"Never get high on your own supply"
Ten Crack Commandments - Notorious B.I.G
It's been a while since I last wrote an entry, as I mentioned right at the beginning, I knew consistency would be an issue for me. But now, thanks to a topsy turvy world full of Grad rockets and twisted news reports from all corners, I feel like I finally have something worth writing about.
Before I get into what I'm really writing about today, I'm just going to let off a little bit of steam. A number of my close friends currently serving in the IDF, not to mention my recently engaged brother, have been pretty busy defending what is, and what will hopefully always be, the homeland of my people. Some of these people have been more directly involved in the current operation than others, but the way I see it, as long as rockets are falling and people are infiltrating Israel through tunnels, nobody is all that safe. I don't consider myself an angry person, but over the past few weeks I've caught myself thinking some very angry thoughts. I'm not one for war cries and calls for the annihilation of much of anything, but I can't pretend that I don't believe that self-preservation and the safety of my family trumps the risk of civilian casualties. I don't for a second enjoy the fact that we are currently faced with that situation, but if someone were to ask me how I truly felt about it, I would have to concede as much. Is Israel partially to blame? Yes. But do I believe that this is more Hamas's fault than anything else? Most certainly. If anything, and this is about as cynical as I get, Hamas are leading the world's largest and most publicised call for Euthanasia. They are using others to kill their own people. And Yes, this is a rhetoric that I've heard so often it almost starts to seem questionable, but then I think about the fact that they are firing rockets from playgrounds and hospitals. If those playgrounds and hospitals were empty, it would be, at the very least, in bad taste. I live in South Africa, we have some pretty below-par playgrounds, and hospitals that are even worse, but nobody would appreciate them being used as a battlefield. Yet even that's not enough for Hamas. They need people to die as well. So they use playgrounds filled with children, and hospitals filled with people fighting for their lives. Not the children or the sick family members of Hamas leadership, mind you. They get treated in Israel. I guess if it's there, why not take advantage of socialised health care, in-between extorting Christians and calling for the complete and indiscriminate destruction of the Jewish people.
So yes, it's disgusting that so many civilians have died, and will continue to die. It's also disgusting that people younger than I am are going to live their lives knowing that that were involved, forced by circumstance to be involved, in this happening. It pains me even more to know that some of those people haven't been given the chance to live long enough for that concept to really sink in. As a close friend of mine put it, we know these people. We spent a year, or two or three or four years living with these people, talking to these people, laughing with these people. They are the ones who told us to stay in Israel even though it's difficult sometimes, the ones who taught us dirty words in Hebrew, the ones who spoke with a gleam in their eye as their draft date approached. The ones who complained about their boring guard shifts and patrols. The ones who were ready to go in and do whatever had to be done to protect their people. These people who have been taken from this world are not soldiers to us. These are brothers. They are you and me. They are young men who had full lives ahead of them. And their sacrifice brings us closer together.
The question that remains is, after the inevitable cease-fire, brokered by those nations who know all to much about guilt and war, and all too little about peace and justice, what will be? Of course, the terrorism will continue; that's a given. Hamas are not deterred by death, if anything they seem to yearn for it. That isn't what concerns me. What concerns me is what will be for the Jewish people? How long will it take us to forget that these soldiers died for our national survival? How soon will we start attacking each other again? When will we again break into our separate groups, condemning each other for anything that strikes us as unusual? I have no doubt that even before Hamas again breach the ceasefire, the Secular Left will once again be warring with the Religious Right. Again rabbis and politicians alike will be quoted out of context to push various agendas. And of course someone will refuse to share a podium with someone else. Because, as we all know, as history has clearly proven time and time again, if you pretend that a problem doesn't exist, it won't bother you. And if you blame others for societal problems, only they will be affected by them. When has disunity and discrimination ever caused harm to the Jewish people? When has hatred and judgement ever led to any challenges in the lifetime of our nation?
Yes, we are angry, our nation has been hurt. But anger is not healthy, and it will not take us anywhere. We wax eternal about the discrimination we have faced and continue to face, whether in action or speech, whether through Hamas aggression or United Nations passivity and impotence. We post on Facebook as if that video will finally show the world that we are not to blame, that we have a right to protect ourselves. But do we ever stop and think that maybe, just maybe, it's not the attitude of the media that really causes damage? Maybe, just maybe, if we didn't have to wait until our children are dying to stop fighting with each other, if we could stand together as one at all times, maybe then the world might look at us in a different light. Because what light can there be in separation? What do we have to show for two thousand years of suffering if not for the ability to work together to bring positivity and love back into the world? Why should it be that we can only be Echad, one, when, when we cry out Shema Yisrael?
I urge each and every one of us to commit to put a little bit more effort into our relationships with the people around us. Of course, we can't be perfect, we are human, after all. But that is exactly what's so beautiful about love. It transcends all that which is human, it directs us towards the Soul of our Souls, and it takes us one small step closer to Divine Perfection.
"If we were destroyed, and the world with us, due to baseless hatred, then we shall rebuild ourselves, and the world with us, with baseless love — ahavat chinam. (Orot HaKodesh vol. III, p. 324)
These Soldiers Know What's Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mol04iyYvBw
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