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Whether or Not I Live There

10/07/2024 01:38:40 PM

Oct7

Rabbi Scott Hausman-Weiss

To listen to Rabbi Scott's blog, click HERE.

The other day in Jerusalem, I saw a bumper sticker that read, “Our story will have a
good ending.”
Those words were spoken by Sarit Zussman at the funeral of her son,
Ben, a soldier who fell in Gaza. Once, that sentiment would have seemed self-evident to
Israelis. Now it has the poignancy of a prayer.

This is how Yossi Klein Halevy concluded his most recent article in the Times of Israel, “The end of the post-Holocaust Era.” I highly recommend it.

Today is October 7, a year since most of us, hours after the advent of the massacre,
started noticing odd stories in our social media feeds and on TV. Thousands of Hamas
soldiers breaking through the southern border of Israel, attacking, massacring, raping,
and pillaging. The stuff of medieval, Dante-esque, depictions of victimized Jews. We
really couldn’t believe our eyes. And then, “Where’s the army? Where’s the IDF? Still?
Hours later, days later? The terrorists are still inside Israel? How? What happened?”
The Prime Minister is doing what? What about the hostages? That’s what we Jews do.
At all costs, and the costs are still mounting.”

And then, “The college kids are saying what? Their professors are helping them
organize? They’re defaming Israel? LGBTQ for Palestine? Don’t they know that Israel is
the only place in the Middle East where they could safely live and breathe as who they
are?”

Today is October 7 and Israel has many of its enemies on their heels. But there is
decent reason to suspect that Iran just engaged in an underground nuclear test
because Israel had the temerity of building its self-defenses such that even 180 ballistic
missiles practically bounced off its “force field,” like when Captain Kirk ordered Scotty,
“Shields up!” Who does Israel think she is anyway? A real country whose existence and
future are presumed?

Take a moment to remind yourself of the age-old adage, “There but for the grace of
God, go I,”
but allow me to suggest an edit: “There but for the grace of a Jewish state, a
Jewish army, and a Jewish nationhood, go I into the worlds I choose.”
Never again also
means remembering what it was like to live in the world as a Jew without a Jewish
state, whether or not you live there.

Fri, November 1 2024 30 Tishrei 5785