Gilad’s mother, Bat-Galim Shaar, said she’d found a d’var Torah Gilad had written about Hebron: “The Cave of the Patriarchs was the first purchase that the first Jew made in the Promised Land. The importance of burial sites, the purchase of burial sites and the fact of them being placed together, is a strong expression of the deep family ties, even in death.”
Hebron, he explained, comes from the Hebrew word hibur, connection.
“That’s the foundation of the People of Israel – a strong connection.”
* * * * * We are connected to the Divine promise to Avraham and all the Avos that “this land is yours…. to you and your children I will give it…. for to you will I give it…” Yes, we are connected to that glory even as we are also connected to the humiliation and insult heaped upon us by the world’s Ephrons.
So long as we can maintain the duality of that connection, so long as we remain connected to the highs and lows of our tradition and our experience, we will know the grace of Avraham and we will surely persevere.
