Our claim to Israel – Published March 11 around the Israel apartheid week

prayer for the wellfare of the state of IsraelI have an argument with my elder sister ,

For the record, Tehilla (my sister) is an Orthodox ‏professor, that lectures mainly to young Jewish women  who come  to Israel for a one or two years programs.
By now she has thousands of followers. On a personal note – Tehilla is responsible in many ways for my Jewish education. I thought of her a lot this past week. Why?

Well, this past week was a tensed one for anyone who holds an emotional or spiritual link to Israel. Potentially explosive concepts and accusations such as Hate party against Israel / Anti-Semitism / Jewdophobia, were frequently hurled into the poisoned air during Israel apartheid week (I won’t even mention the venom that was shot from the “other” side…).

 An Israeli advocacy organization has done a thorough job in presenting answers to anti-Israeli false accusations. These answers talk about Environment and Israel, Human rights, and Explaining security aspects. All hold true and good. But as a Dalhousie student asked me:

Student (shyly): “Well Rabbi, but what do YOU say… and mind you, we didn’t come to you as a Rabbi, but as a scholar who is an ex-soldier and has lived in Israel…”

It might sound peculiar to you, but up till a few months ago when I still resided in Israel I, as any other typical Israeli, never bothered to articulate any advocacy for Israel whatsoever. By just being there and living the Israeli atmosphere one feels and lives according to ones belief without ever realizing the rest of the world is challenging his life and defining him as part of a conflict (!)

When speaking to my family and friends this week, I realized again that they didn’t even know that everywhere outside of Israel it’s Apartheid week and that they are on the front page!

Why is it that we are the only nation that has to keep explaining and defending the fact that we are entitled to our own country even after we’ve been dwelling in it as our state for over 60 years?

Here follow a few anecdotes from a credo my sister published a few years ago concerning our tie to Israel as viewed by gentiles and Jews alike:

“… I come from a Jewish North African family. My grandparents on my father’s side were born and raised in Algeria and Tunisia. Although their family roots usually surpassed those of their Arab neighbors being there many generations before, they have testified that it was not uncommon to be rebuked by gentile neighbors who kept telling them to “get out of here and go to your own land- to Palestine”. I remember feeling struck once when hearing in a totally random conversation from my father-in-law, a Romanian-born Jew, the exact same wording he has encountered in Romania from his “good neighbors” there.  So, all over Europe as well as all over now-Arab-dominated countries (many Jewish families have lived in these territories way before they were conquered by Arabs and declared Islamic), Jews have been getting the same attitude. Here you don’t belong. Go to you own place. Leave to your own land.

This was said before there was a Jewish state and has been continued to being said also once the Jewish state has been established and struggling to survive. In a sense, telling someone to leave to Palestine was just as wishing him/her bon voyage to hell. “Palestine”, or the new-born state of Israel, was a land full of swamps and robbers. Its future seemed bleak from every prospect. After all, for over 2000 years, it has been deserted and desolated. Crusaders and traveling adventures described it in their journals as a cursed land; grim and over-bearing. Like a dark widow- was one especially expressive metaphor (see Mark Twain’s diary). So now, after spilling sweat and blood to revive the land, dry out the swamps and develop its economy; now that Israeli-Jews have turned the “dark widow” into a blooming bride, now you Arabs say you want it for yourselves??? That you are the fiancé of this enchanting bride-of a country???

And we are told the Arab hubris has a flare for dignity and self respect… Have you no ounce of honor???

Is it not so much more true to respond to that reality expressed by so many people from so plenty states- “Palestine is your land”. If one hears it from every farmer or common man in North Africa “ruche al Balestine” as well as in South Asia and Europe “sortie dice alleze alle o Falestina”, does it not mean anything? Can one not see it is the ultimate expression of a universal heart-felt truth; “”Palestina e a terra deles”? How true are the words of Emmerson “The first farmer was the first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use of land”. It seems “the first man” had its say, and it has everything to do with “possession and use of land”.

That’s from the vibes of the general human race.

If the Jews would not have responded to those vibes- we would have a problem.

 Fortunately enough for the nations of this world, this is not the case. The passion of the Hebrew-man to his land is obvious and well known. Still, one cannot but mention it. Whether from religious values or from completely opposite attributes, Jews have yearned, and materialized their longing for Israel by giving up their comforts and everything in their “borne-land”, in order to breathe and live in their historical Homeland. Even if it meant putting in jeopardy their lives as well as the lives of their beloved as indeed was the case more often than not.

Now that they indeed left wherever they came from and revived Israel with the sweat of their brow and their blood and the blood of their children, now you gentiles tell us it does not exclusively belong to us? When your previous words of “expulsion” to “that country” still echoes in our ears? Dear gentiles, you are contradicting yourself at the least; hypocritical- more likely.

What more needs to be said so that the blind see the obvious?

If only the ignorant person (not the malicious opponent) could catch a glimpse into the soul of a true-to-himself Jewish Israeli, nothing more need have been written. The most cursive glance would not fail to immediately detect an almost primitively raw nerve blazing fire-light and power. This dominant force in the Israeli’s bearing is his tie to his land. It is also his tie to his spiritual dimension. It is anything and everything that the term “Israel” entails. It is a spiritual call of the soul to a dimension that can only, but only, be felt in the holiest of lands. The land of Israel is the power source to which the Israeli can “plug in” to fulfill his inner self, his divine call as the chosen son of G-d. This land is not only an almost-tangibly unique and spiritual sphere of influence; it also holds the actual footsteps and history of the Israeli’s genetic forefathers and foremothers. I, as a Jewish Israeli, cannot be fully Jewish without experiencing and living in that place ordained for me from the beginning of creation. I do not say this from quoting what is written in our sacred and divine Torah, I say it because I feel it imprinted in my bones, flowing in my blood. If I cannot be fully Jewish, I cannot be my full self. I cannot be alive in the true sense of what “alive” means. In fact, it would not even be considered dramatic if I tell you the simple truth: without Israel, a true Jew is half dead; a beaten corpse of a human.

Even if I were wrong- one cannot move me away from here. How much more so- if I stand right and my Father in heaven, the Almighty who has created all heaven and all earth, is on my side.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa

A few months ago I would stop here, no need to add anything to the ‘simple truth’. I think most of the fifty year olders and above from our community, would agree up to 95% with Tehilla, maybe with slight changes due to each individual’s family experience.

However, talking with younger generations about Israel, I say we must always maintain a discussion also about the “absolute truths” that appeal to our intellect, not only the ‘simple ones’ that emanate from feelings and axiomatic realities my sister has mentioned. It might seem less colorful and passionate, but it is truth and as such- should have its say.

G-d made a covenant with us expecting us to act as ‘A kingdom of priests and holy nation’. As implied in the quote itself, being Jewish does not only apply to our religious belief. We are not people of an abstract philosophy. We are a nation. God has therefore designated a specific location in which His people should reside; this place is described in D’varim chapter 11:

 “A land the Lord, your God, looks after; the eyes of Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.”

Only there, in that specific location we can continue to flourish and fulfill our destination as mentioned by HaShem to Avraham:

..”Go forth…to the land that I will show you…and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you (Genesis, chapter 12)

..”Go forth…to the land that I will show you…and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you” (Genesis, chapter 12)

I could quote many more verses that all indicate the same (started to make a list already..), but re-considering it, this is the general story of the whole Bible – G-d making a covenant with the Jews to improve the world, make it  a better place not only for them, but for the “entire human race” (Michael Jackson). In order to execute this plan He gave them a ‘world guiding book’ (Torah), the instructions applicable mainly in the land of Israel.

We, Israelites weren’t always obedient in following His rules, so He punished us and made our enemies abuse us and exile us away from The Land of honey and milk.. to and fro, back and forth..  Nevertheless and at all times, leaving also room for hope and Ts’huva (repentance) – He promised never to let his ‘firstborn Israel’ perish (although sometimes pretty close). Furthermore, even when we were away, He never let our enemies prosper on the Promised Land. This- to show us it is waiting only for us.

During the twenty centuries that others occupied our Land – Romans, Byzantines, Mamlukes, Turks, Arabs, the land stayed desolated. Barren and arid. This is an astonishing fact that can be checked easily. It is only through the past sixty five years, ever since we returned to it, that the Land started ‘smiling again’ (..did you see lately what is going on in the Gush Katif? Six years ago we exported AAA fruits all over the world from there… now the Palestinians grumble they can’t even manage to grow a tomato there?!).

Dear sis, it is not just a ‘simple truth’, but a reality based on G-d’s promise, for when we will be exiled, Israel will await for It’s people  –
I will make the Land desolate, so that it will become desolate [also] of your enemies who live in it.”

Even today, for many reasons, financial, cultural, social, a little bit over half the Jewish people can’t find themselves living in Israel. This is a matter for a different discussion.
The purpose of this article is to repeat and remind ourselves that regardless of  as to where we live today, we are part of Israel, and Israel is part of us because by all means, Jews and Israel are two sides of the same coin. Not to be separated. This is how it is meant to be. This is what God intended. In any confrontation- I choose to stay on His side J

I will finish with a story I heard from Rav Israel Meir Lau,the youngest Holocaust survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp later to become the former Chief Rabbi of Israel:

It was in Buchenwald, and Rabbi Lau’s brother, Naftali, was ill. The odds of surviving weren’t good for anyone, but really close to non when you were in such condition. Then Naftali taught his younger brother (who was six at the time) his two first Hebrew words. “Repeat after me” he told him, ארץ ישראל – Eretz Israel.  If you end up alive and get free, go search for this place.

Answering the student I mentioned above, being a Rabbi is now my job. But stating all the above precedes my present occupation. It is what I believe to be the truth as one of many millions, who accept the originality of the Old Testament through their mind and feel its logic in their heart.