שומרי שבת – גליון ניסן
Reprinted with permission.
Reprinted with permission.
A few weeks ago, Rabbi Michael Broyde sent me an article he had written regarding his reaction to a question posed to him during his sabbatical in Israel: “So what do I think of Israel so far?” In good Jewish style, he responded to the question with a question, preceded by a story. I thought that a (somewhat truncated) version of his piece would serve as a good platform for discussion.
Here is the story, in his words:
It was the mid-1980’s at Yeshiva University and Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein זצ”ל was speaking at a Friday morning Q&A and a student asked him why he moved to Israel. This was clearly not the first time he had been asked this question and he launched into a concise and erudite discussion of the mitzvah to live in Israel, outlining – I still remember – the four major views as he saw them and ending with the words “clearly a mitzvah.” The questioner immediately stood up and said “mitzvah shvitzva: who cares! Tell me what you like about living in Israel, so that you would live there even if it was no mitzvah at all.” Rabbi Lichtenstein was quite surprised by the question. He stopped in his tracks and said “Good question: I need to think” and he sat down and thought. It was very silent in the room: you could see his brow furrow and the heat emanating. After more than 5 minutes of deadly silence, Rabbi Lichtenstein spoke. He said thus (give or take): “I deeply enjoy the nobility of poverty found in the culture of Israel. People are ‘great people’ and ideas are ‘valuable ideas’ in Israel, even if they do not make you wealthy. Poor people in America are never respected: in Israel, poverty is still ennobling.”
Having turned the question on the questioner many times, Rabbi Broyde isolated five responses. Some people responded with multiple answers to the question of why they would live in Israel if it were not a mitzvah.
The first response: It is impossible that it is not a mitzvah, but if it were not, they would not want to live here. The mitzvah is to live here, and they are doing that mitzvah no matter how much it hurts – and it does hurt them much. Essentially, they exhibit huge mesiras nefesh for what they regard as clear halacha.
The second response: There is no real mitzvah to live in Israel. They live here because this is the best place to be economically struggling and Orthodox and learn Torah”. The cost of living in many places in Israel is cheap, Torah education (without an exorbitant tuition bill) abounds, health care is free, simple food is not expensive and ugly housing – which is still in a safe neighborhood surrounded by a loving Orthodox community – easily can be found.
The third response: Israel is the only place left in the world with deep Jewish culture. The calendar is Jewish, the curriculum is Jewish, the Jews are not in the closet, and the community is imbued with a sense of Jewish purpose that makes Israel the largest Eastern European shtetel ever. This is the only place we have where the dominant culture is grounded in our common Jewish law, history and culture. This response was given by many secular Jews, but it resonated with some religious Zionist respondents as well.
The fourth response: Jewish sovereignty is vital to the Jewish future — we need a nation and a state and an army to defend ourselves and that is Israel. The lessons of the Holocaust abound and there is no Jewish future without a Jewish army to defend it. The greatness of Israel lay in its sovereignty and its status as a nation like any other. This has nothing to do with the mitzvah to settle the land and in theory could be so in Iceland – but it is not. It is here in the Middle East, with all of its complexities and difficulties and wars, that Israel resides. But this has made Israel important and powerful and a true nation-state with a thriving economy, a powerful military and control over Jewish destiny.
The fifth response: The history of the Jewish people is one of wandering and exile. Israel now is one of those baskets of eggs that is housing and holding the Jewish people – millions and millions of them, more eggs here than any other basket – and we need to work as hard as we can to strengthen the basket and protect each and every egg. Historically, all baskets have eventually broken: some after a few centuries and some after a millennium or more; that could happen here also. We are here in Israel now and it is our mission and duty to help each egg grow and prosper and strengthen the basket. Every Jew needs to find the place they can prosper in and every Jew needs to invest in a basket, and its eggs.
So far, the five responses that Rabbi Broyde elicited. I could not contain myself from throwing in my own, very different, response. I found the question itself jarring and disappointing
My response: While Blaise Pascal was hardly an authority on Jewish thought, he was on to something when he said, “The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of… We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart.” Do we love our children because of the mitzvah of teaching them Torah? Do we need a compelling reason to love them? Or do our hearts overflow with the capacity to embrace them? Do we compile brag sheets that we consult before we feel self-love? Why don’t we need to? Davening is called avodah she-b’lev. Learning Torah seems to be more than adequate brain-food. Why do we need to nurture a different part of ourselves through davening? Is it reserved only for people, nebach, who didn’t learn in Brisk? Even some Litvaks will concede that the heart is not a vestigial organ. Sometimes, it, too must be pressed into avodas Hashem. Granted, when sechel and heart lock horns with each other, we are taught to assign primacy to sechel.[1] Are there not times, however, when sechel is silent, non-committal, or conflicted, while the heart roars, more than speaks?
Each Tisha B’Av, we realize that we are three-quarters of the way through the morning kinos when we reach R. Yehuda HaLevi’s Tziyon, Halo Sishali. “You are the royal palace and G-d’s throne, and how do slaves now sit on the thrones of your noblemen?…Who can make wings for me so that I can roam afar and move my ruptured heart to your ruptured hills?…Your souls come alive from the air of your land, and from the flowing myrrh of the dust of your soil, and the dripping honey of your rivers…Tziyon, perfectly beautiful, with love and grace you were bound long ago, and bound to you are the souls of your comrades…”
Can anyone tell me what reasons led to the beauty of his evocative words? What bound the souls of those comrades to the Land? Was it the mitzvos of the Land of Israel, a hatred of Christian (and Muslim) Spain? Tuition bills that were too high? Or did R. Yehuda HaLevi’s heart enlarge his vision beyond the myopia of the mind?
Do we need reasons to love Israel, to long to live there, or to thank HKBH every day for the privilege, if we already do? When we read of the history of our exile, with each page adding to what seems like a necrology of two millennia, blood adheres to our fingers. Can we rid ourselves of its stain anywhere but in the waters of the springs around Yerushalayim? After studying the Shoah, and then contemplating the rebuilding of a Torah community from the ashes, set in a country that did in seventy years what Voltaire swore Jews could never do, and what took others centuries to accomplish – can anything contain such a heart from bursting with pride? Can a Jew examine his moment in history in the context of the centuries that preceded it with anything but awe – and without yearning to be part of it?
I repeat: Does a Jew need a reason to love Eretz Yisrael?
Don’t get me wrong. This is not another futile exhortation to make aliyah aimed at those I left behind. While I don’t believe that anyone with a Jewish heart needs a reason to love this country and its people, I can easily provide all the reasons that many cannot or should not come. They include considerations of making a living, and for Westernized haredim, issues of chinuch. (Each year, there is more progress in creating new alternatives beyond the limited and limiting ones that have prevailed till now.)
My beef is with people who do not know what I am talking about, or do not care. More accurately, my disappointment is with those who educated them so that they do not know what Israel is, or its centrality in Torah thought.
One year ago, the OU published a modest collection of essays in honor of Israel’s 70th. I was one of the contributors, but have little recollection of what I wrote. Memorable, however, were a few paragraphs by Dr. Aviva Weisbord, the daughter of mv”r Rav Yaakov Weinberg zt”l (who was not known to be particularly enamored of Zionism.)
What is missing from our education that can leave so many Orthodox individuals devoid of attachment to our Land, with no understanding of the devotion we read about and sometimes learn about?
So, I did some unofficial research, and discovered the dilemma of the Torah schools in America. Because the State’s actions and attitudes are frequently at odds with the Torah, the schools became ambivalent about including “Israel” in the curriculum. In a sense, the schools redacted Israel in its fullest glory from Torah studies. Many schools are fine with teaching about Biblical Eretz Yisrael, but stop short of imparting true love for our precious Land.
I would like to submit that it is time to add hashivut ha-aretz to our schools’ curricula…
There are Torah Jews who have attended the finest yeshivos and seminaries in the US, and have never visited Israel. Others have come, visited the Kotel, taken the pictures, and gladly headed back to their real homes. Still others could not tell you where the first (oblique) reference in Chumash to Eretz Yisrael is.[2] This should change.
I’ve spoken enough. Readers will want to add their responses to the question raised by Rabbi Broyde.
From Cross-Currents, here.
We wrote recently on how ineffective mass state spying on its own citizens is at its stated goals, because of Signal-to-Noise Ratio, among other things.
Now, the NSA confirms this themselves, recommending in the Washington Post that Donald Trump “abandon a surveillance program that collects information about U.S. phone calls and text messages, saying the logistical and legal burdens of keeping it outweigh its intelligence benefits“.
תחילה יצאה הודעה לקונית מאת דוברות משטרה, לפיה שני אנשים תקפו נהג בבית שמש, דחפו והכו אותו, גנבו ממנו כסף מזומן, ונמלטו. “המשטרה פתחה בחקירה”. האם מדובר בעוד מקרה פשיעה חמורה של שור מועד בציבור הכללי הלא-מחונך, שניתן לעבור עליו לסדר היום? לא. שמענו ממקור מקורב לפרשייה שהעניין מורכב, חשוב ומקומם בהרבה.
הנה סדר המאורעות הכרונולוגי למיטב ידיעתנו:
עובדה שהייתה תגרה על סף האי-חוקיות. אבל מי התחיל? ומי אשם? נו, מפני שזה ערבי מול יהודים, המדינה תעמוד בצד הערבי באופן אוטומטי. כשמדובר בחשש “גזענות” בלה בלה, לשום יהודי אין “חזקת חפות” במערכת המונופול המשפטי של השמאל – להיפך ממשפט התורה שהאמינה ליהודי, ולא לגוי.
וכן, הנהג עצמו התלונן שחסר לו כסף. אך הנה תיאוריה מטורפת: אולי הנהג לקח את הכסף לעצמו? לא ראוי לבדיקה…? אך לא. כבר בהודעת המשטרה רואים את פסק הדין האוטומטי כנגד הנערים. מה, כל נהג ערבי שווה “עובד מדינה” שאסור להרהר אחריו בקול?!
כמה כסף מצאו? 130 ₪. דמי כיס, במילים אחרות. וסתם מסקרנות: ניסיתם פעם להוציא 130 ₪ מהמכונה המכאנית הזאת? כמה זמן זה לוקח? ועוד לאדם לא מנוסה, תוך כדי תגרה. ומי שרק כעת “שדד” מישהו, האם הגיוני שימשיך מיד בנסיעה לעבודה?!
האם החקירה שוחרת צדק, וניטרלית? הנה כמה עובדות:
בקיצור, נקמנות ו”נעילת מטרה”.
מתוך ניסיון אישי במקרים דומים, יש לשער שמשטרת בית שמש חסרי “אקשן”. למרות כל הכותרות, אולי מלבד ה”קנאים”, המקום די מנומנם.
למה מחמירים כל כך עם הנערים? כדי להפחיד (“למען ישמעו וייראו”)? א”כ, זו טיפשות לשמה! השכבה החברתית המורגלת לעבירות רכוש קטנוניות ומסוכנות מכילה דווקא נוף אנושי בסגנון שאינו צורך חדשות. ספק כמה מתוכם יודעים קרוא וכתוב (מעבר לתוויות, טוויטר, וכרטיסי הגרלה). לא הבנתי: החבר’ה המושחתים העלומים הללו, שמסכנים את חירותם עבור פרוטות, אמורים לשמוע על המעצר, ופתאום לשקשק מפחד?!
לאאא. שמא מישהו במשטרה חושק צל”ש\בונוס\קידום עבור סגירת תיקים? (זה שיש הישנות מקרים כאלו לאחרונה (ואין סיבה שיפסיקו) לא מעניין שם איש.) הכל על בסיס דברי עד אחד! וכאן אפילו לא תבעו את העד הזה.
כתב בשולחן ערוך חושן משפט סימן כ”ח סעיף ג’:
אם גוי תובע לישראל, ויש ישראל יודע עדות לגוי נגד ישראל, ואין עד אלא הוא, והגוי תובעו שיעיד לו, במקום שדיני הגוים לחייב ממון ע”פ עד אחד, אסור להעיד לו, ואם העיד, משמתין אותו (היינו, נידוי).
האם גם כעת ניתן בחקותיהם עוד למשוך את העדות?
בס”ד, יהודה סגל
The court is basing their evidence upon testimony which was disqualified after it was found to be forced under prolonged torture and extreme duress. A letter from the minor’s parents follows the article.
The State Prosecutor’s Office exerted heavy pressure on Elisha O. who was an alleged accomplice in the 2015 Duma arson, to agree to a plea bargain. The hearing is scheduled for May 12.
According to this plea deal, he will admit to having been involved in planning the arson in the Arab town of Duma. In exchange, he will be convicted of reduced offenses. His confession might incriminate another suspect, Amiram ben Uliel, who has consistently maintained his innocence.
The court is basing their evidence upon testimony which was disqualified after it was found to be forced under prolonged torture and extreme duress.
Michoel Fuah, one of the administrators of the Facebook page, The Duma Blood Libel, (Hebrew name: עלילת-דומא) has published the following article by Ruth Gavison regarding the torture of the suspects in what has become known as the Duma blood libel. (Ruth Gavison is one of Israel’s leading intellectuals and a renowned Israeli Law professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who holds the chair for Human Rights and whose areas of research include Ethnic Conflict, the Protection of Minorities, Human Rights, Political Theory, Judiciary Law, Religion and Politics, and Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.)
She writes:
”We presently find ourselves at a critical juncture in the Duma blood libel. Not only is the issue of torture under examination, but also the question of the proposed plea deal.
“This proposed plea deal is a form of criminal extortion. The State Attorney’s Office is pressuring the family of Elisha O. to accept this plea deal with the unrelenting coercive pressure of the court. While accepting a plea deal will save time in the courtroom, it is inherently dishonest and is a distortion of the legal process. The prosecution has all the time and all means to pressure the defendant indefinitely to confess to the most serious charges. The defendant, on the other hand, does not have the financial or emotional means to wage a costly and lengthy legal battle to prove his innocence.
“The defendant also knows that there are quite a few issues in which the court does not rule on evidence. In these cases, defendants often admit to crimes they did not commit just to finally end the tortuous saga of a powerful legal system. And even if he does accept the plea deal, he knows that he is not guaranteed to be found innocent.
“In the case of the Duma arson, the situation is much worse. The State Prosecutor’s Office insists on including the minor’s confession in the plea bargain, even though the minor’s confession in this matter was rejected in a higher court due to the fact that it was elicited under torture. The goal of the prosecutor’s office is clear. They want to achieve the admission of guilt by a Jewish youth in the Duma case by ANY means possible. They want to remove the dark stain that hangs over all the high-level officials and legal bodies in Israel involved in this fraudulent case.”
We are interested in hearing Ruth Gavison’s opinion on another subject as well. Is it correct to allow plea bargains in criminal cases? Is it in the public interest to allow the State Prosecutor’s Office to extort confessions from defendants whose innocence seems likely, thereby enabling the real perpetrators to roam at leisure? (In this particular case, the evidence strongly points to Arabs in the village having committed the arson as part of a prolonged family feud which involved numerous Arab arsons against the Dawabshe family).
It would be fitting that the State Prosecutor’s Office close this case, which is based on confessions and reconstructions that were collected in improper ways and did not produce any concrete evidence. The policy of trumped up charges against innocent people must end!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1019019781501764&id=960177554052654
Addendum:
The plea bargain itself: The minor will plead guilty to three counts of price tag and conspiracy to arson, but the amended indictment disconnects the minor from the incident in the village of Duma and does not mention the name of the main defendant Amiram Ben Uriel.
This is a translation of the letter Elisha’s parents sent to friends:
Dear Friends,
By now I imagine that you have heard that we accepted the plea bargain offered to us. It was with tremendous discussion, deliberation and great qualms that we decided to accept the offer.
Two principles guided us. The first being the ability to put this saga behind us and allow Elisha, full rehabilitation and to move on with his life.
The second was that the plea bargain would not compromise any other defendant.
We pray that these goals will be achieved.
In addition, we did not agree to admit that Elisha is part of a terrorist organization. Therefore it will be decided by the court.
We deeply appreciate your prayers, care and support throughout.
In an imperfect world one must look forward and have Emunah that a better future lies ahead of us.
This is not the end and we have little control over the final verdict so we continue to pray for help from Hashem.
With great appreciation,
Naama Odess
From Arutz Sheva, here.