We Are Not The Enemy

I am a child of survivors. For the last three generations, members of my family were brutally tortured and killed.

The evacuation of Jews from the biblical heartland has resurrected the recurrent nightmare I had as a child:

In the middle of the night, they were banging on the door. They who? Who knows? We didn’t answer it because we were too frightened. I was literally paralyzed with fear (sometimes I would wake up in the middle of this nightmare and could not move or even cry, my throat was so constricted). They kicked in the door. I remember the high leather boots, the spotless starched uniform, and the mean look on their face as they took away my parents and siblings, leaving me there alone.

We are not the Enemy. We are loyal citizens. We dress informally like the typical Israeli. We serve in the Army and even obey all traffic laws. We celebrate Israeli Independence Day andpraise the Almighty for the privilege of being here. On Shabbat, we bless the government, soldiers and the leaders. We deserve more than being pulled out of our homes in the middle of the night. We deserve some sort of due process with notice and a right of appeal. At the very least, they should come in broad daylight so that we can get our children out of harms way.

They may have the legal right to remove citizens from their homes by the doctrine of eminent domain. It is the way they are doing it that is inexcusable.

Maybe, it is intentional. By doing it this way, they elicit the sense of helplessness Jews felt during the holocaust. They can then break us and reduce us to polite cattle that would wait patiently in line even as they are lead to extermination.

Why are they doing this to us?

If I didn’t hear it with my own ears, I wouldn’t believe it. On a nationwide radio talk show, the narrators discussed the imminent evacuation and were indignant. This time, they declared, rabbis better not object or they will find themselves in jail for insurrection. Rabbis, they explained, have to understand that this is a country of Law and they have to obey the Law.

If the government decides to give a part of Israel to non-Jews, it is their prerogative; Israel was created by men and can be revoked by men. Rabbis under the delusion that it was G-d who gave it to them may have a theological problem, but they are mistaken and will be prosecuted mercilessly if they voice any opposition to this.

So the issue is not really the outposts.

The issue is whether Israel exists because of the miraculous return of the remnant of a people after two thousand years of longing for biblical prophesies to finally actualize or because of parlor games of some rich anti-religious assimilated Jews.

Why does the Almighty permit this outrage?

When Rav Huna’s wine turned to vinegar, his friends asked him to examine his deeds to see why he warranted this misfortune. I personally believe that we must be deserving of punishment, because we forgot how to love. We are despised by all nations because we don’t love each other. While giving lip service and going through the motions, most of us no longer feel deep passionate love for the Torah, the Jews, and the Land. Love is reflected in your sacrificing for them without looking for what you get out of it.

I gave my wife an expensive pearl necklace once and remember how I was holding my breath in trepidation until I saw how delighted she was. It’s anthropomorphic, but I imagine how the Almighty must feel when, after giving us His prize possessions, we act resentful, as though they over-encumbered us. 

Jews don’t want to act too Jewish. Torah observance is a burden and many of us that observe feel resentment over it obtrusively dominating our lives. And the Land is a hostile environment peopled by nasty to brutal populations, some Jews included.

Today, I am repentant. I will try to stop calling Jews names. I publicly apologize to the two Yossis, Beilin and Sarid, for calling them Yossele Golem and claiming their mothers were as great as the Maharal since they too created golems. I will try to stop calling the justice minister Tommy LaPig and Porky the Pig.

Today on the bus I will stand in respect every time a tattooed, pierced, pony-tailed soldier gets on and I will even offer up my seat. And in my prayers, I will vicariously enact my putting myself and my children through the Binding of Isaac. I will, before reciting Shema, vicariously die a thousand deaths before declaring in my loudest voice that my love for the Almighty is greater than my love of life itself. And I will go out and tenderly and lovingly plant a fruit tree.

On a communal level, we must strive to overcome our tendency to be hypercritical. Communities of Yesha remain small because of their over selectivity. They have a vaad ha’klita, which is very much like a co-op board. Because the settlements were cohesive, anyone who wasn’t a clone of everyone else was not admitted. Slightly more observant or slightly less observant was intolerable. Slightly more professional or educated or slightly less was unacceptable. This neurotic attempt at self-validation was their downfall.

As a community, we need to learn what is inscribed at the grave of Rav Avimelech and became popularized as the song Aderabah: “Conversely, place in our hearts, that everyone should only be able to see the positive qualities in our friends and not their faults.”

Perhaps they find us so repugnant because our aspirations are so iconoclastic. They correctly see this as the antithesis of the materialistic, selfish, and impersonal society that America wants the rest of the world to emulate. They view us as the enemy that refuses to validate their meaningless, alienated, and empty existence.

Maybe they are right.

Maybe we are the Enemy.