Dedicated to Col. Moshe Leshem.
This week's parsha delineates several "light mitzvot that people trample under their heel." (Rashi, on 7:12) These mitzvot include grace after meals (8:10), prayer (9:10,20,26) and Kriyat Sh'ma (11:13). The Haftara (Yeshayahu 50:2,10), according to the Gemara , adds another: public prayer in shul. "Why when I came was nobody there, I called but there was no answer" refers, says Rabbi Yochanan (Berachot 6b) to G-d coming to the synagogue and not finding ten Jews there praying. "Miyad Hu koeis," - "Immediately He gets angry." The Gemara connects this thought of Rabbi Yochanan's to that of Rabbi Chelbo on the importance of a permanent place of prayer.
Unfortunately, and to Am Yisrael's great shame and sadness, thousands of Jews not only were trampled upon in Gush Katif, dispossessed of home and livelihood, but they will, Heaven forbid, soon be deprived of their places of prayer, their synagogues. God will come , but no Jews will be there, only Arab terrorists.
The government of Israel has decided to do what no non-Jewish Western government would contemplate: destroy shuls, in the biggest mass desecration of synagogues since the Holocaust. Not even Arab governments in the Middle East did that when their countries' Jews left in the 1950s.
In a recent Supreme Court decision, Justice Elyakim Rubinstein decided that because the Palestinian Arabs can be relied upon to desecrate or destroy these shuls, it would therefore be better for the IDF to blow them up first. Justice Edmund Levy disagreed, countering that our so-called "peace partner" must be prevailed upon to act in a civilized manner, according to the international law in which all "states are called upon to ensure that religious sites are fully respected and protected and to adopt adequate measures aimed at preventing such acts or threats of violence." Justice Levy further stated that it is impossible that in the State of Israel synagogues can be treated less well than churches and mosques, all of which are illegal to destroy according to Israeli law.
I would like to point out that if the 24 Gush Katif shuls are destroyed, it would be the icing on the cake for the "eikev", the trampling on Am Yisrael of the last 10 days. The prime minister trampled on all norms of government to ram his Disengagement Plan past his party(which twice voted to stop him, votes he promised to abide by and later ignored), his cabinet (firing ministers and other public figures who disagreed with the plan) and the Knesset. He made a travesty of the army, using it to trample upon the settlers' property rights and rights to a livelihood; above all, he used soldiers whose mission is to defend Israel to attack Israeli citizens (and this, at a time of war, turning the citizens' territory over to the enemy).
Although the soldiers, to a man, acted with "sensitivity", the same cannot be said for all the policemen, especially the special riot squad, many of whom deported themselves as brutes (although many police did act humanely and brotherly). And then the heads of the police and the army had the gall to further trample on the residents, praising themselves for the efficiency and sensitivity with which the mission was carried out. This is like a rapist patting himself on the back for having done his dirty deed with " sensitivity". In short, the prime minister misused his army and police, trampling on, and making a mockery of, their green and blue uniforms.
Worst of all were the monsters of the media, the segment of the Israeli media who spent the week in the most disgusting attacks on the residents.
To our settlers who have been uprooted and to our youth (and to the courageous Col. Moshe Leshem), one can only offer the comforting words of Yeshayahu in the Haftara:
"For with whoever contends with thee will I contend, and thy children will I save. And I will feed thy extortioners with their own flesh. For G-d will comfort Zion, He will have comforted all her ruins, will make her desert into a paradise, and her wilderness like a garden of G-d. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and voice of song."
This week's parsha delineates several "light mitzvot that people trample under their heel." (Rashi, on 7:12) These mitzvot include grace after meals (8:10), prayer (9:10,20,26) and Kriyat Sh'ma (11:13). The Haftara (Yeshayahu 50:2,10), according to the Gemara , adds another: public prayer in shul. "Why when I came was nobody there, I called but there was no answer" refers, says Rabbi Yochanan (Berachot 6b) to G-d coming to the synagogue and not finding ten Jews there praying. "Miyad Hu koeis," - "Immediately He gets angry." The Gemara connects this thought of Rabbi Yochanan's to that of Rabbi Chelbo on the importance of a permanent place of prayer.
Unfortunately, and to Am Yisrael's great shame and sadness, thousands of Jews not only were trampled upon in Gush Katif, dispossessed of home and livelihood, but they will, Heaven forbid, soon be deprived of their places of prayer, their synagogues. God will come , but no Jews will be there, only Arab terrorists.
The government of Israel has decided to do what no non-Jewish Western government would contemplate: destroy shuls, in the biggest mass desecration of synagogues since the Holocaust. Not even Arab governments in the Middle East did that when their countries' Jews left in the 1950s.
In a recent Supreme Court decision, Justice Elyakim Rubinstein decided that because the Palestinian Arabs can be relied upon to desecrate or destroy these shuls, it would therefore be better for the IDF to blow them up first. Justice Edmund Levy disagreed, countering that our so-called "peace partner" must be prevailed upon to act in a civilized manner, according to the international law in which all "states are called upon to ensure that religious sites are fully respected and protected and to adopt adequate measures aimed at preventing such acts or threats of violence." Justice Levy further stated that it is impossible that in the State of Israel synagogues can be treated less well than churches and mosques, all of which are illegal to destroy according to Israeli law.
I would like to point out that if the 24 Gush Katif shuls are destroyed, it would be the icing on the cake for the "eikev", the trampling on Am Yisrael of the last 10 days. The prime minister trampled on all norms of government to ram his Disengagement Plan past his party(which twice voted to stop him, votes he promised to abide by and later ignored), his cabinet (firing ministers and other public figures who disagreed with the plan) and the Knesset. He made a travesty of the army, using it to trample upon the settlers' property rights and rights to a livelihood; above all, he used soldiers whose mission is to defend Israel to attack Israeli citizens (and this, at a time of war, turning the citizens' territory over to the enemy).
Although the soldiers, to a man, acted with "sensitivity", the same cannot be said for all the policemen, especially the special riot squad, many of whom deported themselves as brutes (although many police did act humanely and brotherly). And then the heads of the police and the army had the gall to further trample on the residents, praising themselves for the efficiency and sensitivity with which the mission was carried out. This is like a rapist patting himself on the back for having done his dirty deed with " sensitivity". In short, the prime minister misused his army and police, trampling on, and making a mockery of, their green and blue uniforms.
Worst of all were the monsters of the media, the segment of the Israeli media who spent the week in the most disgusting attacks on the residents.
To our settlers who have been uprooted and to our youth (and to the courageous Col. Moshe Leshem), one can only offer the comforting words of Yeshayahu in the Haftara:
"For with whoever contends with thee will I contend, and thy children will I save. And I will feed thy extortioners with their own flesh. For G-d will comfort Zion, He will have comforted all her ruins, will make her desert into a paradise, and her wilderness like a garden of G-d. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and voice of song."