At Judean Rose you get a little bit of this and a little bit of that: food, politics, cognitive science, genealogy, religion, education, and family are all grist for my (writing) mill.
The Dubya Deflection is the cute little thrust, parry, and feint that liberals engage in when they have no answer to your fact-based criticism of their guy. If you mention, for instance, that Obamacare sucks, Obama voters will say, “Was it better under Bush when millions of Americans were uninsured?”
The implication here is that if you criticize O, it means you love the other guy, even though that makes absolutely no sense. This is not an if/then kind of situation. There is actually no link between hating the ACA and liking Bush. You can hate Bush and the ACA. You can even love Obama and hate the ACA.
Do you feel me?
The Dubya Deflection: When You’ve Got Nothing
I was reminded of this feint, this kind of weaseling out of a trap because you know the other guy is right and you’ve got nothing, this morning, when my attention was drawn to the following exposé of UNRWA schools in Gaza and “East” Jerusalem, where schoolchildren are being taught to kill Jews.
We see sample UNRWA school lessons. An UNRWA teacher tells the kids that life was dandy, your parents hung out on the beach and had a barbecue, then the wolf appeared. Who’s the wolf?
The Jews!
The UNRWA teacher tells the kids all sorts of lies. For instance that the Jews (note that said teacher says “Jews” and not “Israelis”) expelled and deported Arabs. Which is not true. The Arabs left of their own accord.
Which means there are no refugees, by the way. But you know. Jews. So the Arabs who left of their own volition remain “refugees” even unto the second and third generation, a right that is accorded no other people. Necessitating the creation of a special UN body to deal with them, you guessed it: UNRWA.
Shannon Bream, Brooke Goldstein (screenshot)
After the videotaped UNRWA school lesson, we get to hear the amazing Brooke Goldstein of the Lawfare Project. She makes me so proud. She’s a lioness like Nitsana Darshan Leitner, another lady lawyer Jewish heroine.
Goldstein rips UNRWA a new one, telling viewers that while Canada divested from UNRWA programs like this, after learning about the incitement and indoctrination, U.S. taxpayers continue to fund the daily Jew-hate lessons to the tune of 130 million smackeroos.
Chris Gunness (screenshot)
Then Chris Gunness gets a turn. He is the spokesperson of UNRWA. If we ever solve the “refugee” problem, he’s out of a job. So he’s got to spin this however he can.
And it’s bad.
Since ole Chris has no way to refute the allegations (because, hey, videotape is darned hard to refute), he deflects using the (you guessed it), Dubya Deflection. If UNRWA schools are so bad, how come Bush gave them even more money than Obama?
*rolls eyes*
Shannon Bream was good. She essentially said, “Facts come OUT,” something like Chris himself.
Chris took out his earpiece so he couldn’t hear her and like a parrot kept saying, “So how come Bush. So how come Bush. So how come Bush,” about a hundred times.
BUSH, Bush, Bush, Bush. When they’ve got nothing.
He also said that the same curriculum is being taught in Arab schools in Jerusalem. Which I’ve no doubt is true. WHICH ALSO DOES NOT MAKE IT OKAY THAT AN OFFICIAL UN BODY IS PAYING TEACHERS TO TEACH SMALL CHILDREN TO KILL JEWS.
Sorry. I lost it for a moment there. (And by the way, is it absolutely necessary for Gunness to mispronounce Brooke’s surname???)
But look, it also doesn’t make it right that U.S. taxpayers are paying for Jihad lessons. It doesn’t matter whose administration is at the helm. It’s wrong. And if the administration is made aware of this curriculum and continues to fund these lessons, I see the administration as an accomplice to indoctrination, incitement, and terror. I see the administration as an accomplice to the ongoing murder of my people—people like the Fogels, the Henkins, the Litmans, Dafna Meir, Hallel Yaffa Ariel, and Rabbi Mickey Mark. And that’s an oh-so-shortlist.
The Dubya Deflection: It Makes No Difference
The administration, whether it is the Bush administration or the Obama administration, should know the nature of what this money funds. The administration, whether it is the Bush administration or the Obama administration, has no right to pressure Israel to make concessions to terrorist regimes while they underwrite future terrorists. It makes their motives suspect.
I don’t care who it is, Bush or Obama. I care what they do. And one does not make the other okay.
And it won’t be okay if Trump funds it. And it won’t be okay if Hillary funds it.
Bad is bad.
And evil is evil.
h/t Aharon Epstein for the news piece that inspired this post.
My Israel. Is there such a thing? Is Israel one thing for some people, and another thing for others? Or is the concept of My Israel just another way of recreating Israel in one’s own image, a conceit?
I vote for the latter.
One of the things that damages Israel the most are the people who pretend to love Israel while hurting Israel. Often, these people are Jews. Their falsely professed love of Israel gives them cover for spreading their poison. They use the concept of My Israel as a cudgel against the Jewish State. They use charisma to build a following through which they can spread their narrative and watch it take hold.
A good example of the My Israel technique is embodied by this speech delivered at a BBYO convention by Sarah Tuttle Singer, social media director of the Times of Israel.
Tuttle-Singer has the Midas touch when it comes to social media and making friends. She blogs, and seemingly every piece she writes goes viral. Some of her work is well-written, and other pieces, not so much. But it doesn’t seem to make a difference. She is so popular, that when she posts a blog, no matter the subject matter, and no matter whether it is well-written, or not, her stuff takes off, VRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOM.
It’s kind of like a reverse Donald Trump–a left instead of right-wing populist. It no longer matters what Tuttle-Singer says or does. Her loyal minions flock to adore her every word and deed.
That would be okay if she were neutral about Israel or pro-Israel. But she is neither.
Extreme Left
Tuttle-Singer is on the extreme left when it comes to Israel. She boycotts settlements. She feels that both sides have their “truth,” which is, of course, simply not possible. The two sides have opposing goals and narratives.The Jews believe they’ve returned to their rightful homeland while the Arabs are bent on destroying Israel and on annihilating the Jewish people. It’s in their charters.
Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.
Article 2:
Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.
(In other words, they are saying that all of Israel and Jordan belongs to them.)
Article 9:
Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
Article Seven:
. . .The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kissam and his brethren the fighters, members of Moslem Brotherhood. It goes on to reach out and become one with another chain that includes the struggle of the Palestinians and Moslem Brotherhood in the 1948 war and the Jihad operations of the Moslem Brotherhood in 1968 and after.
Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. “Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know.”
Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?
“But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, The direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah.” (The Cow – verse 120). There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith:
“The people of Syria are Allah’s lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation.”
Pledged And Sworn
In short, neither the PA/PLO or Hamas, the two ruling powers of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria and in Gaza, are peacefully disposed toward Israel and the Jews, nor will they ever be so. They are pledged and sworn to obliterate all traces of Jewish life from the Jewish State, indeed, from the world. If they speak of peace, it is a lie, to cover their overweening and true ambition: the destruction of Israel and the eradication of the Jews as a people.
But their lies are honey-coated and dripping with sweetness and false sincerity. And people like Sarah Tuttle-Singer love their honey. She loves it like a bee. Tell her anything with feeling, even false feeling, and she will lap it up.
She’s a patsy. A sucker for a sob story. And she’s bought into the notion that Israel is occupying and oppressing the Arabs. Her “My Israel” concept is of an Israel where Jews are oppressors and the Arabs, oppressed.
It’s A Choice
Unfortunately, that’s a choice. It’s a choice she’s made to choose the Arab narrative over that of her own people. She chose her Israel. She thinks it makes her open-minded. But instead her My Israel concept has made her blind to the truth of Our Israel: that Jewish Israelis have a right to their tiny sliver of land.
Our Israel is the only place where Jews can live their culture and religion in the open. Our Israel is the only place where we can speak Hebrew in the streets. It’s the place where Jews aren’t bombarded by a foreign culture, by Christmas, by Easter. Where Chanuka is king.
What about the Arabs? Don’t they have rights? Certainly. There are 22 extant, sovereign Arab states where Islam is the majority religion, Arab culture the prevailing culture, and Arabic, the spoken language.
Besides, the Jewish people lived in the land of Israel before there was an Arab people or Islam. Documented. Proven by archaeology and history.
There is no reason that we should cede an inch of our land, Our Israel. And when we do, we show weakness, and the result is always an upswing in Arab terror and more dead Jews.
We Must Remember
It’s important to keep all this in mind when watching the social media phenomenon that is Sarah Tuttle-Singer. Whatever she says will be eagerly lapped up by her fans and followers. We need to call her out on the lies and supply the facts. Because if you leave the playing field, you lose.
To this end, I experimented today with the Genius Web Annotator to take apart Tuttle-Singer’s speech at the BBYO convention, where she spoke to young Jewish malleable minds to press home her narrative. Taking her speech apart was made easy since she published the transcript of her speech as a blog on the Times of Israel. You can see my annotations here: http://genius.com/blogs.timesofisrael.com/i-want-to-tell-you-about-my-israel
Just click on the highlighted text to see my annotations.
My Israel
Tuttle-Singer uses the word “my” 79 times in her piece. She uses this concept of “My” Israel as cover for the false narrative she plugs, the narrative of the enemies of Israel: those who are pledged to Israel’s demise. Her protestations of love for and identification with “her” country (My Israel) are designed to make you agree with whatever she says about Israel and the Jewish people. It’s similar to making statements “as a Jew,” a technique that has been popularized by, for instance, JStreet, an enemy pretending to be a friend.
Genius Is Pure Genius
If you want to comment on my annotations, or write your own, all you have to do is open a free account with Genius, here: genius.com/signup and log in.
Imagine what you can do with this great little tool! That is until someone reports us because they don’t like what we say and we lose our freedom of speech. In other words, who knows? Someone may report you to the people at Genius and you might lose your account. Just a guess, based on what happens on Facebook and on Twitter. Meantime, we can take apart all their lies for all the world to see.
Tired of the mainstream media plugging a false narrative because readers need a fall guy and Israel is “it.”
I’m sick to death of dishonest journalists who fail to check the truthfulness of their sources when they hear a juicy tidbit about Israel.
I’m fed up. Exhausted. Really done.
Critical Thinking Skills
I’ve had it up to here with readers who have lost their critical thinking skills. I despair of readers who just want to believe what they’re told. Because after all, they saw it in the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or the Boston Globe.
These are big names in journalism, they tell you. Credible sources, they say. They wouldn’t lie, you know.
It makes me grit my teeth.
The Only Middle East Democracy “Crushes” Free Press?
I’m galdurned sick of writers who have no compunction in telling you that Israel’s prime minister is “crushing Israel’s free press.” These writers know darned well that Israel has the only free press in the entire Middle East–that Israel is the sole democracy in the Middle East. But they, the journalists, would rather tell you lies about Israel than out the secret that last week in Turkey, for instance, 42 journalists were arrested.
Because Jews.
I’m sick and tired of articles describing the prime minister of Israel as a “hardliner” when in fact, most Israelis could only wish Bibi would take a harder line against terror, and in favor of building homes for Jews. We voted for hardline. Halavai we’d get hardline.
The Lie About Bibi Being A Hardliner
Making Light Of Threats To Israel
My stomach roils upon reading articles whose writers insist on making light of the very real and daily threats to Israel. How could they do this when Israelis are still reeling from the murders of an 13 year-old girl in her sleep, and of the father of a large family in front of his children? Not to mention Iran moving closer to breakout time. And Hezbollah, Syria, and ISIS; terror tunnels, missiles, mortars, car rammings, and scissors attacks. Everyone wants to kill the Jews. Everyone.
Rina Ariel at the funeral of her daughter, Hallel
The Mark family at the funeral of their father.
Pretending The Democratic Party Line Is Not Anti-Israel
I’ve had it up to here at reading articles that exploit the divide between American political parties to further the entrenched leftist agenda against Israel. I’m sick of writers who insist on pretending that Republicans are making it up when they say the Democratic party line is anti-Israel, even though it absolutely is. Why on earth is ANYONE, at this point in time, still plugging that tired, old, and unworkable two-state solution??
Using Israeliness As Cover To Bash Israel
I’ve had it with propaganda rags using location and a patriotic-sounding name as cover to kick the chair out from under my beloved Israel; tired of them pretending Jews have no right to build homes in Israel; tired of them pretending that somehow, in doing so, Jews are ruining the ecosystem.
Big Brother’s Not-So-Secret Campaign Against Israel
I’m tired of Google News tailoring the news you see about Israel to make Israel look really, really bad. Why not let us decide for ourselves what we think about Israel? Why Big Brother the news unless–can it be? Israel isn’t as bad as you’d like us to think.
There comes a time when you have to speak the truth. And the truth is singular. There isn't one
truth for me and my people, and another for the Arabs. There isn't #MyJudaism
or #MyIsrael, but only one Judaism, one Israel, one God.
It is only by embracing the truth and spreading it far and
wide, no matter who it offends, no matter how many detractors it has, that
peace will have a safe space to flower.
Peace will not flower among the lies. It is the lies that
will proliferate like weeds, to choke out the truth, and take away its
airspace. Lies must be rooted out and destroyed.
It's the only chance we have.
Judaism: An Affront to Replacement Theologies
Another woman has been murdered. Not because she is an
Israeli and not because she lived on a settlement. She was murdered because she
was Jewish and her religion is perceived as an affront to adherents of Islam, a
religion that was meant to supplant Judaism, just as Christianity was meant to
supplant Judaism.
That Dafna Meir's murderer wants the land she lived on is
unquestionable. And yet, it is beside the point. What her murderer wants is to
eradicate the presence of Jews in the world.
Dafna, May Hashem avenge her blood, was a symbol of a truth
that came hard to her murderer, that Jews existed before Mohammed was a gleam
in his mother's eyes, and will continue to exist forever.
We will NOT be eradicated.
And there will always be a small number of people who refuse
to accept the lie that there is more than one truth. There will always be
people who know, deep in their hearts, that the land belongs only to the Jews
and to no one else. There will always be people who know the difference between
a narrative and the truth.
There will always be people who know that strength is found
in numbers and that we must be on our own side. That no one else will be on our
side except for us. It will always be true that if you excuse murderers, you
will have removed the thin veneer that lies between good and evil, and crossed
over to the other side.
There is no people who is occupied except for the Jews who
are occupied by a brutal and murderous people whom the world supports. In doing
so, the world is supporting the side of evil, as surely and plainly as the nose
on your face.
The Truth: Neither Hashtagged Nor My-Centric
There are no two truths, two narratives. No hashtagged
thing that is my-centric. There is one
single truth, and one single side for good.
And that is a good thing, a wonderful thing. For truth is a
powerful thing, as long as you give it air and space to breathe. Give it room
to flower by pulling out the lies by their roots, leaving not even a thin
tendril of untruth behind.
"Dafna had a large crown: the crown of truth."
Today, at the funeral of his wife, Natan Meir
said, "Dafna had a large crown: the crown of truth," Natan said.
"She was very honest, as accurate as a razor. Not everyone liked that but
everyone was able to appreciate it, and this truth has now been thrown to the
ground, it has burst into smithereens.
"I request that everyone who came out here, pick up
something from the light that was spilled on the ground, so that truth may
spring from the earth."
For Dafna's sake, let us speak loud and clear. Let us preach
the truth no matter how vigorously they oppose us, revile us, laugh at us,
troll us.
Israel is ours and they may not have it. It is not theirs. Full
stop.
Because there is only one truth, one God, one Judaism. And
the God of the Jews gave the land to Children of Israel.
Indulge me for a moment and imagine me wanting to be friends with someone who voted for Obama. If you know me, you realize it's insane, because nothing is more important to me than Israel.
Nothing.
And to me, voting for Obama was akin to signing Israel's death warrant. Especially in light of the Iran agreement just signed.
Yet, that didn't stop me from looking up an old friend from childhood whom I knew would have voted for Obama, because growing up, she was the ultimate liberal. She was passionate and feisty and cared about society.
I remembered these things about her and wanted to reconnect. I liked these things about her. I didn't think our political differences would much matter were we to reconnect, because I didn't expect someone like her to really understand my perspectives on Israel or on other issues. And I didn't think I had a chance of making her understand these things.
And that was fine with me. There was still plenty left for us to base a friendship on. We both loved music and photography. We were (I thought) both basically kind and decent people.
The rest was chaff, or so I thought.
One Blip
We did reconnect and things were fine. There was one little blip where we spoke about politics and things went south. But we agreed we'd keep politics out of our friendship and all was well, until she dropped off the face of the earth.
Just stopped corresponding.
Finally, I asked, "Did I do something to offend you?"
Ann Coulter??
And she said she'd made the mistake of reading some of my blogs. That not only am I a racist bigot, but a racist bigot along the lines of Ann Coulter.
At first I tried to deny her accusations. And I told her to remember our friendship and how our hearts still speak to each other, as friends. But I soon realized she'd closed the door. She relished letting me know why she was cutting me loose and how she felt about me. That was the passion in her I was seeing: the passion that I had always liked in her. This time, the strength of her feeling had ME in the spotlight and not in a good way.
I didn't have the strength to fight. I didn't see the point. But now, several days later, I just can't stop thinking about this schism, how unfair it is, how wrong it is.
I want to prove to her that I am not that racist bigot. And the truth is, I really AM NOT a racist bigot. Take for instance, a certain Facebook note I reissue from time to time, when people who really ARE racists, get too free and easy with their epithets on my wall. Here is the text of that note, which I entitled My Ground Rules:
This short note is intended for sharing with new friends and to serve as a reminder to old friends that I appreciate respectful debate, but that I do not care for hate speech of any kind. This includes derogatory nicknames for people in office, and for those of different colors, religions, or political parties.
I don't like this sort of speech and feel it is unnecessary. If you do it at home that's your choice, but please don't do it on my wall.
I get that sometimes it's hard to know where to draw the line. In general, vulgarisms are unacceptable. If you must, use asterisks. I don't like explicit talk on my wall, either. I have children who peek in on occasion. Keep it clean. Don't use nicknames that distort the first syllable of the First Lady's name into the sound an animal makes. I just don't see why this is necessary. It's disrespectful of her station and an American institution. I don't like her. We won't be BFF's. I may even think she is evil. But the nickname is still unnecessary.
About Islam: I get that we need to draw the association between Islam and terror. Believe me, I get it. But I still don't appreciate people trashing Muslims in general on my wall. Criticize the ideology.
People, listen up! I live surrounded by hostile Arabs in disputed territory. I have had friends killed or maimed by Arabs. I have had friends whose children were murdered by Arabs.
I am also well aware of what it says about Jews in Islamic texts, though I consider this a learning process. Still, I dislike hate speech. It's just rude. And it adds nothing to our bank of knowledge.
I may warn you once or twice if you fall into hate speech, but not thrice. If it continues, I will have to unfriend you, something I don't wish to do over poor word choices.
Of course, some of this is subjective. Sometimes a friend will object to a phrase I find perfectly acceptable. We can always talk about this and arrive at some sort of understanding.
The fact is, I miss polite debate. I think of my wall as my "salon" where we can all exchange views respectfully and with intelligence, each according to his or her own perspective.
I love that and it's the reason I spend so much time on Facebook.
Please respect my wishes and don't make me warn you.
Seriously. Does that sound like something that comes from the keyboard of a racist bigot? I'm dying to send her that. Let her read that and know the truth about me. I want to send it to her and say, "Note the date."
I want to defend myself.
And I keep going over it in my head, all the arguments I would use to defend myself, if only she would listen.
But that's exactly the point. She won't listen. And this is what bugs me about the liberal ethos.
Now note that I did not say, "This is what bothers me about liberals."
No. My objection is not with people, but with an ideology that divides people into two camps: Us and them.
This friend and I had warmth and a connection. She could have used this to try and reeducate me, if she really thought I was this terrible racist bigot (which I am not). She could have used our friendship to contribute to healing a social ill.
But she preferred to hate me. She preferred this to be about her and those who think like her, against those who don't.
Now that smells an awful lot like intolerance to me. And that is what gets me so upset.
I don't think about the world in terms of Us and Them or Republicans and Democrats or CNN versus Fox News. That's a LIBERAL construct. I think about the world in terms of all of us are humans with the same basic equipment and feelings.
I think of my job as connecting to others and being a force for good. I want people to tell me when I'm totally off-base, but I want them to give me a chance to improve, instead of writing me off.
Unless a person is truly evil, I think all people deserve a chance, when they ask for a chance. I don't understand why my friend thinks she is superior to me, so superior that she must cut me off and hurt me. And I feel like this damages something in the cosmos, this sort of attitude and behavior.
I am not going to play a game here and prove my tolerant "creds" by telling you about this or that Muslim, Lesbian, or Black friend. Because in the end, this is immaterial.
What matters is that she didn't listen to me, or to her heart. She didn't avail herself of an opportunity to make the world a better place by teaching me how to be a better person (if she thought I was a wretched miserable example of a human being). She just wanted to hate me. Took great pleasure in the act, in fact. Loved me asking her what was wrong so she could tell me how horrid I am.
I do not admire whatever it is that makes humans behave this way. Especially not when the Liberal Ethos includes the idea that those who espouse this ethos are tolerant.
In my experience, those who adopt that ethos are anything but tolerant.
Perhaps not every person who bows to the god of liberalism prefers divisiveness and hatred of the other to doing the real work of healing the world by talking to people and making them see a different side of things. I hope so. I would be happy to be proven wrong.
Meantime, I am hurting inside, left stuttering, "But, but, LISTEN."
And with a gleam in her eye, that passionate gleam I know so well, she refuses.
Point blank.
UPDATE: After I discovered that this piece caused offense to the anonymous person about whom it was written, I decided to take the piece out of circulation. But then I had second thoughts. I think the message is too important to suppress for the sake of someone who chose to be my enemy instead of working things out with me and accepting that people have differences. All these years later, it's a good solid piece, it's thesis still unfortunately valid.
The walls of Jerusalem were breached on the 17th of Tammuz, in the run up to the Destruction of the Second Temple, on the 9th of Av (T'isha B'Av). The breach of those walls has been acutely felt ever since as a time of Divine Judgment. It's a time when observant Jews are cautious to avoid situations which might invite calamity. You wouldn't, for instance, schedule elective surgery during the Three Weeks.
You can avoid elective surgery and push it off to September. But there is nothing you can do about the terrible karma all around you. Tempers get short. People get nasty with each other.
It's in the air.
At home, parents are urged to be extra gentle with their children. Behaviors you'd normally punish with a timeout? Well, you just let it go, or your kids is going to unleash a waterfall of tears. A disproportionate response to a timeout? Not during the Three Weeks when God's attribute of "din," Divine Judgment, is all around us.
Everything feels acute, more raw. More real.
It's as if that breach in the walls of Jerusalem was echoed by a rent in the Heavens through which God's Divine judgment surges through, a Divine pointed finger, seeking out infractions and shortcomings to punish them with needle-sharp jabs of psychic pain.
So we're not surprised when friends lash out at us for no reason and when all manner of snafus occur, messing with our daily lives until we're ready to snap.
The only way to deal with it, to get through the Three Weeks with one's sanity intact, is to flood the world with positive acts; acts of kindness, acts of greatness, acts of unconditional love.
This week, things were hard. Several people lashed out at me with terrible and uncalled for hostility.
Let me tell you: I suffered.
But I didn't suffer alone. I put it out there and the good people, the ones who understand that we need to be extra gentle this time of year, reached out to me. Each time someone said a kind word or did something nice for me, it felt healing. It felt like they were repairing that breach in the walls of Jerusalem, that rent in the Heavens.
Ricky answered my request for a ride to the protest at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. The protest was against the planned demolitions of Jewish homes in Beit El. It was good to do something for my people and my nation. I met bad with good. I showed up to be counted with those who care. I waved a sign and nodded thank you to those who drove by and honked their support.
Ricky and I get each other. It felt important. It WAS important. More important than the nasty few people who targeted me this week.
It was an antidote.
And while I was there, my neighbor Jocelyn, from across the street messaged me to come do yoga with her the next day (this morning). When Jocelyn spends time with you, it's like the sun breaking through the clouds in the morning. I had that to look forward to last night even as more nasty people came at me online to cast their nets of vitriol and poison upon me.
And I also reached out to the people who care about me on Facebook and my friend Lisa made me this image to remind me that I am strong and can get through anything. I made it my profile picture.
I LOVE this picture. And I love Lisa for taking the time to make that for me, just to cheer me up. To show she cares.
There's more. There's Leora, who checks in on me to make sure I'm okay. Always staunch. Always on my side. I can say anything to her.
And Toby, who reminded me what I needed to remember: that when people hurt you, it's YOU who miscalculated. They didn't betray you. They just never were who you thought they were.
They were only being themselves.
And Michael who finally wrote and asked, "What the heck is going on?" and listened to me vent and reminded me I'm not the only one with tzuris (trouble) and used a phrase I've been repeating to myself on and off all day long: "Try not to own other peoples' bad behavior."
And this morning, I finally made it over to Myrna who has lost a lot of weight and looks fabulous. She has beautiful clothes that are now too big for her, and she knows I will appreciate them. As she ushered me in, she saw something in my face and I told her about the nastiness of some people and the kindness of others, how the Three Weeks were turning out to be especially difficult this year.
She knew what I meant. How, when people are mean, there's that pain that lodges in the chest and won't budge. Myrna told me something Rav Avraham Twersky said. That low self-esteem is like a sunburn. When you have a sunburn, you can't stand the merest touch on your skin. But when your skin is healthy, even a little patsch* won't hurt.
Yes. That made sense to me. I know it's not normal that I can't shrug things off like most people. The problem was with ME. I have a big ole sunburn.
As Myrna left me in her bedroom to try on her beautiful cast-offs it occurred to me that it had been one year since we'd met, seated next to each other as we were on the bus ride home from a rally in Tel Aviv for our three boys, Eyal, Gil-Ad, and Naftali. Only the next day did we find they had been brutally murdered by terrorists on their way home from school. But the two weeks leading up to that discovery was a time of tremendous unity among our people.
And now? On this day?
What Myrna did, offering me those clothes, the meaningful words of advice, offering me KINDNESS. It was an echo of that time.
It was healing. Comforting. It made me feel that yes: Our nation will be whole, will heal, will prevail and rebuild.
Dov picked me up to bring me home and as we pulled up to the house, our neighbor Rachel passed by with a plate of brownies supported by a magazine. She asked how I was and I gave the perfunctory answer that I was good, Baruch Hashem, but I wasn't fooling her. She said, "It doesn't look like everything's okay, from the way your face looked when you said that."
So I told her. How people were being mean and nasty. How I was fighting to not let it crush me. How I went to the protest last night and how it helped. She said, "You know what I'm doing?" and I looked at the plate of brownies and the magazine.
"Thursday is my only day off and I'm so happy. Because my friend had a hernia operation and since it's my day off, I can bring her these things and visit her."
"You're doing something," I said. "Something good."
"Exactly," she said. "It's what we're supposed to do. Especially during the Three Weeks. I waited all week to do this."
And she hugged me with one arm—she wasn't going to let go of that plate of brownies with the Redbook supporting it from below. Because especially now? During the Three Weeks?
The sabra is a prickly pear native to Israel. Here is a photo of a sabra.
You cannot just swoop down and pick a sabra fruit because the darn thing is covered in needles that will get under your skin. But inside, the fruit (when ripe) is juicy mush with a taste so sweet it's cloying.
Israelis are called "Sabras" because they are tough and untouchable on the outside and tender on the inside. They can be rude and abrupt, snide and downright nasty. Like cactus needles, they'll get under your skin and not in a good way. Not like this, for instance.
But a Sabra will volunteer his seat on the bus to an older person or a pregnant lady or to anyone with an infirmity. He'll do that without being asked and without a second thought. Israelis will do anything for you when you're in trouble or in pain.
Because Israelis are tender at the core.
I'm not a sabra, because I wasn't born in Israel. And yet, in a lot of ways I fit the description. People tend to see me as a tough cookie and in some respects I am. I've been through a lot and I'm still standing. It takes a lot to make me cry. I don't gussy up my writing. I'm not girly-girl.
On the other hand, I don't know how to shrug it off when people hurt and insult me. When a friend is suddenly not a friend and will no longer talk to me (and this has now happened to me twice within the past five months), I can't say, "It's your loss," and walk away.
It's a problem. It's more than a problem. It's so big it supplants everything else and makes it impossible for me to go about my everyday business. It's this huge chunk of big blue grief sitting on my chest from the inside, hurting me with everything its got.
That's actually okay right now, because it's the Three Weeks. It's a Jewish mourning period in which we mourn the Destruction of the Temples. We're supposed to be introspective and sad. We're supposed to be gentler in our dealings with others and with our children. Because our feelings are raw.
The Three Weeks
And it's real. Every year the Jewish month of Av comes in and things get freaky and nasty. People are short-tempered and bad things happen. Every year. Like clockwork.
So it's kind of okay that I'm hurting inside. Because it suits this time of year. On the other hand, it's not okay at all. That I'm hurting inside.
And here is why:
The kind of hurt I am suffering is a wound dealt me by two Jewish women--Sistahs in my Nation. And that is why it is NOT okay.
Not okay at all.
Every religious Jew worth his salt knows the reason the Temples were destroyed. It's called: Baseless Hatred.
Kamtza And Bar Kamtza
The story that everyone knows that best illustrates baseless hatred is the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, a tale from the Talmud (Gittin 56). There was a man who decided to throw the party to end all parties in his hometown of Jerusalem. He wrote up a guest list and sent his servant to deliver invitations.
One of the guests on the list was a dude named "Kamtza." Unfortunately, the servant made a big oopsie and instead of inviting Kamtza, he invited his boss' worst enemy: BAR Kamtza (close but no cigar).
All Smiles
Bar Kamtza got that invite and he was like the happiest guy on earth to think that the guy giving the party had finally forgiven him. But when Bar Kamtza (all smiles and joy) got to the party, the host saw him and went livid. He instructed his servant to throw Bar Kamtza out of his home.
Bar Kamtza figured it out: There'd been a mistake.
He was mortified. He went up to the host and quietly pleaded with him to allow him to stay. "Please let me stay. I'll be so embarrassed if everyone sees you throwing me out," he said.
"Tell you what. I'll pay for my meal. However much it cost. Just PLEASE let me stay."
Immovable
But no. The host of the party would not hear of it. He was FUMING. Practically FOAMING at the mouth.
Bar Kamtza tried again. "Okay, okay. Let's just find a way to make this work. I'll pay half the cost of the entire party. Just. . .please. Let me stay!"
But the host just said, "No! LEAVE. Like YESTERDAY."
By now, Bar Kamtza was getting kind of desperate. He said, "Look. I'll pay all your costs. I'll cover the whole party. Just don't do this, Man. Don't do this to me."
He Wouldn't Budge
But the host just wouldn't let go his hatred and anger. He just wouldn't budge from his fury. And he had Bar Kamtza thrown out of his home.
Nice story, huh? Anyone could relate.
But no. We're not done. The STORY isn't done.
Here's what happened next. Bar Kamtza was hurt and upset and embarrassed. Everyone had been at that party. The greatest rabbis of the time were in attendance. And not one of them took his part. Not one of them spoke up on his behalf. They just didn't want to touch that.
So. Messy.
They looked away, pretended not to hear, whatever. You know?
Lava And Heat
Inside, Bar Kamtza was all lava and heat. He was furious. He thought: 'In their silence, those rabbis were complicit in what was done to me! They approved!'
He thought they approved of the way he had been embarrassed in public in such a nasty public way.
Bar Kamtza was consumed with hurt and anger. It filled him up. It was everything, those feelings: his anger at the rabbis, who failed to support him when clearly he was IN THE RIGHT.
So you know what he did? Bar Kamtza? He went to the Romans and told them all kinds of stuff about the Jews. He told them the Jews were plotting against them, trash-talking them, and doing all kinds of things to undermine Roman authority.
That was all the excuse the Romans needed to attack and burn down the Holy Temple.
And we've been paying for the damage ever since. Everything that happens to us, antisemitism, the Holocaust, BDS, the UN condemnations, everything flows from there.
You could look at what happened, at the actual chain of events relating to Roman rule and the kind of stuff that Josephus documented. The everyday things that lead to war.
But that wasn't what destroyed the Temple. It was hatred by Jews against Jews for no reason whatsoever. Bar Kamtza wanted to work things out. But his host stonewalled him and there was no reason for that. Bar Kamtza was making a show of good faith. He wanted to make things right. The two had once been friends!
Simply No Reason
Bar Kamtza was a Jew, speaking to a Jew from the heart. And the unnamed host of that party did a terrible thing in not responding in kind, in locking him out, in subjecting Bar Kamtza to public ridicule out of simple stubbornness. There really was NO REASON for this.
When someone tries to resolve things in good faith, you see, he should be met with openness and kindness and a willingness to work toward repairing what is broken.
Every minute that passes in which this does not happen is a rent in the fabric not just of the two Jews in question but of the ENTIRE JEWISH NATION AS A WHOLE.
When you hurt me, you are hurting US, the Jewish people. Kol Yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh (Shavuot 39a). All Jews are responsible this for that (for each other).
Read My Lips
No Jew has the right to lock out a fellow Jew who wants to try to make things right. No Jew has a right to inflict that sort of pain, embarrassment, and damage on another Jew.
The right thing to do is to sit down and work things out. Or at least to TRY to do so. Until it is clear things cannot be worked out. At that point, you can agree to disagree. And be mature and move on.
But back to Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. We know what destroyed the Temple. We also know how to fix it--how to repair the damage. It's by giving your unconditional love to your fellow Jew. Love without reason. Love without end.
Love for love's sake.
An Obligation
And it's not just that we know HOW to fix the damage, it's that we are OBLIGATED to fix the damage: to work things out. To love each other and be kind and nice to each other, whatever it takes (Chafetz Chaim: Maamar Ahavas Yisroel, Chapter 5).
So how do we know it's just not happening, this sort of unconditional love between Jews? It's like this: you go to Jerusalem and you get to the Kotel, the Western Wall. You look up and you see: NO TEMPLE.
Look up: No Temple.
Nope. It's not there. And it's not there because baseless hatred exists. Because Jews are not speaking to each other, not working things out, not making things right.
It's just a rent in the fabric of our nation growing wider and wider apart every time a millisecond ticks by. And this is serious stuff. As Jews we are all obligated to the act of making things whole again. No one is off the hook. Each one of us must examine ourselves and our relationships and see what needs fixing.
We each of us need to do that and fix it NOW. It's an obligation incumbent on all of us, all the time.
You're The Reason
If you don't do it: if you do what that host did, and refuse to work things out, even though Bar Kamtza was willing to meet him so much more than halfway, then you are the reason the Temple is not rebuilt. You are preventing the redemption of our people.
By the same token, if you love your fellow Jew and relieve him of his internal agonies, his emotional grieving, and you show him love just because. JUST BECAUSE.
