Oded Kotler didn't start a culture war, he just ignited another round of fighting. Like in Gaza, we're having rounds here. The reactions of each side are pretty much known in advance. And yet, two reactions managed to surprise me this week.
The first is from Gideon Saar, who has been sitting lately as a kind of political critic. The star on the bench. Last week, he watched from the sidelines as Likud was embarrassed by Oren Hazan, and in response, he simply posted a picture of challah that Geula Even baked for Shabbat.
This week, as the new storm broke out, he wrote: "Regarding Kotler's speech: What's amusing is that these are things that were read from the script. Trying to imagine a spontaneous text..." Saar is right.
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Kotler sat and wrote and erased and rehearsed at home. And for a moment the text did not seem extreme and exaggerated to him. The second interesting response among the many expected condemnations was from one Breslav Hasid, perhaps a musician, perhaps a beggar. The only one who was apparently not offended by the nickname "beasts.".
""He's actually right," he shouted at me on the street this week. "It's good to be a little bit of an animal. Rabbi Nachman writes that each of us needs to be an animal sometimes. Not to investigate everything with reason, not to philosophize, not to rely solely on ego and knowledge, they confuse us. Sometimes you need innocent and simple faith, like an animal following the shepherd.".
""This is how King David says in the Book of Psalms, 'Among the beasts I was with you.' I am not always the smartest, brightest, and most cunning in the world. Sometimes I let go and walk in the rut, obediently, quietly, simply. How Rabbi Nachman laughs at the educated and intellectuals in their own eyes, who think that culture is in their hands, that they are the kings of the world, who do not understand that they are also a bit of a herd.".
At the "Shiva" about former Knesset member Dudu Rotem, a member of Yisrael Beiteinu who died unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of 66, I heard some extraordinary stories. I thought the guests at the Shiva were exaggerating their praise for him a bit. As we know, "After the death of the martyrs, it is said.".
Personally, I knew him from the Knesset as a parliamentarian who was known mainly for disputes with the Arabs, the left, and the ultra-Orthodox. So I turned to his daughter, Este Rotem-Yedidiya, to ask if all of this was true.
""The stories in Shiva surprised us too," she answered me. "We always knew that Dad helped others, and that there was a gap between his assertive image and the attentive, fatherly personality he really had, but we didn't know the details and the scope. We were exposed to things in Shiva that amazed us.
""For example: Dad was a legal advisor to several municipalities. He sat down every month to discuss the requests submitted for property tax discounts. The criteria were clear and Dad, as usual, was very strict and did not agree to deviate from them. Even when he heard the difficult personal story behind the request, he did not agree to deviate from the law.
""When the meeting ended, he would open a checkbook and pay the discounts he had not approved — out of his own pocket. He insisted on anonymity. This is how many families got angry at the strict legal advisor who wouldn't approve them of a discount, and at the same time thanked the anonymous benefactor who was paying their property taxes for them, without knowing it was the same person.".
""Another man who came to Nehem said that once my father came with him to traffic court, to represent him, but there were 30 other people in front of them in line. No one there had representation. My father approached the court clerk, asked if he could represent everyone, and spent the entire time there until the scheduled hearing, working voluntarily with 30 people he didn't know.".
Then Rotem was elected MK. Against the backdrop of the image of Yisrael Beiteinu and the myriad embarrassing scandals that have been linked to its members, it is refreshing to hear the following story: "Few knew that my father did not agree to receive an official Knesset vehicle. He continued to drive his private car. He did not like driving around in an expensive, run-of-the-mill car, and did not want to use public funds if he did not have to. He even refused to install a gas station in the car. He did not understand why someone else should pay for his trip to work, for which he receives a salary. When we asked him about it, he always said: Public money is a sacred thing.".
Tuesday, 8 p.m., the Western Wall. A hidden entrance, still, leads us into a cool, ancient underground space.
A group of guides is walking around the place, without an audience, learning how to guide visitors there. The place will soon officially open.
""The Journey from Jerusalem to Jerusalem," is the name of the new project. Against the backdrop of the ancient Jerusalem stones, dozens of computers have been placed there. Each visitor sits down in front of a screen and begins his own private historical journey. Every now and then, everyone looks up at the big, main screen to hear what has happened in the meantime in the rest of the world.
It all begins a moment after the destruction of the Second Temple. An engaging video explains the options that faced the Jews after the expulsion from Jerusalem. My children, on the screens next to me, chose to go to Babylon. I chose Egypt. From here our paths diverged. We will only reunite in another 2,000 years. Along the way we will go through a lot – struggles against Rome and Greece, against Christianity and Islam, the French Revolution and the Holocaust. We will be expelled from country to country, and each time we will have to choose, where to continue the journey? Where to point the wandering stick?
In the next 50 minutes we will move to Italy, the Ashkenazim, the Byzantine Empire, Spain, Poland, North Africa. The real choice, we must remember, was always against a backdrop of blood and fire, and not on a touch screen with effects. The plot that twists on each screen is different, but essentially the same – a small and persecuted people, swaying from government to government, from kingdom to kingdom, devoutly preserving their identity. Even economic and spiritual prosperity is always a prelude to disaster. Peace is always temporary.
Every now and then there's a little bug in the computer. Everything's still running. I take advantage of the break to look around, at the names of the donors on the walls.
The Schottenstein family, the Beglugov family and other Jewish benefactors from around the world. For almost a decade, a group of historians, directors and actors worked on this project, which will operate in Hebrew and English. This is just part of what the Western Wall Heritage Foundation has been doing there in recent years.
After the opening of the popular Western Wall Tunnels site, and after the "Chain of Generations" (a historical walking trail among glass works), "The Journey from Jerusalem to Jerusalem" will now also arrive. Near the Western Wall, which is still the main attraction, a Jewish Disneyland is being built.
The computer screens continue to present turbulent plots, all of which end in the same scene – the return to the Land of Israel and Jerusalem. From there, we emerge into the cool Jerusalem air.
Even the "robber" stand at the exit from the Western Wall looks different after such an arduous journey. Even the talk on the radio, on the way back, about a "herd of beasts" versus "traitorous Smolensks," is somewhat dwarfed. The closing words in the film that closes the performance impose a considerable sense of responsibility on the viewer: "With every step you take, the story of the journey continues to be written. By you.".
Jewish status: ""Judaism in our time must stop waging a defensive war and start waging a war of momentum - to break through, spread, educate" (The Lubavitcher Rebbe, who will mark 21 years since his passing on Shabbat)
• The column is published in Yedioth Ahronoth
