The state, the society, the war, the present hour.
The city-state of Zion, in the year of our world 6000.
A space and a time.
The transformation of our space and our time.
A rendezvous, if you will.
A meeting at the end of history and the beginning of something bigger.
We can choose it at any moment. But there’s a terrible, wonderful purpose to human history.
Some things are inevitable.
“Israel’s warmongering”
[sic]
🤢🙄🫠
Otherwise educated, intelligent, moral individuals really out here claiming that Israel is the aggressor.
On the Hebrew anniversary of Hamas’s invasion no less.
אין מספקין ואין מרקדין וכו’
But shuffling in a circle singing songs and saying prayers seem alright 😀
We Will Dance Again
(at הקפות שניות)
Well now.
The murderer whose life was saved not once but twice by Israeli doctors – and who nevertheless then went on to risk the entire population of Gaza in a savage and bloody invasion of the southern cities and towns of Israel that left thousands dead and ultimately resulted in the abysmal destruction of the Gaza Strip – has finally met his judgement. Certainly an occasion to sing the Lord’s praises…
It seems that Sinwar was hit in an operation that wasn’t specifically targeting him – a unit just spotted “three combatants” in an area they were clearing and neutralized them. Divine providence at work even when we’re asleep at the wheel?
According to YNet, Sinwar’s corpse was first visually spotted (I won’t post the photo here but yeah it looks like him) and then identified based on dental records. He had on his person thousands of Israeli sheqels and (forged) ID/travel documents. While many expected Sinwar to die a martyr’s death surrounded by hostages and devotees, he apparently died like a rat on the run amidst the rubble of the city he ran into the ground.
And there you have it, folks.
May the joy of your holiday be enhanced by the open revelation of divine justice…
A meditation and a prayer.
Last year, we were truly a mess on Yom haKippurim. Publicly fighting over how and where to sit during services, with acrimony and venom and self-righteousness and hatred. On the day when we should have been most united in love for each other and for our Creator, we showed our worst selves.
Then came October 7th. On the day we should have been celebrating the Torah together, we were in hiding. Savagery and devastation swept the south while rockets rained across the entire land, leaving hundreds in captivity and an entire nation traumatized. In the wake of such a morbidly potent reminder of who we actually are to our actual enemies – and their supporters worldwide – we came together and mobilized waves of support for the survivors, the families, the homeless, and the soldiers. We showed our best selves.
It’s true that a year later, the war frustratingly still continues while the captives inexplicably still remain imprisoned. It’s true that hundreds of thousands of people are still refugees from the north, the south, and the Gaza Strip. It’s true that waves of missiles still target our homes and masses of rioters still call for our collective death. And it’s painfully true that after so much seemed to change so quickly that morning one year ago, so much in our country and our world still seems to remain the same.
But this year, we met October 7th before Yom haKippurim. This wasn’t just a day of remembering the fallen and the lost – truthfully their memory has not left us a single day of the past three hundred and sixty five and is always before our eyes, in our feeds and groups and Shabbat newsletters. This was a day of remembering how we came together and supported one another in the wake of the worst horror since Auschwitz, an ongoing nightmare for countless families, a doom against which we have collectively, consciously chosen to offer hope and light.
This year, as we make our way across the narrow bridge between Rosh haShana and Yom haKippurim, we pause and remember who we have shown ourselves to be over the past year. People who step up and who volunteer and who care and who fight for each other. People who choose hope and light, even as many in the world choose darkness. May we bring that hope and that light in our return to the Holy of Holies on Yom haKippurim this year, and may we merit to see the day when all creations are united in the sacred peace of knowing our Creator.
Imagine having a holiday dinner with your family and enjoying a cup of coffee in the autumn night air afterwards and going to sleep with grateful thoughts of how blessed you are, and then you’re woken up by gunfire and shouts and gunmen storming into your home and they literally capture you and you starve in captivity for an entire year.
For. An. Entire. Year.
Imagine going to a festival and just a few hours after the last set ends you’re still up and revved and decide to watch the sunrise with some new friends and it’s amazing, and then gunmen come and start shooting everybody and they literally capture you and you starve in captivity for an entire year.
For. An. Entire. Year.
A late night conversation with a FB friend from Bethlehem turned to Zionism. “I don’t know much about Zionism,” he said. “Could you explain it to me? I hear some people say it’s bad, some people say it’s good.”
😬
So at a quarter to one in the morning, I gave it a shot:
“Zionism started with the prophets preaching to the priests and princes of the kingdoms of yehuda and yisrael, before the destruction of both kingdoms by foreign colonizers. The prophets protested the inhumanity of human beings and the alienation of God and the needs of justice and sanctity. Zion, which started out as the neighborhood of Silwan, became a synonym for the ideal society in line with Allah’s will.
When the grandchildren of the exilees from Yehuda returned to the land, the prophets spoke again of a future reconciliation between men and between humanity and the Creator – along with the rebuilding of the destroyed sanctuary. This was the next phase of Zionism, the rebuilding of material and spiritual society after reckoning with its prior loss.
After Yehuda and Shomeron were destroyed again by foreign colonizers, Zionism became a dream in exile. It meant both the return to the land and the building of a new society. After the expulsion of the Jewish people from Spain in the 1492, Jewish people began organizing to buy back property in the land from the colonizers at the time, to rebuild the cities that had been neglected and to make new cities for the diaspora Jewish people to join the people of the land. This popular Zionist movement continued for centuries until a big wave was started by Herzl, who translated Zionism into the language of a state; inspired by him, people left the antisemitic messes of Europe, North Africa, and the Levant, and began moving to the land in masses to become simple farmers and tradesmen. One great rabbi in particular, Avraham Yitshak Kook, tried to unite all the people, from the communities that had always been here and the newcomers, around the great dream of Zion, the reality of a heavenly society on earth. He passed on to his world before the founding of the state though.
Then came 1948, and a war started by neighboring states that uprooted many Palestinians, and left half of Jerusalem under Israeli control while putting the West Bank under Jordanian control.
Then came 1967, and a war that brought the West Bank and its Palestinians – and the rest of Jerusalem – under Israeli control. Rabbi Kook’s son and his students saw this as a sign for a new phase of Zionism, based on state control of land conquered in war.
Now it is decades later and it is clear to all that the successful reclamation of east Jerusalem and the west bank from the Jordanian army was not a sign from God to keep using the powers of the state to control civilian populations but a reminder that even when our vision is clouded and our faith is narrowed, by the stresses of the furnace of history, the Creator is still with us, protecting us, and calling us to build a better society – together. Calling us all to remember our ancestors and their ways, to let go of foreign shackles, and come together again in a covenant of peace. It is up to us to answer that call.
That is Zionism. Whether it is good or bad is up to you to decide.”
His verdict:
“I see it has a good vision.”
Can’t trust the prime minister? Can’t trust the government? Can’t trust the army generals?
אנחנו מאמינים בני מאמינים שאין לנו על מי להישען אלא על אבינו שבשמיים
Life here is an open miracle. Embrace it.
“…to a large extent the impact of the war, including displacement of Gazans, is due to its urban nature and Hamas’s choice to embed among civilians. It’s true that going into Rafih much earlier would have most likely avoided the length and the scale of the impact, and we hold Bibi accountable for that. But it would not have been avoided entirely.
Regarding colonialism. Israel vacated the Gaza Strip over a decade ago. Despite what a vocal minority of thugs want, there are no plans to return. Even if security and/or political control was retained by Israel, it still wouldn’t be colonialism.
Furthermore. Western Leftists need to stop throwing around colonialism as if they actually understand it in its full ugliness and start seeing the nuanced ways in which their suppositions about the world conflict with it. Islam is foreign to this land and was spread here by colonizers. Despite the influence of the colonized (!) diaspora, Israel’s presence here goes back 3000 years and has been characterized more by an agenda of self-determination and self-defense than one of colonization. We don’t represent a foreign power or culture here and even the military occupation of the West Bank (which followed the Jordanian ethnic cleansing and occupation of the same area) is driven by internal issues, not foreign policy.
Regarding the issues you raised:
1) we already have large reserves of natural gas. This war is not about plunder. The Gaza Marine will most likely be developed by Gulf partners with local Gazan leadership and will hopefully finance much of Gaza’s reconstruction.
2) Putin is definitely involved with Hamas. He is definitely a factor in the war’s prolongation but if you’re assuming he’s on the Israeli side, you’re looking at it upside down.
3) there’s an antisemitic canard about Jews (and/or the Jewish state) having undue influence on American politics. Let’s not go there. The American Left is messed up because of its own problems with theory and praxis (and because Americans are extremely susceptible to propaganda).
…. You know it’s a world of lies. But here’s to Bibi being replaced, Harris beating Trump, Gaza being rebuilt, and the occupation ending. If we have no hope, then we have nothing.”