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I like to think of it as the only supermarket in town whose shelves showcase oranges and bread and pistachios and cilantro while its isles serve as the stage for local musicians and the canvas for artists. Sometimes I go there to buy ingredients for soup and other times to be part of the cultural melting pot. Some say it’s stuffy and uncomfortable. I say it’s refreshing and invigorating.

It is a microcosm of the Israeli society. A 16 by 16 model, if you may. It invites everyone. It accepts everyone. And it is a forum in which people of all sects and sectors and orientation and religion coalesce in pursuit of a common goal. Its mundane objective, though, need not belie its noble effects.

It’s the Mahane Yehuda food market and it’s a relatively simple place. So They say.

But They aren’t always right.

Because a supermarket that brings me to tears cannot be a simple place. The Shuk is not a simple place for it is a reflection of the reality here in Israel. And the reality here in Israel is anything but simple.

So They say.

And this time They’re right.

I was rushing through the Shuk and I didn’t notice him until he raised his hand and slapped his face again and again. They were both Arabs. The older one was heavy set, around twenty two and he was directing orders at a younger boy who was around twelve. Apparently he did something wrong and violence replaced the orders and the little boy stood silently as the older boy’s punches shaped his face.

As the boy’s hands formed a respite for his broken face and a shelter for exposed shame and a well for the collection of escaping tears—I stood still for a moment. And then I, too, trapped my tears and buried my words and left them as thoughts. Cause everyone else did too.

It was at that moment that I felt unsure. I was meandering through the Confusion and Issues and Division of my mind and thinking about the Complexities and Depth and Contradictions of the Israeli society —and I got lost. Suddenly something so familiar was so foreign and somewhere so comfortable was suddenly so confusing. No one was there to offer a word of salvation. No one spoke. And so neither did I.

These unspoken words, though, expressed the greatest paradox of this society. They say that Israel is a country where opinion is never absent—whether on the line at the bank, the bus ride through town or a stroll through the streets. There’s always something to be said: something deserving of comment. Suddenly, though, after witnessing that frightening scene at the Shuk, no one had a voice. No one had a comment. Where was that opinion that always seems to penetrate the alcoves of every situation?

I tend to say that they were Arabs and I was scared and those are their problems and so I didn’t involve myself. But those are just excuses of mine. Just like everyone else’s. They are excuses that create the façade of a society; a society cannot exist under circumstances in which man lives of his own accord and each faction functions within a framework of apathy. The anomalous and the normative continue to exist here in a seeming companionship—an affiliation that is bound to skew the priorities of a country so delicate and reshape its contours to include the atrocious as a ritual of life.

We cannot continue to depend on what They say—cause it seems They don’t always have something to say. And once that day comes maybe the complexities and contradictions of the Shuk will finally fuse into the relatively simple place They say it is.

It was the three minutes when the allusion that I could trap the moment belied its transient properties and a time when I thought I held the solution to things and deemed the complexities of life to be mere misunderstandings.

I was nearing Jaffa Gate on my way to the Old City and I passed him. He was the waiter at the local café—the one who would ask if everything was okay and if he could clear my mug. We knew each other by face. We always acknowledged each other with a smile. And that was all.

This time though it was different: there were no tables surrounding us and no dirty plates waiting to be removed and it was just me and him. Out of context, it demanded more than a smile and he initiated conversation.

Where are you off to?

The kotel. And you?

Home. I live here.

And so the conversation continued. We spoke of nothing lofty and remained in the realm of the mundane but beneath the surface our mingling words were creating something extraordinary: dialogue between Arab and Jew. During those few moments we were crossing boundaries and signing a personal peace treaty. Everything seemed so simple for a moment; there was no tension lurking at our words and no definitions seeking to categorize us.

We could all get along so well, I thought. It’s only a matter of extending the smile to encompass words of conversation. There is no reason that they must all be grouped together as They and us as Us. We can all function as a We, can’t we?

But as we passed through Jaffa Gate and he continued walking in the direction of the Arab Market, I betrayed the We and told him I was turning right. The simplicity of the comment, though, clashed with the fragility of that which took only six minutes to create because I wasn’t just circumventing the Arab Market—I was circumventing the greater issues as well, the real issues.

It was as though our relationship immediately retreated to what it once was and non-verbal conversation replaced language as the mode of communication. My decision to turn right answered all the questions hiding in the alcoves of our previous conversation. It expelled all simplicity and temporarily voided the peace treaty. It exposed our conversation as brief chatter, fleeting with the moment that nursed it. Because suddenly I wasn’t so willing. Suddenly I wasn’t so comfortable. I was scared. And while I was willing to walk with him, I wasn’t willing to walk amongst his friends and brothers and parents.

It was then that I questioned the nature of our short meeting and wondered whether my fear of pushing the limits contradicted the motive of a genuine conversation. But then again, while we did not speak of the controversial issues that inundate our cultures and divisive matters that permeate our societies, we did speak. We spoke a language that recognized and respected the presence of the other. We spoke words that concluded an informal conversation but may lead, one day, to the commencement of formal discourse.

It makes me wonder, though, which words retained greater influence—those which were spoken or those which were left unspoken?

The Talmud, which is recognized as the main source of Jewish law, is essentially a summary of the Jewish oral law. It is composed of two parts: the Mishna (200 CE), a record of halacha; and the Gemara (500 CE), which expounds, discusses and challenges the opinions set out in the Mishna. While its canonization has a marked date, the material contained within the Talmud represents thousands of years of Jewish thought, development and wisdom. Often regarded primarily as a legal body of work which serves as the basis for rabbinic law and a guide for proper conduct, the Talmud is in fact a prime example of the genius of Jewish literature: its ordered and logical composition serves as the framework for a text replete with sharp literary techniques and artistic subtleties.

Israel, on the most basic level, is the homeland of the Jewish People. The Torah, or Hebrew Bible, records God’s pledge in which He promises Eretz Israel to the descendants of the Jewish forefathers. While there was always a Jewish representation residing in Israel, often they were not the majority nor did they retain political sovereignty. Following the destruction of the Jewish Temple, the majority of the Jewish population lived in the Galut, or the diaspora; and yet Eretz Israel retained a prominent position in the life of the Jew: the liturgy as well as Halacha, mitzvoth and ideology all encouraged a maintained relationship with the Promised Land.

The advent of Zionism, however, forever changed the relationship of the Jew with his homeland. A political movement intended to create a homeland for the Jewish people, Zionism was founded in the late 1800’s by Theodor Herzl; and eventually led to the formal establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

While the opinions regarding the nature of Zionism and the State of Israel are as varied as those who express those views, the present state of Israel remains the homeland to a melting-pot of Jews as well a state which allows for Jewish sovereignty.

Zionism, in its pure from was intended as a secular movement. In the early 20^th century however, the Religious Zionist movement formed in attempt to marry the ideals of Zionistic values with those of the Torah. Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook, the proponent of the movement understood the creation of the state to be the beginning of the ultimate redemption. The Divine plan necessitates the formation of such a state, a Jewish homeland, in order to assure the eventual geula, redemption.