This war took us all back to earlier years, perhaps even to the 1950s and 1960s, the years of the establishment of the state.
It is difficult not to stand in awe of the unity that is so striking – the unity that began to emerge immediately after the kidnapping of the three boys, Gilad, Naftali, and Eyal, when the people of Israel showered them with their goodness – some upon arriving to encourage the family members, and then to comfort them, and some in a prayer that they offered with all their hearts – this unity reached its peak when our soldiers entered the burning territory of Gaza.
To see the sights, and not to believe.
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Convoys of vehicles, of your people-Beit Israel, bringing every good thing to the best sons who serve, as well as to the residents of the south, who constantly suffer from incessant barrages and out of all proportion to the suffering endured by the residents of the center or the north.
These are the hours when the people of Israel are revealed in all their beauty, in all their splendor – the Jewish heart goes out of its way to help.
Even the ultra-Orthodox public, the one that has been burned in the last year by the conscription law, the one that is threatened in the background with criminal sanctions if it does not enlist, and only because it chose to study the Holy Torah, was able to put aside all anger, all resentment, and gather in synagogues, in yeshiva halls, at the Western Wall, the remnant of the Temple – and offer a fervent prayer for the success of the campaign.
The condemnation of the insane act that the city of Beit Shemesh once again created from within itself crossed lines – crossed sectors. Everyone condemned it.
From Deri, on the eastern side, to Litzman, on the Ashkenazi side.
Every surfer who read about it, every reader who was exposed to the crime – everyone expressed deep shock.
Two ultra-Orthodox soldiers, who entered to pray evening prayers – only they entered, unknowingly, a synagogue belonging to extremists. These are the extremists who were responsible for spitting on that girl from Beit Shemesh, those who are responsible for provocations in the city, those who harm all of us – including our ultra-Orthodox brothers.
Screams and curses greeted the soldiers, whose only 'sin' was that they had come to pray in the 'wrong' place.
Their only sin is that they failed to sit down and study, that they didn't fit into the framework, and that they went and enlisted, probably at the behest of their rabbis.
These days – we are all on the front lines.
Our hearts are with the soldiers. Our hearts are with the residents of Sderot, the Gaza Envelope, Ashdod, Ashkelon, with all those who are suffering.
These days – our strength is in our unity.
