Monday, December 20, 2004
Sparks From Israel
Chanuka in the Hills of Samaria
Imagine walking through a Munk painting where you can see emotion in the clouds and the skies are spread out in all of their majesty. The colors of the brownish green hills are the same as they were two thousand years ago and each tiny rock is Holy. The view around the yishuv is breathtaking and perfectly peaceful.
I once heard someone say that all of the Jews could not possibly fit into the tiny Land of Israel. This is not true. There are great expanses of land unpopulated, and more than that. The hills of Yehuda and Shomron are like a blanket waiting to be spread out and filled once again with her people.
Just as Yerushalayim expands like a beautiful quilt upon the landscape, so too will the provinces grow. ‘The voice of Hashem convulses the wilderness’ (Tehillim 29). You can actually see it, how the mountains move and make way for their princes and queens arriving each day. Even a stone in this Land is alive and filled with an expansive energy.
I suppose it is this very Holiness; the source of all existence, that challenges the world. The war of Israel is a war of houses and homes. Each Jewish family that returns to these hills and beautifies them beautifies the source of Creation.
In adolescence the body and the soul often war with each other. But through this struggle a man emerges. Today we live in the times of Chanuka, where the soul emerges victorious over the body and becomes its driving force. As Israel comes of age in our times every Jew has an important role to play. There may be a storm ahead, but it may also dissolve as the light increases. May we see the world come of age soon, and may we all be there at the Bar Mitzvah, and may there be pickled herring! Amen
Chanuka in the Hills of Samaria
Imagine walking through a Munk painting where you can see emotion in the clouds and the skies are spread out in all of their majesty. The colors of the brownish green hills are the same as they were two thousand years ago and each tiny rock is Holy. The view around the yishuv is breathtaking and perfectly peaceful.
I once heard someone say that all of the Jews could not possibly fit into the tiny Land of Israel. This is not true. There are great expanses of land unpopulated, and more than that. The hills of Yehuda and Shomron are like a blanket waiting to be spread out and filled once again with her people.
Just as Yerushalayim expands like a beautiful quilt upon the landscape, so too will the provinces grow. ‘The voice of Hashem convulses the wilderness’ (Tehillim 29). You can actually see it, how the mountains move and make way for their princes and queens arriving each day. Even a stone in this Land is alive and filled with an expansive energy.
I suppose it is this very Holiness; the source of all existence, that challenges the world. The war of Israel is a war of houses and homes. Each Jewish family that returns to these hills and beautifies them beautifies the source of Creation.
In adolescence the body and the soul often war with each other. But through this struggle a man emerges. Today we live in the times of Chanuka, where the soul emerges victorious over the body and becomes its driving force. As Israel comes of age in our times every Jew has an important role to play. There may be a storm ahead, but it may also dissolve as the light increases. May we see the world come of age soon, and may we all be there at the Bar Mitzvah, and may there be pickled herring! Amen
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