Now that some of the dust of the recent election for Prime Minister has
settled, I would like to offer my two bits worth of political analysis on
the matter. I am not an expert on political analysis, but then again I am
not an expert on many other matters about which I have written newspaper
opinion columns, so why should political analysis be different? Ariel
Sharon won the election by twenty-five percentage points. To the best of my
knowledge there has never been a majority of such proportion in a fairly
held election in any country in the world, certainly in recent memory. Can
it be that Sharon was so popular? That Barak was so unpopular? I don't
think so. My heart tells me that there is a deep underlying call that
motivated these election results.
There is a Hassidic story about a Jew who was in the midst of a very
demanding task on a Friday afternoon and did not notice as the time passed
that the Sabbath was fast approaching. This Jew was known to be a
mild-mannered, soft-spoken person. As darkness began to fall, he suddenly
realized that it was time for the Sabbath. He ran out of his workshop to
the synagogue and arrived there, dirty and disheveled, not wearing his
Sabbath clothes and breathless from exertion. Upon arriving at the
synagogue he heard that the introductory prayer welcoming the Sabbath had
already been completed and that the congregation was already standing to
pray the first Sabbath prayer itself. The Jew, beside himself in anguish at
having been late for the Sabbath, shouted a great shout of agony and
frustration. The congregation, knowing him to be so mild-mannered and
soft-spoken, was in shock at his behavior. But the great Hassidic Rebbe who
witnessed the scene said: "It was not his own shout that we heard. It was
the shout of the Jew within him that reverberated in our ears!"
This past election gave voice to the great Jewish shout that resides
within the broad Israeli public. It was a shout about Jerusalem, the Temple
Mount and the Western Wall, about Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of Machpela in
Hevron. It was a shout that said that even if many of us are not
necessarily observant, we still are Jewish. We might not be strict Sabbath
observers but we don't want Saturday to be just like Tuesday. We may be
turned off, and perhaps correctly so, by the Orthodox political and
bureaucratic establishment in this country, but we are not interested in
'secular revolutions.' We may be late at arriving at conclusions, just as
that Jew was late in arriving at the Sabbath prayers, but once realizing
how late we are, a mighty shout emanates from deep within us. We are not
willing to abandon our Jewish dreams of Zion and Jerusalem, of being a
special people and being responsible to Jewish history, of attempting to
create a just and fair society for all, in favor of the false allure of
economic globalization and American pop culture and so-called intellectual
democratic values.
In 1891, Achad Ha'Am, hardly an Orthodox Jew, visited Jerusalem for the
first time in his life. Jerusalem was then a small and dusty town, with
Jews suffering under the yoke of the Ottoman and Arab oppressors. Mark
Twain, visiting Jerusalem at the same time wrote that he found the place
appalling. But Achad Ha'Am nevertheless wrote home to his family: "I am now
in Jerusalem. I cannot express to you, even in a small way, my emotions at
being here. Every step, every stone speaks to me of our history. Mount
Zion, the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives. Only when one is here does one
realize how foolish it is of our opponents, the Arabs, to think that we
will ever give up on Jerusalem. It is the heart of the Land of Israel, the
heart of the Jew. I am convinced that every inch of Jerusalem is not less
worthy than the most developed settlement that we have built in the
Galilee." Achad Ha'Am did not write those words. It was written by the Jew
within him. The Jewish shout that though late in coming reverberates within
all of us and does not allow us to forsake our past and future, no matter
how tempting and soothing is the siren call of peace, security and
international approval. The results of the past election did not come from
the Israeli electorate. It was rather the Jewish shout within us that was
heard in great strength.
settled, I would like to offer my two bits worth of political analysis on
the matter. I am not an expert on political analysis, but then again I am
not an expert on many other matters about which I have written newspaper
opinion columns, so why should political analysis be different? Ariel
Sharon won the election by twenty-five percentage points. To the best of my
knowledge there has never been a majority of such proportion in a fairly
held election in any country in the world, certainly in recent memory. Can
it be that Sharon was so popular? That Barak was so unpopular? I don't
think so. My heart tells me that there is a deep underlying call that
motivated these election results.
There is a Hassidic story about a Jew who was in the midst of a very
demanding task on a Friday afternoon and did not notice as the time passed
that the Sabbath was fast approaching. This Jew was known to be a
mild-mannered, soft-spoken person. As darkness began to fall, he suddenly
realized that it was time for the Sabbath. He ran out of his workshop to
the synagogue and arrived there, dirty and disheveled, not wearing his
Sabbath clothes and breathless from exertion. Upon arriving at the
synagogue he heard that the introductory prayer welcoming the Sabbath had
already been completed and that the congregation was already standing to
pray the first Sabbath prayer itself. The Jew, beside himself in anguish at
having been late for the Sabbath, shouted a great shout of agony and
frustration. The congregation, knowing him to be so mild-mannered and
soft-spoken, was in shock at his behavior. But the great Hassidic Rebbe who
witnessed the scene said: "It was not his own shout that we heard. It was
the shout of the Jew within him that reverberated in our ears!"
This past election gave voice to the great Jewish shout that resides
within the broad Israeli public. It was a shout about Jerusalem, the Temple
Mount and the Western Wall, about Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of Machpela in
Hevron. It was a shout that said that even if many of us are not
necessarily observant, we still are Jewish. We might not be strict Sabbath
observers but we don't want Saturday to be just like Tuesday. We may be
turned off, and perhaps correctly so, by the Orthodox political and
bureaucratic establishment in this country, but we are not interested in
'secular revolutions.' We may be late at arriving at conclusions, just as
that Jew was late in arriving at the Sabbath prayers, but once realizing
how late we are, a mighty shout emanates from deep within us. We are not
willing to abandon our Jewish dreams of Zion and Jerusalem, of being a
special people and being responsible to Jewish history, of attempting to
create a just and fair society for all, in favor of the false allure of
economic globalization and American pop culture and so-called intellectual
democratic values.
In 1891, Achad Ha'Am, hardly an Orthodox Jew, visited Jerusalem for the
first time in his life. Jerusalem was then a small and dusty town, with
Jews suffering under the yoke of the Ottoman and Arab oppressors. Mark
Twain, visiting Jerusalem at the same time wrote that he found the place
appalling. But Achad Ha'Am nevertheless wrote home to his family: "I am now
in Jerusalem. I cannot express to you, even in a small way, my emotions at
being here. Every step, every stone speaks to me of our history. Mount
Zion, the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives. Only when one is here does one
realize how foolish it is of our opponents, the Arabs, to think that we
will ever give up on Jerusalem. It is the heart of the Land of Israel, the
heart of the Jew. I am convinced that every inch of Jerusalem is not less
worthy than the most developed settlement that we have built in the
Galilee." Achad Ha'Am did not write those words. It was written by the Jew
within him. The Jewish shout that though late in coming reverberates within
all of us and does not allow us to forsake our past and future, no matter
how tempting and soothing is the siren call of peace, security and
international approval. The results of the past election did not come from
the Israeli electorate. It was rather the Jewish shout within us that was
heard in great strength.