The events of the last few days have brought me to a painful but starkly simple conclusion: we are our own victims.
Last Tuesday, Netanel Roy Arami, a window cleaner at the rappelling station, "plunged to his death" from a great height, after ungrateful Arab workers - after all, who pays their salaries if not a Jew? - cut the cables that held a young man, a father of two, who was working for a living. It is difficult to look at the photos of the suspects - two smiling, proud little boys.
More than once, alarms were heard in the northern and southern regions. They were defined as false alarms. People don't like to believe and listen to those who heard explosions, because once they also heard digging under the house, and we all know what happened next. It's unpleasant. Either way, there were alarms, fear, and probably explosions.
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In general, all of our security is shaken, after hearing agreements, promises, and a host of inflated concepts that, apart from weaving garlands over the heads of elected officials, have changed nothing in reality.
The bottom line is – the world is laughing at us, and the Arab sector, at its head, is leading the chorus.
I'll try to explain.
Just don't make any noise.
We try so hard to find favor and grace in the eyes of the international community, as if our existence depended on it. We respond to all requests, even those that harm us again and again. We release prisoners/terrorists who have Jewish blood on their hands. We avoid calling things by their names, and we turn a blind eye to what is happening in Judea and Samaria, on Route 443, in Jerusalem, and where else?! We give in, we give in, we take responsibility, we remain silent, and when we speak, it is just because we have to. Spirit.
We try to be small, not to make too much noise, "so that they don't say that...", so we won't tell out loud what's really happening, we won't publish confessions of stones that destroyed lives, or riots in Jerusalem. We won't link them to our enemy No. 1, the one who hurts, and immediately afterwards masks the happiness with tears and goes to beg for mercy from whoever will listen, and of course "defends" along the way.
Even when such incidents are publicized, they are publicized only within our borders, leaving almost a feeling that we need to apologize, that we are the bad guys. As if the status of the "wandering Jew" is still stuck to our skin.
As a well-known French proverb puts it, we try to be "more royal than the king." We are so good that we give our enemies a place in the Israeli Knesset. There they can freely express their opposition to our existence, and their desire to destroy us. On our stage, with our salary.
In short, the ambition is to be "like everyone else." We fell for this in the desert and we still fall for it today.
At the same time, the epidemic of "being like everyone else" is spreading within our own people. We (let's all try to be "we" for a few moments) are trying to forget and oblivion our ancient origins, and to free ourselves from this restrictive and primitive religion. Sometimes indirectly, by cutting child allowances, for example, which mainly harms Torah students, and sometimes openly, when instead of the words of Sh. Agnon lamenting the destruction of the house and the exile, on the 50-NIS bill, "the old one," a new bill is printed with a sentence from a poem by Tchernichovsky, about faith in man and his strength. "Because I will still believe in man, even in his spirit, a strong spirit.".
""My strength and the might of my hand": We left God behind.
We are no longer primitive. We have transportation on Shabbat, seafood in the prestigious restaurants of Tel Aviv. We have parking lots open on Shabbat to allow families to spend their day off, and same-sex couples are entitled to a normal life and children, and we even got Cinema City in Jerusalem! Looks good.
Our universities enrich and enrich with knowledge and culture, they know how to accept everyone. Even the private "prayer room" allocated to some students who don't really like the touch of grass on their knees, nor the "racist" chants of their classmates. What's the problem? There's also a synagogue, right?
"We "evolved." We disconnected. We became "like everyone else.".
So where is the real root of the problem?
Don't get me wrong. The problem is not political and social pluralism.
The problem is not progress and development, or giving respect to every person.
The problem is when it comes at our expense. When to do so we are required to disconnect from our roots, from Judaism, or from the promised Land of Israel. When to do so we are required to give more space to the enemy, spiritual or physical, at the expense of our place, Israelis, Jews first and foremost.
The problem is that we don't recognize our own right to exist. So why should they?
And so they laugh at us, see us going wild - and laugh.
Because they did not stop fulfilling their mission. The nations of the world did not stop guarding "Esau, the enemy of Jacob." And with great care.
Ishmael always knows how to remind us who we are, and this is done with absolute faith and devotion to the mission. We saw.
The craze of "being like everyone else" has given us nothing but an amusing clown hat for others - and it hurts us. We are our own victims.
Even the atheist is a great believer.
They won't let us be like everyone else because we're not like everyone else. They know this better than we do. They don't know why and aren't even aware of it, but they know what we're suppressing.
And it bothers them.
The chosen people, the promised land of Israel, redemption, Messiah...
They say that even the most apostate atheist is the greatest believer, because religion occupies most of his thoughts. Yes, all his time is spent thinking about how to get away from religion!
In short, they won't let us. What's more, they see us, go wild, and laugh at us.
From where we don't grasp it, we will reach the Torah, the divine promises, Abraham our father, religion. Deep down, and not even consciously, they know what we strive to forget.
Why be afraid to claim what is ours? What belongs to us?
Why compromise and try to be "as good as them"? We're not! Aren't we the chosen people?
Why are Muslims allowed to believe and declare such positions and we are not? In the end, they are listened to more than we are...
Anyone who believes that his place is in the Land of Israel must observe the religion of the One who gave him this place.
Anyone who tries with all their might to reject what connects them to the land will see and continue to see the land slipping away from them like sand through their fingers.
In the hours before the most significant days of our lives, each of us is tasked with internalizing: Who are we? Why are we here? We may lose our place in an instant if we neglect it too much, if we leave the authority to "like everyone else" to maintain it.
This is true in front of nations, it is true within the people, it is true among each one of us. We saw it and we still see it.
Happy and sweet New Year, abundant blessings and good news for all the people of Israel.
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