Tzipiyah.com

I am moved. I just heard an astounding Israeli radio broadcast, which has seriously shaken some of my prejudices and assumptions about Israeli society and about Jews.

It’s almost Yom Kippur, and I’ve had a difficult time personally with the ‘Yamim Nora’im’ - Days of Awe, the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. I find the enormity of the fear that is so often emphasized, and the deep realization of personal responsibility for the past, to stress me emotionally, and, while I have been trying to engage in the emotional seriousness of the season, it has been difficult to make it personally meaningful and very positive.

I connected to a popular secular Israeli radio channel on web streaming a few minutes ago, and heard the talk show host chatting to the head of ‘Or Yarok’ (’Green Light’), a traffic safety organization in Israel… (more…)

I sat on a bus, saw three children play.
A girl and two boys, and a few seconds’ glance told me
they were not one of ours.
I watched as they played, running up and down,
and was disturbed by their game.
Slap, smack, hit to the head;
in fun and with laughter, but the violence struck me.

The boy was clever,
and used sharp tricks to
manage to smack his sister in different ways.
There were no tears,
and the little girl laughed and laughed;
I shared in a little of her laughter when she looked my way,
although I was gravened by the
clear innate violence…
Smack, slap, steal her sweet away,
steal her hair ribbon, with the humour of a child,
and the inventiveness of a clever little boy,
which I couldn’t help but smile at;
yet with the cruelty of a soul darkened with only scarce mercy.
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I miss seminary a lot. It’s not just the friendships. It’s not just the tiyulim around our beautiful country. It’s not just the tzadikkim/ot that taught us.  And it’s not just the enlightening shiurim I had. All these contributed to my growth and enjoyment.

But what I miss most is the environment. We were all going through the same process; living with strangers, trying to survive on sem food, adapting to the intense schedule and culture. We all celebrated Shabbat and chagim together, we all experienced the more solemn events together from Yom HaShoah to Yom HaZikaron, and we all experienced the magnitude of Eretz Yisrael and Am Yisrael on occasions like Yom Yerushalyim, Yom Haatzmaut and visits to Hevron and the like. But most of all, we all had one mission. We all wanted to grow in our Torah. All we did and went through was for the purpose of Torah. Every song we sung was to get close to Hashem, every pasuk we learnt was to learn His wisdom. 

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I was in a Falafel shop this evening, when an old man walked in. He didn’t look very different from most old Sfardi Israeli men, but he was, as it turned out, most remarkable. And he inspired me more than most of what I’ve experienced in Israel since I made Aliyah not long ago. What did he do?
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I’m coming out of hiding and admitting that I have been watching the show “Srugim”. While I’m not necessarily comfortable with everything shown on that show, I do believe it brings up a number of powerful serious issues in the religious community in Israel. One scene in this week’s episode was especially powerful:

If you do not see a video here, you need to click here to see the full post.

For those who do not understand Hebrew, the younger character is speaking to her aunt about her feelings after the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif. After praying intensely for months, with an intensity which has not been equaled in decades, the Jews of Gush Katif were still expulsed from their homes and a lot of people started asking questions: “Why did God not answer our prayers?”. The younger character, one of the youth from Gush Katif, in this show lost her faith because of this and could not connect to God anymore. She started rebelling against everything God represented. In the real world, the rebellions which some of the youth from Gush Katif went through was even more dramatic - the community was completely devastated.

In order to enhance your understanding of the problem, and understand the painful position taken from some of these youth, take a look at this video which shows us a glimpse of the intensity in which the prayers were conducted in. Take a moment to watch this video before reading on:

So, how do we deal with such a disappointment. How could we have prayed for so long and with so much power and not receive any answer?

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