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Topics in this digest: Report from Israel
July 2004
Rabbi Barry Leff
Israelis are famous for being very
opinionated. They typically have
opinions on EVERYTHING, and are not shy
about telling you YOUR business –
what you should do, how you should conduct
yourself. Sometimes in a sweet
and protective way; one time when we were
living in Israel, my wife was
walking down the street with our then
infant daughter Devorah in a front
pack, and a crew of garbagemen yelled at
her, because the baby’s arm was
sticking out and they were concerned the
baby would get a sunburn!
Knowing Israelis have strong opinions on
everything, I was quite surprised
to find last week when I was in Israel,
that most Israelis seem to have no
clue as to what is going to happen next
relative to the political
situation in Israel and peace with the
Palestinians.
I normally spend two weeks in the summer in
Israel studying at what my
wife calls “rabbi camp,” a program of the
Hartman Institute which brings
together rabbis of all denominations from
all over North America to sit
together and study. This year I couldn’t go
to rabbi camp because of my
move from Vancouver to Toledo. However, I
still wanted to go to Israel,
and I felt that this time instead of doing
something selfish—studying
Torah, which I love to do—I would go and
contribute something. So I
volunteered for the Sar-El program, and
spent a week living on an Army
base near Ramle refurbishing communications
equipment. We lived and
worked right with the soldiers, eating in
the cafeteria, “turning
screwdrivers” at the next bench.
I was able to speak with a number of
soldiers, and several cab drivers. I
asked all of them the same questions:
what’s going to happen with Sharon’s
plan for disengagement in Gaza, what’s
going to happen with the
government, and are things better than last
year.
The answers from a pretty wide cross
section were amazingly similar. No
one knows what’s going to happen, if they
are really going to pull out of
Gaza or not, and no one knows what’s going
to happen with the government,
whether there will be a unity a government
with Labor, or a coalition with
the religious parties, or what. The
Israelis are VERY uncertain about the
immediate future. But one thing they agree
on – things are MUCH better
this year than last year. The programs that
the Israeli government has
instituted—the security fence and taking
out terrorist leadership—has been
successful in making a big reduction in
violence against Israelis. They
feel more secure.
As I walked to the Western Wall on Shabbat
afternoon to daven Mincha,
coming from Emek Refaim I had to walk
across the upper end of the valley
of Hinnom – GeiHinnom -- to get there.
GeiHinnom is the Jewish word for
hell – it’s a place where the Canaanites
offered child sacrifices. I was
struck by how close Hell is to the place
that symbolizes Heaven on Earth,
God’s dwelling place here—the Temple Mount.
Only a few hundred yards.
The distance between Heaven and Hell is
indeed a short one—the difference
between peace and war, between pulling a
trigger and not pulling a
trigger. Yet it’s a distance that can
sometimes seem vast indeed.
In the face of the troubles, the Israelis
manage to continue to have a
sense of humor. I had the following
exchange with the security guard
outside my favorite coffee house:
Guard: “Neshek?” (do you have a weapon?)
Me: “Ain li neshek.” (I don’t have a
weapon).
Guard: “Lama?” (why not?)
A retired colleague who is in the real
estate business told me that prices
for Jerusalem real estate are up 20% in the
last six months…he said the
French, and some Americans are buying up
property in Jerusalem as if the
Intifida were over. But as my colleague Vic
told me, the Intifada is
definitely NOT over—so we need to continue
to do all that we can,
including to pray for the peace and
security of Israel.
Shabbat Shalom
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