By Jonathan Lyon
JonathanLyonBlog.com
Nov 21, 2023

Terri Cullen wrote in FB on Sep 7, 2021

“Life is so short.
“We spend so much time sweating
the small stuff; worrying, complaining. gossiping, comparing, wishing, wanting and waiting for something bigger and better instead of focusing on all the simple blessings that surround us everyday, Life is so fragile and all it takes is a single moment to change everything you take for granted. Focus on what’s important and be grateful! You are blessed! Believe it! Live your life and leave no regrets.”

Okay. This quote is a nice general start for me – a jumping off point. Because, for me, it needs people/cultural specific specificity to be of any working value.

On an aside, religious Jews say this exact thing in their prayers 3 times every day and 4 times on the Sabbath. We also acknowledge it every time we finish our business in the bathroom.

Applying religious and cultural specificity and clarity to the concept quoted above was precisely why I moved to Israel. Specificity is an act of sanctification. The greater the specificity the greater the degree of sanctity. It is precisely why the sanctity of marriage is higher than the sanctity of acquaintance. It is also why Jews’ relationship to the Land of Israel holds more sanctity to their relationship to the Land of Egypt, or Morocco, or China, or Europe, or the USA. More on this later.

It’s told that as the Children of Israel went through the Red Sea divided before them, all each person could perceive was the sweat on the back of the person in front of him. Only afterwards, when they got to the other side safely, looked back and saw all of Pharaoh’s army drowned, THEN they perceived it was a miracle.

This points out the dynamic and struggle placed before us Jews in Israel on a daily basis: To struggle with the nitty gritty of brutal grinding of daily life – and sometimes tragedy and war – and to simultaneously see the greater miracle which is taking place: Repopulating our Land after 2,000 years of dispersion – the Land in which all of our commandments were meant to be performed in the first place – where Commandment and Land live in nexus and symbiosis. Where one cannot be whole without the other. As the anthem goes: “To be a free people in our Land, the Land of Zion, Jerusalem!” And in Jerusalem, the Temple Mount – It doesn’t get any more specific and Sanctified than THAT! The place of ultimate Nexus.

The loss of this vision within the context of history has been a fear of many Israeli parents recently whose children have grown up in Israel never having known a time when Israel DIDN’T exist; when Hebrew WASN’T spoken; where Land-specific commandments WERN’T applicable, except in tales, stories of origin, and the Bible and Talmud.

These children’s grandparents tell them stories of their own parents who came to the Land of Israel before it was a modern political reality. Who survived many tragedies (Holocaust, Expulsions) and sufferings, so that these children could grow up in freedom in their own Land.

Yet, these same children have lately struggled with the idea of the continued miracle of Israel’s existence. “Existence for what?” They ask. “I don’t want just to exist: I want to thrive!” And so down the lonely path of extreme individuality, materialism and technology many go to fill the void. Enough of existence. I want to thriving! Give me the TV wand a motor bike and a “smart” phone! Something convenient. Something satisfying. Something I can touch and feel!

All this changed on October 7th. Hamas’s Nazi and Isis-like murder spree reminded ALL of us that we ARE fragile.

But underneath that fragility lies a steal strength and resilience that is rooted in interconnectedness and common purpose, grit and determination – and love, mutual admiration, ingenuity, organization and action. It turned out that THIS was the thriving that the youth were looking for all along: “All Jews are Responsible One for the Other”!!

Viktor Frankel said that if you want to make the stones in an arch fit more tightly and strongly together, ADD WEIGHT. Without intending to, Hamas has added the necessary weight that again strengthened the cohesion of Israel’s communal stone arch.