Brothers, you have not fallen in vain
Our thoughts this week are with the bereaved families and their loved ones, and we remember what they sacrificed their lives for: the defense of the people and the motherland, the right that cannot be taken for granted to have a Jewish state in our ancestral homeland, in the world's most difficult region. We remember the October 7 massacre and what its perpetrators did to our daughters and sons, our mothers and fathers, to infants and the elderly – their expressly stated aim is to do the same to Jews in Israel and the world over. We remember too our hostages held in captivity by the savages.
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We fight against an evil enemy whose political, spiritual, and operational manifest (the Hamas Charter) is chillingly similar to Mein Kampf. Just as humanity had to pay a terrible price to defeat Nazi Germany, so too must we, in this, our second war of independence. We are fighting for our existence.
The prophet Isaiah, who lived in Jerusalem in the eighth century BCE, gives us strength from the distance of generations: "Fear not, O worm Jacob, O men of Israel: I will help you —declares God—I your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel" (Isiah 41:14). There is a tradition in our ancient sources that Jacob's worm is the silkworm, that the third stage of its life cycle (after the egg and larvae stage) is the cocoon stage. The cocoon seems to be in a state of death and emptiness, but life is forming inside of it, and if we are patient and believe in its happy ending, we will see how at the end of the process a beautiful butterfly emerges from it and spreads its wings to the light.
Natan Alterman in his poem "Joy of the Poor" corresponds with the Jerusalemite prophet. At the height of World War II with the Nazis on the march, Alterman explained to us the meaning of sacrifice in our age. "Brethren! this once in a thousand years for our death there is morning's light. " For morning's light, Alterman uses the Hebrew word shachar which means dawn but here is used also in the sense of meaning (our sons and daughters have not fallen in vain) and in the sense of the dawn of our redemption after the long night of exile. And then he encourages the worm Jacob and prophesizes that despite the challenges and obstacles, we will overcome our enemies, and we shall flourish and prosper. "And happy the worm mocked humbled and bowed, deceived and surrounded and hurled and plowed, remembering, hate-eyed, and digging still, whom fate neither leaves nor yet will kill! For stern decree has cursed him to die! And God, life-giving, has cursed him to living! Came a runner with tidings...Your strength was done. Still, for salvation's hope, you embraced the son. "
The embraced son is the Tzabar, the son who was "born on thorns and thistles", the new Israeli Jew, born in the Land of Israel who is a product of the union between the old Jew and the young maiden who represents Zionism. Just like our soldiers who fight like lions at the gates of Gaza, loved in their life, never leaving each other in death, despite their differences, and thus bequeathing us life. We must raise our gaze beyond the here and now and heed their eternal will: to choose life and be worthy of their sacrifice. We have a long war ahead of us and with the help of the God of the wars of Israel and with the help of the tremendous spirit of our heroes, we shall triumph.
An old folly in a new guise
Suddenly, just when we thought it had been eliminated, the spirit of Oslo returned. The same old solution: a Palestinian state in the regions of Samaria and Judea, and of course, in the Gaza Strip. "Even if you pound the fool in a mortar, with a pestle along with grain, his folly will not leave him," said the wise man in Proverbs (27:22). What sin have we committed in not being rid of the folly of Oslo? On October 7, we experienced the poisoned fruit of the romantic idea of withdrawing from territories so that our enemies would establish a "Singapore in the Middle East." But they keep shouting: "We are not interested in your economic ideas and we are not interested in the good life – we are interested only in your death." This is what they wrote in the political/diplomatic manifesto on the basis of which they set out to massacre us – and I am not referring only to the Hamas charter, but also to the Fatah charter (The Palestinian Authority). In both documents, Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state, and in both documents, the Jewish people have no right to national self-determination.
"Solution" is a Western term, dating to Aristotle's time. It believes that every phenomenon has a cause. The basic assumption of supporters of a Palestinian state is that the cause of the conflict between us and our neighbors is territorial. Were that the case, we could have solved the problem long ago. To mask the lie, we are told that "secular" Fatah – the Palestinian Authority – is fundamentally different from "religious" Hamas.
But there is a dimension that goes deeper than religion, the mythical dimension and this most certainly exists in the PA. The mythical dimension is the primordial cultural layer that underlies society, namely its formative stories (myths) and beliefs. The psychoanalyst Carl Jung said that the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious is like the relationship between an island and an ocean. When we debate the conflict, we focus on the island and criminally abandon the ocean. Look at their textbooks, Israel does not exist. Listen to the discourse in the Palestinian media, PA offices, and social networks: Israel is the source of evil in the world. Read the Fatah Charter: Jews have no place in the world as a people! They are just a religion. As far as they are concerned, we are not entitled to national self-determination, that is, to a state. Therefore, they do not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Non-recognition perpetuates the state of war. That is why they do not say "two states for two peoples," but rather "the two-state solution," because "two peoples" implies recognition of the Jewish right to part of this land, and they do not recognize that.
Parallel to the marketing of the Oslo folly, we saw a propaganda campaign instigated against the pioneers of the Judean and Samarian hills, whose presence prevents a similar massacre in the heart of Israel. They are labeled "messianic." Messiah as a religious term is a clear signifier of the ultimate signified: God. And perhaps this is the root of the story: the fear of what these parts of the country represent, the cradle of the Bible, the fear of what is perceived as "irrational," as if the Oslo Accords relied solely on rational calculation and were not wishful thinking. What was rational about relying on the greatest murderer of Jews in the second half of the twentieth century to protect us from him?
The heroism of the mothers in the crossing of the Red Sea
This Shabbat we will read the Song of the Sea, the song of thanks for redemption from the hands of Egypt and Pharaoh. "Then Moses held out his arm over the sea and the Lord drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night and turned the sea into dry ground. The waters were split, and the Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left" (Exodus 14:21-22). The literal explanation of the verses teaches us that the water were split with a massive east wind that blew all night and created a passageway through the sea. From Rabbi Yaakov Madan, I learned how to explain this to my children: Take a shallow bowl of water and blow strongly; you will see how the waters are divided for as long as you blow.
Nighttime, the Egyptians threaten to approach, the waters are stormy and the wind howls with a terrifying noise, and then the waters are divided. It didn't look safe and it took unusual mental strength to enter the water. At this historic moment, mothers took their children and under the cover of the storm crossed the sea. The spirit of heroism of the mothers, that stood us well back then, still resides within us today in the words of the mothers of the fallen who with enormous strength push us to defeat our enemies. "The nations will hear and tremble; anguish will grip the people of Philistia..." (15:14). The same holds true today. They know that the people of Israel have awakened from a temporary slumber. We need patience. And faith.
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