I get tired, oh so tired, the tiredness that isn't so much physical, but emotional, mental, a despairing of a situation seemingly without any hope at all of ever reaching a just end, or any ending at all. Merely to keep on rolling in the mud, covering truths, and ignoring justice and historical facts via public words. Words within lies. Words with hurt aforethought. Words which are simply inadequate in attempts to convey more than anger. It is a grief of the millenniums, a grief that bewilders so many.
It carries within the grief of historical truths and ugliness. It carries within the heavy burden a Jew carries, faces, from the moment of birth into a hostile world. Long besieged, long a victim of hypocrisy and violent prejudice. Long victim to those whose open preferences are extermination of them and their families, from the youngest to the oldest. People flinch today as they see babies smashed against walls, thrown into the air and caught on a bayonet's sharp point, even pulled apart, or lined up on a grate to be fed into the ovens, a sight which continues to haunt my nights - and days - after viewing it in Auschwitz museum. The elderly were thrust into gas chambers, demeaned, broken, and mothers were forced to hold their children by the hand as they were shot, dropped into mass graves, destined to die in agony.
A world racked by a thin veneer of guilt at allowing this to happen, as they stayed silent, playing deaf, dumb and blind, re any expression of revulsion and ultimatums to stop, placated their implicit guilt by voting for the establishment of a State of Israel, much truncated from the original promise of Balfour, certainly contradictory to the words of promises of the Bible they claimed to venerate. This orphan nation was sent out into the world, facing multiple armies who invaded forthwith, at the same time absorbing refugees from the Holocaust, refugees fleeing from Arab lands where they had lived for centuries. The world? Silent. Banning weapons sales to a desperate nation with immense burdens. Hoping that others would do the job for them, free of blood.
That was - and still is. Other nations or peoples are allowed, backed up, in demands for their own nations, down to small segments, a neighborhood of a city in demanding the right to secede and form their own city-state. A return to the world as it was prior to WWI, you know, the war to end all wars that did not quite live up to that expectation.
In the meanwhile, over there in the Middle East, was a parcel of land begging for inhabitants to come, live and improve the land, reverse its bloody history as a battleground between Moslems and Christians, ignoring the historical truth of actual belonging to neither of those combatants, but rather to the Jews who were forcefully exiled. Even as they continued to pray for its return, redemption, and continued to visit, settle, live and learn through the centuries.
A hope that sustained them through their bloody persecuted history, through restricted, threatened lives imposed upon them by others. Given a misnomer of a name after the Plishtim, a tribe of ancient times, long extinct, who actually lived in the area of Gaza, it was not a land where life was easy, where there was a continued carpet of orchards and lovely, tidy little farms. No, it was a land where some were able to support themselves as they lived on land of the great pashas of Damascus and Aleppo who rented these parcels to poor Arabs from Syria so as to generate income. The iron keys waved around as proof of ownership are for sale by the dozens in every antique store, in both Arab and Jewish shuks, markets, keys to a door in a rented home as every renter has a key.
That was. Now what is? The same in different form. The assorted media cry crocodile tears over the poor 'teenagers' who throw stones, rocks, boulders, concrete blocks, firebombs, firecrackers, stab, kidnap, attack such oh so dangerous places as restaurants, schools, synagogues, parks and then run to their homes where they claim sanctuary and parents praise their bloody actions, vow to throw in their other children, provide aid and encouragement to them, and then complain when their homes are demolished and they are sent away from those they would prefer to kill rather than live with in peace!
At Israeli funerals there is only grief, no shooting, only wonder at the continued hate, the support of the world for the violence and bloodshed, the one sided 'evaluation' and demands of the situation. We cry to the heavens - Ad mahtai, Hashem - till when, O Lord, till when?"
Yes, there are those who would take bloody revenge. Yes, there is anger. Yes, there is unassuaged grief. Yes, there is a desire to end this once and for all. Yes, there is a determination that no, never again, will we allow ourselves to be bereft, robbed of our homeland. We are entitled to one, equal among world nations. We are entitled to dispute claims of a never quite historically real people, whose population is actually more within Jordan than in Israel. The west bank is a remnant term when it described that part of TransJordan. Its proper name is actually its Biblical names of Yehuda and Shomron, where tribes were assigned territory.
The teenagers of Israel, like the victims of yesterday's murderous attack, - why are they discounted, not recognized as being minors, enumerated as victims? Even as the supposed innocent teenagers of the Arabs are mourned as teens, as if they were not in a place of violence, seeking to kill and maim of their own volition and/or the cynical cold use of them by their own elders, who shelter and hide themselves among civilians.
Our children are robbed from us, like the teens in yesterday's attacked car, or the teen daughters in a car with their mother, or the three schoolboys kidnapped and murdered in cold blood, or the teens in restaurants, in crowds at end of services in a synagogue, or attend a targeted school. Even as our elderly and middle-aged, and all, Jews and non- Jews alike, are caught in this bloody, violent net.
We bleed too. Shylock asked that question long ago - "Do we not bleed?" We do indeed. And we refuse to continue to do so in order to please the world who will sympathize, maybe, with an endangered Jew, but as a Broadway show said, "A Jew who is a winner is a disgrace." Too bad. Never again is not an empty hot air balloon, but rather are words of intent and consequence. We will not bow to what was and what unfortunately continues as 'is'. We will make a different 'will be' and hopefully, the rest of the world will join in.
Together we can face these issues. Together we can conquer those who wish violence to continue, selfishly for advantages it gives them. Together, in silence, finally, no sounds of arms, no bloody shrieks of pain, no cries of mourning, no hot dangerous bombastic terms but blessed silence as we gather our thoughts and come up with true possibilities, not dangerous demands of no reality and no trust. Surely, somewhere among all of us, all the people of the world, there must be at least some who can do this. I certainly hope so, for we are in a true tinder box situation and the box is heating up.
Together, in a thunderous silence with sensible, thoughtful resounding words we can do this. If we want to. If we understand the consequences of not doing so. Together the right way. The way to life, not blood and death.
Am Yisroel chai!
The nation, the people, live.
We must act together, in concert, in harmony.
Together - Together we can achieve it all.
Together we can
HEAL THE WORLD.
HEAL YITZY!
Yitzchak Elimelech ben Chana Sarah
May he be granted refuah shelaymah bimheyrah beyameinu.
May he be granted a timely and complete healing.
May he always remain on the road of faith, healing and strength.
May we all walk on that same road.
May Hashem hear all our voices raised in prayer.
Amen. Amen.
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