A Memorable Dream

 

               “A good dream is a good gift.” – Reuven Alcalay

               “Dreams do not die if they bloomed once in your soul.” – Jacob Fichman

All of us dream, at least once in our lifetime.

Some remember their dreams, others forget. There are those who visualize the same dream repeatedly and there are those whose dreams are etched on their brains. Such dreams can be either haunting or comforting.

The one I am about to share with you belongs to the latter group.

My late father passed away in 1994. As I have mentioned more than once, he was a very constitutive figure in my life.

A Shoah survivor, who came out of the abyss, my father was what I would call a “Tzdik” (a righteous man). He never drifted from his faith in G-d. Every Shabbat, after coming back from the synagogue, instead of resting, he taught me G-d’s Torah and the wise words of our Jewish elders.

During the week, my father, who owned a small butcher shop, would get up at the crack of dawn, harness his horse to his cart, take chickens to the slaughterhouse and ensure that they are all ready and prepared by the time he opened his shop.

That, however, never stopped him from acquiescing to my request to stay with me a little longer on days that I had tests, review and go over the material with me, to ensure that I am ready for them. I drew so much comfort from his support and invigorating patience.

On Fridays, he would keep his shop open, albeit not for profit. Friday was a charity day. All that was left over from the week went to those who needed to prepare a Shabbat meal yet could not afford to pay.

Following a fall which left him debilitated, he spent his last days on this earth in a hospital. He was in his 90’s.

When the call bearing the sad news of his passing away arrived, I drove like a mad woman to the hospital. His body was still warm when I kissed his forehead and whispered to him, “Dad, G-d has prepared a special place for you next to His Throne of Glory.” I could swear he was smiling at me, for a split second.

Fast forward to September 1996.

I was then on my way to New Zealand. I briefly fell asleep on the plane. That is when the most awe-inspiring dream occurred.

In it, I saw my father. He was all skin and bones and naked, save for an ivory-coloured piece of cloth covering his groin. He was standing on stairs ascending to an unknown place and facing me who was at the bottom of them. His weak body was so fragile that he was supporting himself, with his right hand, on a rail that was connected to nowhere. He slowly raised his left hand, and waved goodbye to me.

Suddenly, from behind him, a very bright light glared, flashing brightly and powerfully. It blinded me. It also woke me up from my reverie.

I was calm, and I was happy. Somehow, I knew that my father had finally reached that special place which G-d prepares and reserves for the selected ones only.

Rest in Peace, abba.

My first grandson, may he live a long life, is named after you. Your legacy will always stay with us.

Shabbat Shalom

Dance Me to the End of Love

I trust most of us are familiar with the song by Leonard Cohen which bears the titular name.

Several years ago, I was made aware of the following quote by Cohen when he was asked about the meaning of that song:

“I don’t think anyone needs to know what gave me the image of the 'burning violin' but there were these little orchestras the Germans put together in the concentration camps. They played while people were being incinerated or gassed. If you want to read the song from that point of view, it becomes something quite different.”

That is the point of view I chose to read it from when I decided to teach it to my students before Yom HaShoah. And what an experience it was for all of us.

When I handed the song to them, I asked them to read it silently and share their impressions of it. To most of them, it amounted to no more than a love story between a man and a woman who have lived a full life sprinkled with episodes of joy, crisis, love and pain. None of them even remotely related it to the Shoah.

In order to make my choice of interpretation of this song clearer to them, I decided to focus on a few lines which, at least for me, reinforced the notion that I was trying to convey to them. I pointed to the first line.

“Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin…”

Though all my students were familiar with the history of the Shoah, many, unfortunately, were not aware of the quartets or “little orchestras” that the Nazis put together to welcome the new inmates of the concentration camps. They were composed mostly of violins.

Naturally, when considered from my point of view, the burning violin, mentioned in the first line, is a reference to the fate of many of the residents who were burned in the ovens of those camps.

“Dance me to the panic till I’m gathered safely in…” is the next line I drew their attention to. Of course, they have all been introduced to the conditions in which those doomed to death were brought to the camps. They have seen movies and photos; they have heard testimonies about the freight trains they were pushed and crammed into. They know about the poor sanitary conditions on cattle cars, the stench, the hunger, death and despair. Who would not be experiencing “panic” under such conditions?

What most of them did not know, though, is that the Nazis had lied to the Jews and promised them that the trains they were about to embark were for the purpose of relocating them to a “nice, safer place,” a “new home.” Many Jews believed these lies and were fooled by them. What reasons did they have to think otherwise? Hence, in my view, the shred of faith echoed in the words “till I’m safely gathered in.”

“Oh, let me see the beauty when the witnesses are gone…” is where many of my students realized why I chose to teach that song the way I did. They, like many other fellow Jews, are aware that those who witnessed the Shoah, those who lived to tell and share the horrors they had been through, abate in numbers. Soon, there will be none left. It will, then, be my task, as a daughter of two Shoah survivors, to ensure that “Never Forget” is alive. After me, it is them who will have to bear the torch of that vow and ensure that it is never extinguished. They are ready for that.

Finally, we reached the line referring to the children, our most precious asset. “Dance me to the children who are asking to be born…” a line that melts a frozen river in me, breaks a dam, frees the gushes of tears that surge in my eyes and blurs my vision each time I hear it.

The first time I read that line, I recalled Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s book Kappa, a science fiction describing Japan in the early 20^th century. One of the ideas discussed in this book is that, after they are presented with an overview of what life has in store for them, the soon to be born babies of Kappa can choose or refuse to be born. Most of them choose to be aborted.

Unlike the children of Kappa, Cohen’s babies are asking for practicing their right, and our duty to allow them “to be born.” After all, it is in accordance with that which the Torah commands us, “And you should choose Life!”

As I was about to finish the lesson, I looked around the classroom. The silence that prevailed, the bittersweet scent of the air we were breathing as the rays of the shining sun were alighting the room and their beautiful faces, I knew that from then on, this song will not be just another song they hear and enjoy. In Cohen’s own words, it has “become something quite different,” a more meaningful piece of poetry, one that connects them to our People’s past and their role in its future.

Shabbat Shalom 

The Oldest Love Story

                                                                      

A friend, Ryan Bellerose, a Meti and an active supporter of Israel and Zionism recently described the relationship between Judaism and Zionism as a Love Story, one  that has been playing out on the world stage for at least 2000 years.

I liked that allegory.  I liked it very much.
It brought to mind one of my favourite allegorical love stories of all times, “Song of Solomon”

In it, the writer depicts the harmonious relationship between two lovers who are yearning for each other’s company.  They are dialoguing with each other in intimate terms that only lovers share. The poetic expressions, complimentary, flattering and metaphors that they exchange, are unique to the two of them. They are the substance, the delicate weave, that form fabric of love that only the two of them can understand, one that touches on the most inner cores of their being.

Various interpretations have been given to the nature of the poetry of the Song of Solomon.  However to us, Am Yisrael, of whose rich scriptures and tradition the book is a part, it can mean one relationship only, the one between G-d and His People.

Ryan’s words made me realize that had King Solomon written his words in modern days and not three thousand years ago, they would symbolize for many of us the three thousand years romance and strong connection which Am Yisrael has had with its ancestral homeland in Eretz Yisrael and Zion.

We all know that the connection between Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael started when G-d promised it to Avraham over 4000 years ago in the Book of Genesis.  Many, however, seem to fail to see when the concept of Zionism started.  For their sake here is a brief reminder.

The word “Zion” is first mentioned in 2 Samuel 5:7 which according to modern day scholarship dates back 3000 years.  Initially, it referred to a specific mountain near Jerusalem.  Later, it became a metonym for Solomon’s Temple.  According to 2 Samuel 24:18-25, King David purchased the area of the Temple Mount from a Jebusite by the name of Arvana, the owner of a threshing floor who offered it to him for free.  King David refused and insisted on paying full price in gold for it: "but I will buy them for the full price.  I will not take for the Lord what is yours, nor offer burnt offering that cost me nothing.”  

That exchange constitutes Am Yisrael’s deed to that Holy place for Jews.  

The Temple Mount is also known as Mount Moriah where Avraham was called to sacrifice his son Yitzchak: 

“Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”  “(Genesis 22, 2)

By following that command, Avraham demonstrated ultimate obedience, trust, dedication and love of G-d.    

Later in in 2 Chronicles 3,1, we are told, 

“Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where [the LORD] appeared unto David his father; for which provision had been made in the Place of David, in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.”  Zion is, therefore, not only the birthplace of the city of Jerusalem it is also the place where the history of the people of Israel was written and where Judaism has its deep roots.

Zion, the place, the symbol, is where the Love Story between Judaism and Zionism, which my friend Ryan mentioned, started. There was one other component in the equation of this Love Story which we should never forget or fail to mention, the most important of them all, G-d.  It is G-d who is the connector between the two.  As long as Am Yisrael lived in Eretz Yisrael, that Love Story was like any other.  It had its ups and downs. The people rebelled against G-d.  He punished them, forgave them and eventually cast them off their Land.

There is an English saying, “Distance makes the heart grow fonder.”  That is indeed what happened when Am Yisrael was distanced from his Land.  The ‘growing fondness­’ of the heart, the Love Story between the People and Eretz Yisrael lasted for two thousand years of separation, as Ryan indicated.­­

No other nation on earth, no other people in history, has ever longed for its ancestral Homeland as Am Yisrael has longed for theirs.  While in exile, it was always Zion that Jews were facing and yearning for in their prayers, liturgy and poetry.  It was Zion that they were remembering and crying for when they were sitting by the rivers of Babylon.  And it was Zion that they pledged to return to every year at the Passover table when they proclaimed and continue to proclaim: “לשנה הבאה בירושלים הבנויה”.  “Next year in Jerusalem.”

The Love Story between Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael is an exclusive and monogamous one, as love stories generally are and should be - between two beings, two entities that share a special bond unique to them, one that no-one else can share, impede, intersperse or even come close to understanding.  That is precisely the essence of the bond between Judaism and Zionism.  Their identities are intertwined, inseparable.  They are the weft and weave threads in a tapestry that span over a few millennia.  None can survive on its own. They nurture and cultivate each other on the Spiritual, Religious, Cultural, Historical and National planes that they both share.  Zionism, therefore, belongs to Jews only.  The fact that some Jews choose not to be loyal to that Love Story does not mean that anyone else who is not part of that Love Story, can or should step in to assume their place.

That, of course, does not preclude others, friends and active supporters of Zionism and the Jewish people’s rights to their ancestral Homeland to continue to support that ongoing Love Affair.  They cannot, however, be part of it, I am afraid.  Like a ‘best friend’ their love and support as  “Pro-Zionists,” “Pro-Jewish” and “Pro –Israeli” would not only keep them in high esteem in the annals of Judaism and Zionism but will also be profoundly appreciated by the many who have kept the flame of that Love Story alight through a long and turbulent history.

How far will we go to be loved?

                                                                                 

Don’t you just love it when after sixty seven years of not merely existence but of growth, thriving and great contributions to world civilization, the legitimacy of Israel, the Jewish state, is still a subject open for debate?

Let me ask you this, would you still dispute that the earth is round? Would you still debate that the it goes around the sun, or would you sink back into the dark ages of human development and question these issues? Why is it that despite historical, legal and political facts and truths, some people still feel a need to question and craft narratives when it comes to Israel, a sovereign nation that was re-established, first and foremost, by virtue of its own historical, religious, and natural rights  that was also later acknowledged by the international community?

Furthermore, why, despite the ingrained basic tenet of democratic societies where one remains innocent until proven guilty, do some Israelis and Jews rush to breast beatings and admit guilt or wrongdoing?

But above all, have you ever asked yourself why is it that Jews and Israelis are among the leaders of such debates, the first to issue immediate and uncalled for admission of guilt and the spearheads of such smear campaigns? What happened to the people described in Numbers 23:9 : "הן עם לבדד ישכן ובגוים לא יתחשב" (A People that is secluded and does not consider what the other nations think), I keep asking myself.

I always come back to the same answer. It has haunted me for many years. Whether we like it or not, two thousand years of Diaspora are, in my view, part of the roots of that. I would venture to say that this flawed characteristic of some part of our Israeli society is one symptom of it. Living at the mercy of others for so long, being a plaything in their hands, leaving their lands when they ordered us to and coming back to them when they needed us and lured us with promises only to eventually be kicked out of them again would shape the low self image for the sturdiest and the mightiest. Always being defined and redefined by others and mostly in a non-favorable demeanor predisposes the eventual fragile texture of the fabric of one’s collective sub consciousness both on individual and communal levels.

Members of a nation who have an ongoing dialogue with G-d, a dialogue where the main questions are: “Why me?” “Why us?” “Where is G-d now?” or “where was He then?” are bound to engage in polemics surrounding their self worth regardless of whether those that engage in it believe in G-d or not. It is already part of their national, cultural and ethnic genetic blueprint. Surely, logic dictates, if we are hated so much, despised so much, the reason must be within us. This, unfortunately, is the prevalent attitude among many Jews especially the “bleeding hearts” kind. After all, is it possible that so many could be wrong and Jews and Israelis, a tiny albeit a bright spec among the families of the earth, are the righteous ones?

Hence, the “We sinned” syndrome. “We did it!” “We are the guilty party!” “We are the illegitimate state!” “We are the invader!” “We are not like them!” “Go ahead, debate our existence,” “Question our desire to survive and our means to defend ourselves.” “After all, we are still your raggedy toy, so throw us, tear us apart and continue to do with us as you wish.”

Now world, will you please love us?

Falling in Love with Eretz Yisrael

                                                                                  

Have you ever been in love?

Do you recall the first time you got butterflies in your stomach merely thinking about that special one? Remember the first time your heart skipped a beat or when you felt that rush of adrenaline because you experienced someone who meant the world to you? Remember the welling in your eyes and growing lump in your throat at the sheer mention of the one that touched every fiber of your being?  How about wanting to give all of you, surrender yourself unconditionally to the one, that very special one, who wants nothing but your loyalty in return?                                                                          

 

Now, imagine reliving this feeling every single day of your life!

Eretz Yisrael, you do all of that to many. The warm feeling of your embracing brown earth always welcomes our tired bones. It refreshes them, soothes our hearts and ignites the spark of an ancient covenant signed with the blood of our forefathers. Your green pastures where our ancestors roamed call us to roll in them. Your flowing milk and honey are the elixir of our being, the fountain of eternal youth which revives our ancient, wandering souls

The Spirit of G-d that always hovers over you cloaks our essence. The silent melodious prayers of Jacob's angels please our soul's ears.

There are days when we fight. There are moments when we doubt each other. There occasions when we don't speak to one another and there are dreary days and years of long, forced absences that separate us.  Even during those times, however, our hearts never left you.  They plead with you from the niches of the Kotel, they echo from the highest mountains and the deepest valleys asking you to remember us, to pray for us and to bless us. They repeatedly vow:

"If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.  Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I remember thee not; if I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy."

אם אשכחך ירושלים תשכח ימיני תדבק לשוני לחיכי אם לא אזכרכי אם לא אעלה את ירושלים על ראש שמחתי

And then comes that one day when, like a forgiving merciful mother, you collect us back from all four corners of the world, cradle us like babies in your loving arms and make us fall in love with you over and over again.

To live you, to love you and to experience you, Eretz Yisrael, is utter bliss and the most exalted blessing of them all. For many of us, you are and forever will remain our first love.