One request from the Knesset members who took office this week: Be gray. As gray as possible. Professional, dedicated, attentive - and gray.
Just two years ago, a very similar ceremony took place in the Knesset building, but it had something that was not there this week in the Knesset building: brilliance. Stardust. How much excitement there was then around media star Yair Lapid, who entered the building for the first time along with a whole gallery of new faces.
Wow, everyone said, he brought with him a Russian judoka and a secular doctor of Talmud. What new politics. With him came to the Knesset in the previous term a completely new star, the startup of religious Zionism, his name is Naftali Bennett. How much curiosity he aroused.
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Not to mention names like Elazar Stern, famous for the storms he knew how to stir up while still in uniform, or Merav Michaeli (I remember how at that ceremony the political reporters chased Lior Schlein in an attempt to extract jokes from him about his new parliamentary career), and also Stav Shapir and Itzik Shmuli (fresh from the trendy social protest in Rothschild) and on and on.
Some of these names, just two years later, are no longer in the Knesset at all, and some are already considered veterans and experienced.
The new Knesset, God willing, will be more boring, and that’s a good thing. Because with all this arrogance, is it any wonder that there was no divine help for the outgoing Knesset? All the ”freshness” and all the ”we came to change because only we understand,” were actually a cover for a lot of inexperience. The ”new politics” was actually “we have no idea how to do politics.”.
This week, Rabbi Yuval Sherlow wrote that we treat politics like sports fans: watching the game and engaging in commentary and giving advice to others, without connecting the matter to our real lives.
According to him, most of us need a serious shake-up regarding what is important and what is trivial: “The human identity of the State of Israel will not be determined only by the Knesset, its laws and budgets. It will also be determined by our human capacity to love and smile, to live a moral life and to convince others to follow this path. Human identity is also determined by the relationship between parents and children, by the lack of shouting and violence towards them, and by the investment of time and desire necessary for their upbringing, in a relationship that is invested and that also opens doors for helping others – all of these often have a much greater impact than a political system.
""The Jewish identity of the State of Israel will not be determined only in the Knesset, its laws and budgets. It will also be determined in the daily Daf Yomi lessons, in bringing many people closer to the Torah and the mitzvot, in obedience to the words of the prophets, in beautifying the face of the elderly and standing up for the elderly, in invested education, in the abundance of mitzvot, in modesty and holiness, in culture and art that are directed towards the good and upright in man, and so on and so forth. We must step down from the position of observer and interpreter, and begin to truly work.
""This is of course more difficult than rebuking the press, alienating political opponents, and calculating coalition scores. It requires ourselves, our souls, our dedication. But these are the fields parallel to politics that affect Israeli reality, and they are the ones that depend on us.".
I don't know if it's permissible to go straight from a quote from Rabbi Sherlow to a quote from 'Panai Plus' magazine, but that's what I'm going to do now. Because following on from what he said, maybe reality doesn't just happen in the politics sections, but rather in the gossip sections?
Reporter Michal Traurig published a report under the title “Special Investigation” on all the celebrities who are getting rich.
Did you think Shuli Rand and Aviatar Banai were the names in this scene? Stay tuned.
It turns out that many new stars in the Israeli entertainment industry are getting closer to Torah and mitzvot. It's funny to talk about Jews returning to their roots as a "trend," after all, a trend means a passing fashion, but on the other hand, it's gratifying to see that opinion leaders, especially among teenagers and young adults, are increasingly making the image of Judaism current and correct.
It starts with Yuval Shem Tov, isn't it Yuval the Confused One, who presents a new and very unconfused version, and this is how he says: "I'm getting stronger, and I'm doing it slowly because I believe that if a person flies too high, in the end he gives up. I'm very connected to Chabad Hasidism, which talks about both this world and the next. I took it upon myself to eat kosher, wash my hands every morning, and also put on tefillin.
""Just thinking about it and getting ready does something. I also talk to Hashem, what's called 'solitude.' I connect more with my own self. I go to Rabbi Yuval Ashrov's classes every Tuesday and I come out of there every time saying to myself, 'Wow.'.
""I decided that from September, with God's help, I will stop working on Shabbat. Although I earn a lot from performing on Shabbat, I think that those who want to see me will also come on Thursday. There is no blessing in Shabbat money.".
The article interviews journalist Zvi Yehezkeli, our commentator on Arab and Jewish affairs, and explains that this is a widespread but quiet phenomenon. In other words, if I understood him correctly, it is certainly possible that Garbuz is also starting to put on tefillin at this very moment, but is still ashamed to reveal it.
Yehezkeli personally hesitated for four years before finally donning a kippah, and choosing to continue working at his previous place of employment. Only a convert can sign a line like this: “I have been in seclusion for seven years for an hour a day, observing Shabbat, keeping my eyes open, and keeping kosher.”.
The list of those approaching those who are going to Torah classes and starting to observe the mitzvot also includes four married couples (Yael Bar Zohar and Guy Zoaretz, Eden Harel and Oded Menashe, Zion Baruch and Yana Yosef, Ninet Taib and Yossi Mizrahi) and also the singer Kobi Peretz, who is related to Rabbi Shalom Arush and says in the article, “A person without faith is a life-or-death person.”.
Another name (and Ashkenazi!) is the popular singer Rami Kleinstein. It turns out that the one who sang “Matonot Ketanot” recently discovered the good gift that God has in his treasury, and began observing Shabbat and putting on tefillin.
Isn't this phenomenon, and its educational impact on the Israeli public, more important and significant than the next role that Sufa Landver and Ofir Akunis will receive?
We tend to refer to the Bible as ”the book of books.“ So here is an interesting definition of the Seder night: ”the story of stories.“ This is how Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sachs, former Chief Rabbi of Britain, defines this night before us.
I'm not one of the great talkers at Seder night (the Haggadah speaks enough, and so do the children, and the songs), but I think that this year I will read at the holiday table one paragraph from Rabbi Sachs' new Haggadah that reminds us of what we are actually doing here (please imagine the following text with the background sounds of a baby who is just crying, the noise of chewing matzah and serving or clearing dishes from the table):
“In 2000, I was invited to Windsor Castle, home to the kings and queens of England and the oldest continuously inhabited castle in the world. I was invited there to deliver the St. George Lecture, an annual lecture held at the castle in the presence of President Philip. As the first Jew to be honored to speak at this event, I gave much thought to what I would say.
""I thought about the Jews in Europe, who for many centuries were pushed from country to country without rights, without political power, and without a home. I found myself gliding through the years, to an early and painful period in British history: the first blood libel in Norwich in 1144, the York Massacre in 1190, and the expulsion of the Jews by King Edward I in 1290. .
""These events created a pattern that repeated itself over the next two hundred years in country after country in Europe. What could our persecuted and tormented ancestors have said, if they could have foreseen that one day one of them would be invited to the house of the king who had exiled them? I remembered the verse from Psalms, 'I will speak of your testimonies before kings and will not be ashamed,' and I resolved to be faithful to these words.
“And so I said: I’m trying to imagine what it must feel like for someone to inherit a building like Windsor Castle. Living in a place like that, steeped in so much history, means wanting to know that history – how this building came to be and why.
""Studying this history is not just discovering facts. This building will be my history because I inherited it. I take on a set of obligations, moral relationships with the past and the future. I would become part of the history of the castle and its successors. I would understand that generation after generation of English kings and queens have striven to preserve the castle and pass it on unscathed to future generations.".
""They put their trust in those who would come after them and believed that they would do the same. And now, since the castle has come to me, I must accept a commitment to the place, to try to preserve it for future generations, to protect it. This is what it means to live in a historical context.".
“The Jews will never own buildings like Windsor Castle. That is not our kind of people. But we own something that is as sacred as the blood of these buildings, and time has sanctified it even more than it sanctifies them. The Jewish castle is not built of bricks but of words. But it too has been preserved for centuries, handed down from generation to generation.
""It too was expanded and strengthened period after period, preserved and maintained with love. As a child, I knew that one day I would inherit it from my parents, just as they inherited it from their parents. It is not a building, and yet it is a home. More than it belongs to us, we belong to it. What we have is not a physical structure but something else – a story.
""A story about our ancestors who were slaves, and through a series of events, we finally gained their freedom. They then embarked on a forty-year journey searching for a home, a promised land, a place of kindness and justice and freedom and honor. They never stopped their journey, and I am part of this journey, part of this story, and it defines me.".
""During the journey, we Jews bring the divine presence into daily life, into the relationships between one person and another, into the bond of marriage, into homes and communities. This is our faith. The philosopher Edmund Burke said that partnership is not a partnership between the living but a partnership between the living, between the dead and those yet to be born.".
""I am part of this partnership, and what I say here today at Windsor Castle we say anew every year on Seder night.".
• The column is published in the newspaper on Sheva.
