I often ask riddles at the Shabbat table. They are riddles that concern the parsha of the week, and I try to stump my children as best I can. Sometimes they get the answer right, and sometimes they get it wrong, but that?s OK. The point is that they try to answer the riddle, and they know it is not the answer, but the question, and how it can be used to discuss and teach, that is important. So, here was my riddle for last week. Let?s see how you do, shall we?
Q: What is something you can have, but you can not purchase at any price; you can hold onto, but you cannot touch; is more expensive than diamonds; is more dangerous than a nuclear bomb; must be fought for every moment of your life, and when it is attacked, becomes stronger?
Do you have the answer? It may come slowly, because many of us have little experience with those who possess this powerful and amazing thing, but I need to ask the riddle now, because, sadly, after last week, even fewer will have the opportunity to know the answer.
A: Integrity.
Integrity is that precious, elusive, expensive, dangerous and tenuous something that answers the riddle; and there is a lot less of it on the airways and in the silence that followed Arutz Sheva?s final broadcast. Last week, Arutz Sheva?s three Israel National News radio stations have been silenced by the government of Israel.
Now, many of you have been living too long with the current state of affairs in Israel and in the rest of the world, and you may no longer understand what the word ?integrity? means, so I shall define it for you, from my grandfather?s unabridged Twentieth Century Dictionary (1939):
?In-teg?ri-ty, n. [L. integritas, wholeness, soundness, from integer, untouched, whole, entire.] 1. Wholeness; entireness; unbroken state. 2. The entire, unimpaired state of anything, particularly of the mind; moral soundness or purity; incorruptness; uprightness, honesty. It comprehends the whole moral character, but has a special reference to uprightness in mutual dealings, transfers of property, and agencies for others.?
If I wanted to invent a definition for what the station and its courageous staff stand for, I couldn?t have come up with a better one. Integrity comes from the oneness and wholeness, the uprightness, and the purity that defines those who follow in the ways of G-d. By broadcasting that wholeness, Arutz Sheva?s stations stood simultaneously for the integrity of the state of Israel, it?s wholeness, its uprightness, it?s purity, and the integrity of the Jewish people. In the lessons of Torah, in the teaching of G-d?s words, and in the political commentary that inevitably follows in the comparison between the way Israel is run and the way that G-d says it should be run, Arutz Sheva became the voice of moral and ethical wholeness, and the voice for the need of wholeness in the territorial integrity of Israel.
Rabbi Melamed, his wife, the directors, editors, broadcasters, and the staff of Arutz Sheva knew they were taking a great chance in broadcasting Torah values and truth, because those things are dangerous to a state that does not follow those values. The people who made up the staff of the radio station, like those who currently hold together the webpage you are now reading, have been harassed and cajoled, charged with incitement, accused of hate, and condemned with prejudice by those who think that the answer to moral corruption is silence. How sad.
Don?t the government and courts of Israel grasp that they are dealing with something much more powerful than they will ever understand? Integrity cannot be silenced. When integrity is challenged, it becomes stronger, more whole, more complete, and more pure ? its value escalates; it?s power increases. That is because there are many of us who fight every day for our own integrity and find solace in the fact that this ongoing fight is shared by those around us ? inside and outside of Israel.
It isn?t an easy to fight for integrity, though. Not only do we have to fight our outside foes, who want to divide and conquer us, who want to destroy our wholeness and our purity and our uprightness, but we must also fight the fight within ourselves. When we are reminded that we don?t know everything, and when we are taught that our answers are not always right, it is not a comfortable feeling. May of us want to walk away from that lesson, because it is too painful, too hard and too uncomfortable.
Some of those who are uncomfortable with themselves feel that, instead of learning to become more whole, more pure, more upright (which is hard to do), it is better to just pretend the problem is with integrity and not with themselves. They object to lessons that might make themselves or others ?feel bad? and define those lessons as ?damaging? and ?hurtful.? Instead of learning how to become good people, they would like to redefine the word ?good? to include all people, so that everyone can feel good about themselves. Many think that comfort leads to growth and understanding, but it doesn?t. If one is comfortable with themselves and others, one is lazy and unlikely to strive to be a better person. When one asks a riddle, we shouldn?t take it as a statement, but as question. We must search for the answer, and we learn no matter if our answers are right or wrong.
Unfortunately, today, the government of Israel chose, instead of trying to learn, to silence those who ask, those who teach, and those who provide answers. Unfortunately, the lesson today is that there can be no lesson and they cannot learn. But Israel will learn that those who have integrity, who seek it and who teach it will never be silent, cannot be broken, will always be asking, and will be strengthened by the question as much as by the answer.
Q: What is something you can have, but you can not purchase at any price; you can hold onto, but you cannot touch; is more expensive than diamonds; is more dangerous than a nuclear bomb; must be fought for every moment of your life, and when it is attacked, becomes stronger?
Do you have the answer? It may come slowly, because many of us have little experience with those who possess this powerful and amazing thing, but I need to ask the riddle now, because, sadly, after last week, even fewer will have the opportunity to know the answer.
A: Integrity.
Integrity is that precious, elusive, expensive, dangerous and tenuous something that answers the riddle; and there is a lot less of it on the airways and in the silence that followed Arutz Sheva?s final broadcast. Last week, Arutz Sheva?s three Israel National News radio stations have been silenced by the government of Israel.
Now, many of you have been living too long with the current state of affairs in Israel and in the rest of the world, and you may no longer understand what the word ?integrity? means, so I shall define it for you, from my grandfather?s unabridged Twentieth Century Dictionary (1939):
?In-teg?ri-ty, n. [L. integritas, wholeness, soundness, from integer, untouched, whole, entire.] 1. Wholeness; entireness; unbroken state. 2. The entire, unimpaired state of anything, particularly of the mind; moral soundness or purity; incorruptness; uprightness, honesty. It comprehends the whole moral character, but has a special reference to uprightness in mutual dealings, transfers of property, and agencies for others.?
If I wanted to invent a definition for what the station and its courageous staff stand for, I couldn?t have come up with a better one. Integrity comes from the oneness and wholeness, the uprightness, and the purity that defines those who follow in the ways of G-d. By broadcasting that wholeness, Arutz Sheva?s stations stood simultaneously for the integrity of the state of Israel, it?s wholeness, its uprightness, it?s purity, and the integrity of the Jewish people. In the lessons of Torah, in the teaching of G-d?s words, and in the political commentary that inevitably follows in the comparison between the way Israel is run and the way that G-d says it should be run, Arutz Sheva became the voice of moral and ethical wholeness, and the voice for the need of wholeness in the territorial integrity of Israel.
Rabbi Melamed, his wife, the directors, editors, broadcasters, and the staff of Arutz Sheva knew they were taking a great chance in broadcasting Torah values and truth, because those things are dangerous to a state that does not follow those values. The people who made up the staff of the radio station, like those who currently hold together the webpage you are now reading, have been harassed and cajoled, charged with incitement, accused of hate, and condemned with prejudice by those who think that the answer to moral corruption is silence. How sad.
Don?t the government and courts of Israel grasp that they are dealing with something much more powerful than they will ever understand? Integrity cannot be silenced. When integrity is challenged, it becomes stronger, more whole, more complete, and more pure ? its value escalates; it?s power increases. That is because there are many of us who fight every day for our own integrity and find solace in the fact that this ongoing fight is shared by those around us ? inside and outside of Israel.
It isn?t an easy to fight for integrity, though. Not only do we have to fight our outside foes, who want to divide and conquer us, who want to destroy our wholeness and our purity and our uprightness, but we must also fight the fight within ourselves. When we are reminded that we don?t know everything, and when we are taught that our answers are not always right, it is not a comfortable feeling. May of us want to walk away from that lesson, because it is too painful, too hard and too uncomfortable.
Some of those who are uncomfortable with themselves feel that, instead of learning to become more whole, more pure, more upright (which is hard to do), it is better to just pretend the problem is with integrity and not with themselves. They object to lessons that might make themselves or others ?feel bad? and define those lessons as ?damaging? and ?hurtful.? Instead of learning how to become good people, they would like to redefine the word ?good? to include all people, so that everyone can feel good about themselves. Many think that comfort leads to growth and understanding, but it doesn?t. If one is comfortable with themselves and others, one is lazy and unlikely to strive to be a better person. When one asks a riddle, we shouldn?t take it as a statement, but as question. We must search for the answer, and we learn no matter if our answers are right or wrong.
Unfortunately, today, the government of Israel chose, instead of trying to learn, to silence those who ask, those who teach, and those who provide answers. Unfortunately, the lesson today is that there can be no lesson and they cannot learn. But Israel will learn that those who have integrity, who seek it and who teach it will never be silent, cannot be broken, will always be asking, and will be strengthened by the question as much as by the answer.