Jerusalem Musings and Impossible Choices
Perhaps, like many of you, the developments of the last couple weeks have stirred so many overwhelming often conflicting emotions inside of me, reminiscent of those early weeks after Oct 7. I am utterly stunned that after 15 months of war at a heartbreakingly high price of well over 2,000 civilian and soldiers’ lives and many, many thousands wounded, the jihadi terrorists are still brazenly holding the power and dictating the terms of this latest hostage/cease-fire deal. The only words that describe how I feel besides sadness and compassion deeper than any Gaza tunnel, is an intense cocktail of emotions that together ממש משגע אותי (are really crazy-making) Here is just a sample:
- Red-hot anger and dismay that Israel – just in this first phase of this deal — is forced to release more than 1,900 convicted terrorists, murderers and maimers, many into the West Bank and Jerusalem – that’s right, in the neighborhoods we live in or share a border with — for 33 possibly alive hostages, rendering our streets and buses immediately less safe than they were yesterday or before October 7
- Seething rage that the “innocent” “starving” Palestinians – adults and children — have returned immediately to the streets en masse with rifles, a vast majority of those “poor civilians” suddenly dressed in Hamas uniforms, to celebrate victory and shout “Kill the Jews” and Allahu Akhbar like a horde of rabid dogs.
- Intense Indignation that just days before the recent deal was signed, Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya gave a televised speech praising the October 7 massacre as a major achievement for the Palestinian people, vowing to continue to pursue Israel’s destruction, looking toward Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a “compass.” And that in response, all those meddlers on the world stage who have been screeching for a ceasefire for over a year are curiously silent, which — whether they realize it or not — makes them complicit in the murder of Jews.
- Despair that during the ceasefire(s), the IDF will lose vital military and strategic progress made over the last 15 months in Gaza, again at an exacting price of the lives of so many of our finest, brave young men and women.
- Intense gratitude to Hashem that 3 young women not only survived 15 months in Hamas terror dungeons, but are now free! Their road to healing will be long, but I am so happy for them.
- Absolute disgust that the Hamas-nik Red Cross continues to play a role in transferring our newly released hostages, though they never once visited any of our 251 hostages or provided medicine and basic care. That they somehow cannot request civility on the streets of Gaza as the 3 fragile survivors are transported to Israeli custody, but rather allow the mobs to re-terrorize the women during their final transition from captivity is inexcusable. I am also reminded how the previously released hostages last November even till the last moment had to cow-tow to their captors and play-act gratitude. All of it physically nauseates me
- Great joy that at least as of now, the Gonen, Damari and Steinbrecher families, each, are experiencing a miraculous reunion with their beloved child/sibling, following 471 days of prayers and tears — a prolonged suspension in an unfathomable hell.
- Deep compassion for the hostage families whose loved ones have yet to be released, or who might discover that after 500 or 510 days, he/she is returned only for burial, or even others, like the Goldberg-Polins or Yerushalmis, who could anguish until oblivion with the ‘what-ifs’.
- Maddening frustration that by enabling and negotiating with terrorists who capture innocent civilians out of their beds for ransom, torture and murder, we set an irreversible precedent
- And because of the above, palpable fear that we may G-d forbid one day soon look back nostalgically at the weekly stabbing or shooting attacks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Herzliya, or Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria because they have been replaced by indiscriminate random hostage-taking.
- Grief for the families, like the Fulds or Ronds, who were notified that the convicted murderers of their family member in past terror attacks will be released from jail in this current deal. I can’t imagine the complex trauma such news could trigger.
- And finally, heartfelt solidarity for those families whose loved ones were murdered on Oct 7, with no hope of return, who may be re-living the trauma as each new development of this long, difficult war unfolds.
Many Israelis and Diaspora Jews over the last 15 months have felt compelled to pick one or the other camp to stand in or support, namely, Bring them Home Now vs עד נצחון (Until Total Victory). I, on the other hand, feel okay straddling the gray zone, having realized that everything here is actually quite complex:
That it is in fact by design that Nazi-esque Hamas creates these excruciatingly impossible moral quagmires for Israel and the Jewish people, where our leaders must choose between two heartbreaking alternatives. Remember that the terror regime revels in our humiliation, our division as a nation, and they love to dish out their particular brand of sophomoric and psychopathic psychological torture. Can’t we outsmart them?
That if we could even imagine things were in reverse . . . that Israeli soldiers or ‘freedom fighters’ (as the brightest minds at Harvard University call Hamas) had broken into Gaza and captured as hostages 100s of innocent unsuspecting Arab civilians, women, elderly, and children from their bedrooms and streets and ‘hid’ them in private homes all across Israel, in Shaarei Zedek, Hadassah and Laniado Hospitals and other secret locations . . . what would we do? Without even creating a parallel where Israelis would line the streets and euphorically beat and spit on the captives as they are driven into Israel, the scenario is so ludicrous, I would bet that most of you have never even considered it.
However, it came to me two nights ago, as perhaps my most profound insight yet since Oct 7. What would we do? The unequivocal answer is that we, as individuals, as families, as a nation, would rally for and demand the release of those innocent Palestinian citizens with as much passion, noise, and commitment that we rallied for our own. We would en masse storm the Knesset and take to the streets and raid the hospitals and attack the collaborators’ homes and risk our lives to free the hostages.
My eyes overflow with tears as I pen this realization, and I am in real-time trying to figure out why it is touching me so deeply. It is not because the world judges and accuses us unfairly. Or that we have had to wage this war under international demands and conditions not placed on any other defensive army in history, thereby prolonging the war, reducing efficacy, and increasing risk to our soldiers. It is that I am certain that not a single individual who died על קידוש השם (sanctifying G-d) as a result of this unwanted war felt wanton hatred towards Palestinians, wished any of them harm, or sought to destroy or deny Arab culture, history or sovereignty. Even released hostages or hostage families during the last 15 months – months of excruciating pain and high emotion — have never taken to a microphone to call for death to Palestinians or to spew hatred. In fact, the ire has been directed to our own (Israeli) government rather than to the monsters who captured hostages to begin with.
No, my tears come precisely because the gap between our basic humanity and values and that of our enemy is exponentially wider than any land measurement ‘from the river to the sea’. And because in these hostage deals which are negotiated with representatives from different countries and then analyzed and discussed ad nauseum on the global stage and in the global press, our holy, innocent, loving brothers and sisters — fellow יהודים (Jews) — are talked about in the same breath as the violent, bloodthirsty scum that sit in Israeli prisons. Though our enemy exacts a price from us as if we are swapping people for people, there is no equivalence. The pretense that there is one is such an offense to me, it makes me cry.
In a brilliant interview I watched recently with Einat Wilf — author, former Knesset member, still self-identifying as on the ‘left’ and one of the sanest voices of clarity about Israel and the Middle East — she adeptly identifies some of the failures in Israel’s conduct of this war with Hamas. She describes how our leadership caved early to international pressure on 4 key issues that were crucial for our ability to win and has therefore deprived us of a clarifying win. The first point she highlights is our willingness to collaborate in the lie that Hamas does not represent the Palestinians, that this war is just against Hamas and not against the Palestinian people, when in truth we should have declared early on our non-negotiable goal of war against Palestinianism, the ideology (similar to an ideology like Nazism), which is committed to the destruction of the State of Israel and denies Jews the right to self-determination in their own land. I urge you to watch the entire interview which I attach above. It is worth your time.
And from all of this I have learned a couple important lessons: Being Israeli means on an almost permanent basis having the ability to hold two or more conflicting realities and their corresponding emotions at the same time. It is a way of life here. And because of the stress of living here and navigating decisions, micro and macro, where all the choices represent uncertainty and pain, there is really nothing else you can do but turn to G-d, choose faith and hope, and pray for and believe in better days ahead. For many Israelis, that means often keeping the vision forward-looking to the coming of Mashiach (the Messiah).
Which reminds me of a lighter moment just a few weeks ago as I was walking hurriedly in the brisk Jerusalem December air to a Day 2 Chanukah חֲגִיגָה (celebration) on Mekor Chaim street. Mid-way, I received a phone call from my very close and old friend CB from California with a real estate question. She and her siblings inherited a family apartment in Jerusalem on King David Street. The building is going TAMA 38 (part of a major government-sponsored renovation project), and the siblings want to wait till TAMA is completed before selling. In comes a cousin who is offering a certain amount of money to buy it now. CB wanted my advice on whether to sell now or wait the couple years after which it could be worth more. I didn’t skip a beat before blurting: “You know, if Mashiach comes in the next couple years, that apartment is going to be worth many multiples of what it is worth now!” Immediately after, I started to giggle, because I realized that the odds of me having said something like that prior to moving to Jerusalem was many multiples of zero.
Indeed, as Assad’s regime in Syria collapsed around that time, I was privy to many conversations around shabbat tables on what it all meant. Friends turned suddenly into field archeologists, interpreters of Kabbalah, and Talmudic scholars presented critical information. Occasionally, even I had something to contribute.
Apparently, there is an ancient prophecy attributed to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi) recorded in the Sefer Otzar Midrashim. According to the text, while hiding in a cave, Rashbi received divine messages from an angel detailing future occurrences. One passage seems particularly relevant to our current situation:
Interestingly, some experts point out that the Hebrew Gematria (numerology) of “Eastern Nero” matches the name “Bashar al-Assad”, the recent fallen leader of Syria. According to many Syrians as well, al-Assad was often referred to as the Eastern Nero. And to top that, the letters in the Hebrew word for Damascus, דמשק, are the same letters as in the word מקדש, as in בית המקדש, the holy temple in Jerusalem which according to Jewish tradition will be built for the 3rd and last time during the time of Mashiach.
In closing, we may or may not welcome the dawn of Mashiach in our lifespan. But, in the meantime, may we all witness very soon Hashem’s compassion and salvation, an end to impossible, painful choices, an easy and complete victory over our enemies who seek to destroy us, and a lasting peace for אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל ,עם ישראל, and for the world!
וַֽאֲנִי תְפִילָתִי־לְךָ
יְהֹוָה עֵת רָצוֹן.
אֱלֹהִים, בְּרָב־חַסְדֶּךָ,
עֲנֵֽנִי
בֶּאֱמֶת יִשְׁעֶֽךָ
May my prayer come to you, Lord, at a time of favor; G-d, in Your great loving-kindness, answer me with Your faithful salvation
לעילוי נשמת מלכה בת חנוך
לעילוי נשמת יהודה בן יצחק
לעילוי נשמת רחל בת חנוך
לעילוי נשמת מרים בת חנוך
לעילוי נשמת עטיא שרה בת יצחק הלוי
לעילוי נשמת שלמה בן אריה זלמן