G-d, who punishes by giving us the free-choice to betray our brothers, but also rewards us many times over, when we return to Him by supporting our brothers and answering all the cats in the world.
‘Yes, we are mice and we are tiny, but if you think because you are cats that you can stop us from doing what we have been commanded to do, or to appease you with the flesh of our brothers, you better be careful. Because behind us is our G-d and He is a lion, who will swallow all of you.’ At that point the cats will answer ‘what can we do to help’ and Moshiach will arrive.
When Will We Learn
I am always shocked when I realize that the majority of Jews outside of Israel and a large number inside Israel do not support Yehuda and Shomron. My visiting friends were surprised that I supported them 100%.
‘So you don’t think we have to give back some land? But come on these guys are sending kids out to be killed every day what do we have to hold on to this for?’ And their Israeli guide adds ‘This is my country and I love it, but we don’t need these places like Gush Katif these Jews from Brooklyn come there and they only provoke the Arabs by living there. Why do they need to live there, it’s a big country?
#1 – Do you think Arabs kill Jews because of the occupied lands of 1967? Do you think Arabs kill Jews because they build communities in Yehuda and Shomron?
Why then did they kill 500 Jews in Hevron in the 1930’s? Was it because of the occupied lands of 1967? Why did they make a war in the first place? Because of the occupied lands of ‘67 which didn’t yet exist?
Arabs kill Jews because Arabs have been at war with us ever since we returned to our home and giving back conquered land will not stop them, but only encourage them to murder more of their babies and ours, because instead of throwing them out as any normal country would do, we reward them for their mass murder. I will explain why we do this in a moment.
#2 – Why does the thought of throwing out Jews, from the homes they built and paid for, from cities and towns that they built, fathers, mothers and children, not abhorrent to us? Why is this acceptable, and yet the thought of uprooting the neighbors, who are the true instigators, for they are the criminals that throw the bombs and murder innocent Jews, why is that abhorrent and racist?
To answer these questions that unfortunately I even need to ask we need to ask an even deeper question. Is the Holocaust something we cannot explain? Or do we believe we have a G-d that controls every detail of creation and He punishes and rewards? If so, why did He punish us with the Holocaust and what lesson can we learn from this punishment? And how does it apply to us today?
Learning from Tragedy
Often when tragedy strikes it is accompanied by a moment of truth. In these tragic moments our life flashes before us and our hopes and dreams, and often ‘delusions’ are shattered. What we failed to pay attention to in ‘whispers’ is made clear before our eyes in ‘earthquakes’. Just like paper-training a dog one has to rub his nose into something he fails to grasp, unfortunately we too need to cry when it’s too late in order to understand what could have been prevented.
With this in mind, let us look at one of the most horrible scenes, of the many punishments we incurred. When one sees photos of life in the concentration camp, there is one photo that is particularly gruesome, the photo of the section where Jews were forced to place their brothers into the furnace. They were promised life, for the price of their brother’s death. And so it goes.
Because we are taught that there is no explanation for the Holocaust, and therefore, there was no sin, and G-d is cruel, and we are innocent lambs, we continue down the path of tragedy without learning, even when our noses are rubbed into the evil we did, and continue to do to our brothers. Long before the war Aliyah was possible and millions of Jews could have been saved, but along with the freedom to go to Israel, their was also the freedom to leave the age-old shtetle and be a ‘German’ or an ‘American’.
And once the two doorways were opened the multitudes went fleeing to emancipation and cut off their beards and their roots and their leaders, like the spies in the dessert, discouraged Aliyah, while the tiny group who tried to encourage Aliyah was persecuted by their own brothers, much like the Jews of Yehuda and Shomron are persecuted today. The storm clouds loomed over Europe for many years before the Holocaust and if one truly believes that G-d orchestrates every detail of creation, then one must study the punishments in order to rectify our mistakes and prevent tragedy and encourage blessing.
Instead of understanding that Arabs or Nazis or Jew-haters anywhere, need no reason to kill Jews and that our only protection comes from our return to our land and the protection given us by our G-d in conjunction with a Jewish army. Instead of understanding that the Lands of 67, are as legitimate a claim to kill Jews as blood-libels were in the past, or pogroms. Instead of learning and understanding these lessons we continue to act like mice, willing to hand over other mice, hoping that now the cats will like us and give us permission to live.
But of course the cats only laugh at these foolish Jews and for the moment say ‘thank-you’. On the day that we learn the lessons of the Holocaust and begin to be ashamed of our behavior, on that same day we will realize that not only are we bound together because of Jewish rituals, language, traditions, or nationality. But behind these Jewish rituals is a ‘real’ G-d, who punishes by giving us the free-choice to betray our brothers, but also rewards us many times over, when we return to Him by supporting our brothers and answering all the cats in the world.
‘Yes, we are mice and we are tiny, but if you think because you are cats that you can stop us from doing what we have been commanded to do, or to appease you with the flesh of our brothers, you better be careful. Because behind us is our G-d and He is a lion, who will swallow all of you.’ At that point the cats will answer ‘what can we do to help’ and Moshiach will arrive.
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