Monday, October 29

Our Kids Are Human

"I thought that raising my kids here, they'd be so spiritual."  A friend said that a couple of weeks ago, and I know exactly what she meant.
My own daughter, who has always been involved in so many Eretz Yisrael experiences - attending WiG  demonstrations at 3 months, setting up a games room for kids expelled from Gush Katif when she was only 9, changing the program of  her 10th birthday party to writing letters to the parents of Israel's missing soldiers because 2 soldiers were kidnapped that day, reading Arutz Sheva news daily and being addicted to Latma - this same daughter often thanks my husband and myself for making aliya so that she didn't have to.
Just last week, she told her Olah-Hadasha cousin that if she had grown up in a nice large house in Canada with grandparents and cousins around the corner, she is not sure that she could have left all that to make aliyah.
Our children are human.   Mitzvot that are easy for us, might be hard for them.  Mitzvot that are hard for us, might be "insurmountable challenges" in their eyes.
Or, perhaps, they are keeping the mitzvot, but the fire that we feel for these mitzvot is much dimmer in their souls.
Their priorities in terms of mitzvot might be different than ours.
They might look for a meikel psak where we are davka mahmir.  Or compromise where we aim to be steadfast.

Is this a reflection of us as parents?
Or is it a reflection of their own human-ness?
Of the fact that every person has different levels of need for physical comfort, for personal expression, for community belonging and , yes, even for spirituality?
I hope and pray that my children absorb my values becasue I am convinced of my personal beliefs.   But do they have to express these values in exactly the same way I do?   Are they not allowed to have a yetzer hara, which, if they tell me about it, maybe I can show them examples of people with similar yetzarim who also do / did Retzon HaShem?

Shortly afteer dd's conversation with her cousin, I checked out Rav Haber's parsha email.  "Coincidentally", he wrote words that spoke to the heart of this issue.
http://www.torahlab.org/calendar/article/raising_cain/?utm_source=Raising+Cain+2+-+Rabbi+Yaacov+Haber&utm_campaign=noach+2012&utm_medium=email

And, while I have learnt that parents should not despair if their children are not exactly as they had wanted, I do think that my parents should certainly see much nahat and take some credit for the fact that their many children, who are all living "different lifestyles", are all involved in Torah AND community.  There are, after all, 70 facets to Torah, and each child and grandchild spreads the glow of a different facet.  

Sunday, October 28

Yitzhak Rabin's yahrzeit

(The doctor who saved X's life is not Shomer Shabbat.   Worse than that, this same doctor lobbied the UJA to cut funding to a religious school to give money to a multi-faith concert, being preformed on Shabbat.  X's children refused to thank the doctor for the surgery, they don't even want to thank Gd for saving their father's life.  How could He use such a terrible person as His messenger???)

The Canadian government that granted my mother and her parents refuge from Germany in 5708 (early '48), is the same government that denied Jews refuge during the years of the Holocaust.  Yet my mother and her parents are forever grateful that they had where to begin their lives.  They are grateful to Hashem for allowing them safe refuge, for not being sent back to Poland or Hungary (where some Holocaust survivors were killed by their old neighbours).  And they are careful to show their gratitude to their host country by respecting the symbols and laws of the land.

Rabin wasn't Evil Incarnate.
He did a lot things that I personally am unhappy about.  I mean really, really unhappy about.   Really, really , really unhappy....
You get my drift.
But, I think that we will do much better, as siblings and as a nation, if we are able to occasionally recognize and appreciate the mesirut nefesh of people with whom we do not agree.  This doesn't mean that I wouldn't  have been happy to try him for war crimes (aka Oslo), presumably find him guilty and make him do avodot sherut to help the families he destroyed - for the rest of his life.   But even in his punishment, we would have to show some respect for a person who did not say, "life is comfortable here in the cafes of Tel Aviv," as did a percentage of Jews in Eretz Yisrael way back 70+ years ago.  He joined the Hagana, and risked his life helping other Jews escape the Atlit prison.  He risked his life fighting with the British against the Vichy forces in Lebanon.  And he risked his life to save thousands of Jewish lives, in many battles during the Israeli war of Independence (at the age of 26!) , reclaiming neighbourhoods of Yerushalaim and Ramat Rahel , and ending the Arab Siege Around Yerushalaim.

Could I have done everything Rabin did?  Pass up a full scholarship to Berkeley to stay here and fight with pistols against 11 fully-armed Arab nations?  Sure!!  Well, probably.   Maybe?  
Could I have withstood all the pressure before, during and after Oslo?  I'd love to think so, but I wasn't there.
Would I still like to see all the Oslo folk behind bars?   Yes.  But, again, that doesn't take away from the good that any of them did ever do.

And here are some of the interesting things some of them have done:

Shimon Peres overcame American pressure on France in the 50s, and convinced the French government of the early '50's to sell weapons  planes and tanks to Israel.   Of course, he had to get over the antisemitism of some French cabinet ministers too.  Not easy. 
And Mr Peres was among the developers of our nuclear facility in the Negev.  Each and every one of us, with all the preparations we are making for a possible war with Iran, should appreciate the significance of Peres' contribution to our safety in this particular area.

Yossi Beilin.  Prepare yourself for a surprise.  We tend to think of Beilin as a self-hating Jew, or at the very least, as someone detemined to erase Jewish identity in order to appease the goyim.
But the truth is, that even as Beilin was encouraging the government to rethink the connection between Israel and Diaspora Jews and especially the financial dependence of Israel on American Jewish philanthropists, Beilin himself initiated the idea that Every Jewish Youth Must Visit Israel.  From this idea came BIRTHRIGHT (Taglit) - which has brought many "unaffiliated" Jews back to our common heritage, given them Jewish identity and strengthened their connection to Our Land and Our Heritage.  In polls, Youth who participated in a Birthright tour expressed 51% more commitment to marrying a Jew.   That is no small feat, when intermarriage takes away more than half our children everywhere outside Israel.

All in all, it would be really easy if life were as described in certain newspapers, magazines and books - "they" (leftist, nonreligious....) are "all bad" , and "we" are the good, committed-and-therefore-persecuted Jews.   But the reality is so much more complex than that.   
This doesn't mean that we let them off the hook for what they did wrong, but it DOES mean that we have to respect the good they did.
And we can use this auspicious date to do so.
11th Heshvan we remember that Rahel prayed for her children,  and Hashem promised that we will return.  And here we are.
12th Heshvan we recognize that The Return is a complex reunion between millions of Jews, from thousands of years of separation, with hundreds of cultural , religious and personal differences.
Maybe on the 13th of Heshvan, we can say, "Hashem, we are up for the challenge.  We can reunite with respect.  We have patience for the process.  We want to do our part to bridge the gaps."

Thank You for letting little-old-me be part of this.

(And thank you to my wonderful Bechor who shared these historical highlights with me.)

Wednesday, October 17

This month in the army

I turned on the radio for the 7am news, and before the news was :
היום , ראש חודש חשוון, מתחיל חודש הספורט והכושר בצה"ל, etc etc
בוקר טוב, ישראל
Today, Rosh Hodesh Heshvan, begins Sport and Fitness Month in the IDF....  (short description of activities and events )  Good Morning, Israel.  
No mention of the Gregorian date.

Forgive me, but I find this very special.....

Okay, don't forgive me.  Forgive yourself.  And realize how special this truly is.  
We're home, and it is OUR calendar that matters.  OUR monthly cycle.   And we don't  have to explain ourselves to anyone.  IF they don't know it is a new month, well, then they need to look at the calendar.  (And EVERY calendar in this country says the Hebrew date.)

Wednesday, October 10

Where in Jewish History Are You?

Place yourself for a minute anywhere you like in Jewish history.  In anyone's shoes you choose.

Moshe Rabbeinu, looking over the Yarden river, seeing it all but not being able to touch.
Yehoshua, leading the nation in conquests, watching HaShem's promises come true step by step.
During 400 years of Shoftim, judges, some of whom led, some of whom were ignored.  Shimshon, whom HaShem used to defeat the Pelishtim, even as Shimshon himself was punished for following his eyes and marrying a Pelishti woman himself.
David HaMelech, begging Hashem to be able to build the Mikdash, but being told that his Gd-given role as physical redeemer - warrior, soldier -  makes him unfit to build HaShem's House of Peace.  
Shlomo, building the Mikdash, but then introducing the nation to a thousand forms of idolatry.
Rehav'am and Yerovam - the country is split, and over the next 400 years, there are times of peaceful relations and times of actual wars fought between the two Jewish nations.
Galut Asesret haShevatim.
Galut Bavel.
The return of the "riffraff", rebuilding Yerushalaim, while most of the nation stays in Bavel.  Finding a lone Sefer Torah, relearning all the mitzvot.  
The second Beit HaMikdash - rebuilding, returning to the mitzvot , but without the true Shechina.
Towards the destruction - the intolerance between groups of Jews.
Times of persecution.
Times of rights for Jews.
Tor HaZahav.
More persecution.
A bit of respite in one country.
Expulsions from other countries.
Pogroms.
Education.  Jobs.  Einstein, Freud.
Massacres.
The Holocaust.
The Iron Curtain.


Imagine yourself in any of these places.  Really see yourself there.  Feel the humility of the Jew, still uncertain when HaShem will redeem His nation.
Then, allow your chosen persona to dream.   

Wherever I place myself in Jewish history, it seems that this song and video would be no more than a dream, a prayer:
http://shironet.mako.co.il/artist?type=lyrics&lang=1&prfid=6878&wrkid=17542 (print out the words, then press play on the video at the top-left of the page) 

And yet, here I am, just a plain ordinary Jew, not deserving anything special, LIVING THIS DREAM.

Thank you, Gd.  


Friday, October 5

Next Stop

Our car has been dead for a few weeks already.
This fit in well with my DH's DT (Devar Torah) connecting the mitzva to live in a sukka with this being our holiday of Thanks (Hag HaAsif):
Hag HaAsif is our holiday to say Thank You to HaShem for all the fruit we have harvested over the summer, that which we have already eaten as well as that which will soon be wine, oil, etc.  
Sukkot is a holiday in which we live in a small booth for week.  We sit on plastic chairs, sleep on a crooked floor, and the mosquitoes try to eat more than we do.  
The connection, DH says, is that on these days of Sukkot, we realize that we can live on a lot less than we actually do.  We are capable of sleeping on mattresses on the  floor.  We won't die if our food gets a bit colder on its longer route to the table.   Our temporary booth is beautiful with the decorations that didn't cost hundreds of sheqel at an art gallery.   
AND, the clincher, THE REST OF THE YEAR, we live a life of luxury.  We have couches, beds, glasses that didn't break.  Our children don't have to share one bedroom.   In our personal case, we own a car that has spaces for all of us.   
So much to be thankful for.
And the bus rides were fun.   Especially when the sign inside the bus says "next stop: happy days."