Batya Medad
Batya Medad and her husband made Aliyah from New York in 1970, two months after their wedding and have been living in Shiloh since 1981. Batya's a wife, mother, grandmother, writer and photographer.This morning, as I was davening Shacharit, the morning prayers, suddenly I noticed a phrase that appears in many forms, but this morning, it stood out. Baruch Atah... oseh shalom uvoray et hacol. "Blessed are You... who makes peace and creates everything." Then, the phrase "Hu oseh shalom," - " He makes peace" - kept going through my mind; the words and an old song, taken from the words of the Kaddish prayer, Hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu, v'al col Yisrael, v'imru, amen! - "He will make peace for us and for all the People of Israel, and respond: amen!"
And then, what should appear soon after on the computer screen?
President Katzav: Painful Sacrifices For Peace Needed
08:42 Mar 03, '05 / 22 Adar 5765
We're being plagued by "Drs. Frankenstein" trying to play G-d. Dr. Frankenstein meant well when he created his man, but we all know about "good intentions":
"It is melancholy to reflect that Mankind has suffered more from ill-judged philanthropy than [from] calculated malice. The road to Hell is no less harrowing for being paved with good intentions." - Giles St. Aubyn, Biography of King Edward VII.
I'd say that the greatest fault in the entire Zionist "enterprise" has been this compulsive search for "peace". We've endangered our existence, time after time. We've wasted the lives of our soldiers, letting them die for nothing, by "returning" land to invaders and being so "noble" that self-respect is unknown in the Israeli psyche.
Even our "greatest leaders" have been infected by this syndrome. Theodor Herzl said: "If we will it, it isn't a dream." And he was right. The problem is that his followers kept adding "if's" - "If the British approve..."; "If the Americans approve..."; "If the United Nations approves..." And then, even worse, the desperation for "peace".
When Menachem Begin, in 1976, finally broke the Labor monopoly on the premiership of Israel, instead of implementing a program to encourage Jews to live in all of the Land Of Israel, he decided that his priority was "making peace". As if Israel was responsible for the unceasing war.
"And so, reborn Israel always strove for peace, yearned for it, made endless endeavors to achieve it." - from Begin's Nobel acceptance speech.
Begin's rationale was that he would give away the Sinai and destroy the Jewish communities there in exchange for the recognition and guarantees that the rest of the Land of Israel would remain as part of the State of Israel. All that did was to start the intifada, a war of grinding terror against Jews all over the Land.
The more the Israeli government offered, the stronger the terror became. The Oslo Accords, which earned the Nobel "Peace" Prize for Yitzchak Rabin, raised terror even further. And then, during Ehud Barak's short and weak rule, when he offered even more to the Arabs, terror became a daily nightmare for Israelis. And it didn't end there. He was succeeded by Ariel Sharon, who had promised Israel security, but instead of security, he, too, got bitten by the "peace" bug and decided to turn thousands of Jews into refugees. Without demanding anything in return, he declared that Jews in northern Samaria and Gush Katif were to be thrown out of their homes, businesses and schools.
Sharon Offers More 'Painful Concessions'
14:14 Feb 20, '05 / 11 Adar 5765
...Sharon also said he wants to be considered a man of peace. "I have been portrayed as if I want wars and the truth is other than that," Sharon told the Egyptian daily.
In Tehilim (Psalms) 125, 5, King David says that there will only be "Shalom al Yisrael" - peace upon/in Israel - "when the corrupt element is removed from Israel... the nation will enjoy external peace and security." (According to Biblical commentator Radak, as per the Artscroll edition of Psalms.)
The Frankenstein story is a tragedy. All of the people he loved were killed as a result of his creating a "man". Recently, people have asked me if my home in Shiloh is one of those being given to the Arabs. My answer is simple. If, G-d forbid, it ever comes to that, the country won't survive.
Oseh shalom bimromav, hu b'rachmomav ya'aseh shalom aleinu... - "He Who makes peace in his Heights, He, in His compassion, will make peace for us..."
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