Holidays and children

Three weeks before Hanukah , she was already singing the many songs of the holiday , . It seemed all she cared about was getting as many doughnuts and/or candies as possible . When we light the candles , the holiday is no longer connected with heavy meanings of freedom of the human spirit (Hanukah ) -it's about the songs and the doughnuts and playing games near the Menorah ...
The Jewish holidays carry deep meanings , but when you are a child , you are way  more interested in the dcor,.

Hanukah , Hanukah

For quite a few years it had been the same , I would light the candles , the house is clean , a good cake or a doughnut is ready , but then , when you sing Maoz Zur , right after the candle lighting , I would burst into tears. When I was on my own it was bearable ,but with people around ...you know , you are supposed to be happy and thankful . Why cry? To be honest I didn't understand myself . I think my crying had to do with the last verse of the song , that is usually not sung . Something in my collective memory couldn't help it. The darkness is still so immense and the candles are so tiny. They glow ,and then they get smaller and then they go out.

I am happy to report that ever since I am a parent , the crying stopped . Hanukah is no longer gloomy ,but happy days of thankfulness .

Here is a story I heard once from a dear woman ,who passed away a few years ago . Her rabbi was a young child in one of the death camps . He had lost all hope for humanity and kindness ,because the people acted like savages there . There was one old man who still kept his humanity and once in a while he and the boy  would put on Teffillin when no one saw ( You could loose your life for such a crime back then). One night ,after a hard day , in the cold winter ,as they already laid tired , (some of the poeple  half dead) , a German soldier showed up in their cabin . They of course had to stand up straight ,and that German threw to them a few rotting lumps of margarine . To his dissmay and surprise the boy watched the old man , just like the others, pouncing upon those lumps  of margarine like an animal. " All hope is lost" thought the future rabbi . Maybe he even thought that there is no difference between a Jew and a Goy. But then the old man said  "Guys , it's Hanuka! let's use the margarine to light a Chanuka candle!" , and so they did. With threads made from their raggedy clothes they lit a candle and sang and were happy . So much for the story.

The woman who told the story ,said that this is what being Jewish is about . The Goyim build bridges and paint pictures ,and compose music - they take this world and make use of it in diverse and creative ways-that is to say , if they are good people . Being a Jew is about taking whatever this world has to offer , and elevating it into a level higher than life itself .

P.s I still wonder about that one . We all know that there  are Jewish murderers , rapists , thieves and con-men . I'm sure if you check , you will see , that there are good people and bad people in every nation. All I can say , is that,  we have the Book ,that is to say Torah ,and if you follow it , you have a good chance of becoming a better you -but I'm not sure even about that....

J

Ten years to the so called Disengagement

Believe it or not , I am going to try to write positively here,but we'll start with reality as I see it , which is not so positive . Ok? Ok :-) I'll try to make it short : In the late 70- early 80 Israel signed a "peace" treaty with Egypt . Israel gave up on all of the desert of Sinai -which we  had conquered  for the usual reason - The Egyptians  had really (really , really:)   wanted to wipe out Israel (again) but the attampt ,better known as The Yom kipur war had not  worked  out (again).

The Egyptian President then Mr Saadat  promised not to attack again. (It was nice of him)  Israeli people who lived there were evacuated quite easily ;mainly because they got a good penny out of it -in other words most of them were bribed. Only a minority protested over the move   . This treatment gave way to the idea,that if a state or a terror organization wants free territories or other goods from Israel - all they have to do is recognize Israel's right to exist and say other pleasant things -and they are on the ball. Egypt by the way continued its anti-Israeli policy and to this day an Israeli going to Egypt is risking his/her life . If you see  cartoons about Israel in Egyptian newspapers ,you may mistake them for Der Stürmer.
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was it 1993 that the Oslo agreements were signed ? Let me check Google. Yes , These were the damned agreements that caused a wave of terror in Israel . Most affected places were , the way I see it , Jerusalem and the Gaza strip . All  Jewish villages in the Gaza strip  suffered from the uprising terror  . To this day I find myself having a feeling of aversion when I merely hear the name Oslo and it's not because of the pork  that these unpleasant people gobble. The Oslo agreements opened an era in which Jewish villagers from Gaza were constantly attacked ,and when I say villagers I mean men , women , children ,babies . The surrender of the Israeli government to Ashaf , the Palestinian Organization with its mass-murderer leader Araffat gave a lesson to the Arabs of the region -not a very good one .

So it was downhill ever since  . Israeli Prime minister Ariel Sharon surprised both his opponents as well as supporters ,because he was a politician who  had supported the settlements ,and had been famous for his actions of construction in Judea,  Samaria and Gaza. In 2003 he came up with this crazy plan of deporting all Jewish villagers , destroying their homes ,and the most horrid of all taking their dead out of their graves -thus making Gaza Yuden-rein - "clean of Jews" (as the Germans put it in World War 2) , sorry for the allusion to the holocaust . In August 2005 this plan became a reality . I had a gut feeling it was a bad plan . I couldn't explain it . A house destroyed can always be built somewhere else ,but that wasn't the issue .The issue was concurring  with the Arab mindset  : The more violent you are - the more you get  ,and at the same time telling the world that Israel is a goofy state with goofy borders and that Jews are in no way attached to their land .

It is 10 years later now . As had been foreseen, terror only became stronger . And this means more dead/ injured people (on both sides by the way ) .we , here in Israel had 3 wars that are  linked to that stupid operation . so where is the positive side of this entry you ask?

Here it comes : You see , the people of Gush Katif (=the Gaza strip) were on one hand ordinary people ,but then -they were not . They kept the flame , i.e the vision of Jews living in the land of Israel , in some sort of correspondence with the land and the Almighty.  While the process of giving in to terror and Arab demands  , becoming smaller and smaller is still happening in Israel - something is finally happening in the hearts . People understand that this is not a land-conflict . It is also comprised of soul-conflict . The youth of the settlers is a different youth/ These young people don't care much for pubs or idols or grass . They want to sattle Israel ,which will lead to world peace ,as strange as it sounds. I pray for them . They are no longer out there somewhere in the Gaza strip. They are all over Israel . The government spread them . We are taking about 10,000 people - I believe that little by little the change is made .