My heart is breaking. My soul is shaking. Inside, I hear generations of my people screaming, agitated, and "why, why" resounds through the halls of time. Even the voices of a possible future ring down back to us, reflecting, echoing the same mantra of "why, why". I wish this mantra could have been avoided. I wish people would stop the very bad habit of repeating history, doing the same damned stupid things over and over again. Thinking that perhaps the results this time around would be different. How wrong they are and where does this ugly ever widening eddy of disturbed waters end? Does it indeed have any ending at all?
"Am keshay oref". A nation of stubborn people. Refusing to ever bow their heads to their enemies. It has kept them alive through nearly three millennia of exile, ever freshened the desire, the drive, the imperative, to return to their land from whence they were exiled.
"Al naharot Bavel." On the shores of the rivers of Babylon, "sham yashovnu, gam bachinu bezachreinu et Tzion". There we sat and also cried, wept at the memories of Zion" the same Zion which is today called Israel, the one and only Jewish country in the world, perhaps the entire universe.
Wandering from pillar to post, invited in and thrown out, Jews have sung versions of that song, songs mourning new homes which had provided some sort of refuge, at least a place to live, sang many a version of "Anatevka" over the centuries. Finally, finally, we thought we were home at last. Never to be exiled again. Never to find ourselves again, targets of bitter and violent attacks, with enemies agitating for repossession of our homeland again. Made unwelcome in countries of long residence.
Worst of all, once again we set up ourselves for failure in the worst way. Even as students in elementary school, in classes of Jewish History, we learned of the political realities of the times of the destruction of the Temples and the exile from the Land of Israel. Two times. We learned that alongside the politics, was the damning and damned behavior of the nation themselves. Allowing themselves to get involved in petty disagreements, evolving into large ever deepening chasms in national unity, with Jew turning against Jew, brother against brother, and well, here we are again. Are we now to have a third go-round, repeating a tragic history?
We had it drilled into our heads, into our genetic makeup, that above all we were to always, forever, remember - we are all brothers and sisters, and we are responsible for each other. We are indeed family. And family must always draw a line, thick and dark enough to remind us of that, to halt us if we are following a bad path leading to a truly tragic outcome. Yet here we are again.
The sight of Jews battling Jews. Of water cannons, tear gas, batons, shoving, insults of terrible nature, Jew Against Jew cannot, must not, be again. History has warned us and yet we ignore history, falling prey to false pride, paying homage to false values, forgetting the ethos underlying our religion, and we reap the terrible horrendous consequence.
We now stand in danger of actually losing our homeland bought and paid for with our blood, considered cheap in the eyes of the world. Even as the blood costs continue, in Israel and around the world. Well, it is not cheap or free. Never was and never will be. Not again, never again is not an empty phrase. So, it is doubly awful to contemplate the third destruction of a nation-state of Israel - and mostly, our fault for forgetting our roots, for people who forget deliberately what is important, and instead chase power and domination, wealth over spirituality, family invective rather than family unity.
This isn't what we need. Thís is what will kill us yet again. Why can we not learn?
We have enough enemies out there so why must we add our weight to theirs? Why? Why?
Al naharot Bavel... Again?
Am Yisroel Chai.
I weep. I cry. I mourn. I curse.
Why?
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