Nitzavim

This week I had the privilege of meeting one of the most influential people (actually THE most influential person) in Israel in terms of settling Judea and Samaria, Benny Katzover. A group of American tourists came to Israel, and the tour-organizer asked me to make contact with Benny and translate for the group. Benny meets groups for free, he does this for ideological reasons, not for money. He is religious, Zionist, and if not for him, perhaps Samaria would still have no Jewish communities today. I met the group and Benny in Elon Moreh, near the city of Shchem (Nablus), and it left me feeling so filled-up, it was such an amazing experience. It lasted one hour, but it felt too short. I felt like I could spend a whole day with this person. He speaks English well, but still prefers to speak Hebrew and be translated because it is easier for him to speak Hebrew.
Benny's wedding was the very first Jewish wedding in the city of Hebron after 2000 years. He later started the settlement movement in Samaria, as young man in his 20's. At those days he was anonymous and unknown, but he managed to meet with General Ariel Sharon, with Shim'on Peres and other influential figures who helped him in his endeavor. It is SO amazing to listen to him in that place, and I truly recommend to every person who is coming to Israel to visit that man and hear his story. He is really like a biblical figure, so devoted and so influential. Samaria is flourishing now and has so many Jewish communities and it is all thanks to his devotion.
The group was a Christian group and they were impressed with him so much. I want everyone to hear his story and the history of Samaria. The Israeli government was mostly against him and his group when they first started, but he kept fighting for this cause, settling Samaria again and again until the government gave up and allowed it. He really is like a modern-day King David. He showed us an area near Elon Moreh from which you can see three of the borders of the State of Israel, including the Gilad mountains in the east, the Mediterranean in the West, and Mt. Hermon in the north, all from one view point - on good visibility days.
Elon Moreh is right near Mt. Eival and Mt. Grizim, the mountains of blessing and curse. He told us how archaeologist Adam Zartal dug there and found a structure from the times of Joshua Bin Nun, that has no windows and no doors, and it has a ramp... that is, he found the altar on which the initiation ceremony of the Nation of Israel in Eretz Israel took place. There, he also found burnt ashes and bones of animals - a laboratory test revealed that all the bones are from Kosher animals, most of them males, and most of them one year old. These are the exact specifications for the whole-burnt offering (Korban Olah). Prof. Zartal also found seal stamps of the Pharaoh of the time of the exodus - there, near the altar! It was buried in a nicely dug pit - probably hidden there by the Jews who have just arrived from 40 years of wandering in the desert after leaving Egypt. It is so fascinating to listen to this. I feel like I should write about it more in length, but Shabbat is just around the corner.
Benny's main message was that a few major Jewish beginnings took place in Samaria, near the city of Shchem (Nablus) and this is why it is so important that we resettle that area of Israel. First, the promise of the Land to Abraham took place there. Second, when Jacob returned to Israel after running away from his brother Esau, he stopped there. Third, when the Jewish Nation returned to Israel after 40 years in the Sinai desert, they did the initiation ceremony there, on Mt. Eival and Mt. Grizim. I don't remember the other points, but they were as impressive. In short, we have all the right in the world to reclaim our land. The tour guide showed me a picture of Nablus from 100 years ago. It was a tiny Arab village with very few houses, nothing like the huge sprawling city that it is today. Where did all these people come from? It is not thanks to birth, because if that was the case, Nablus should have been a huge city long ago. It is due to immigration. When we Jews started returning to the Land of Israel, Arabs from nearby countries came in to be employed in agriculture and other areas. Most of the Arabs living in Israel today are the descendants of those immigrants, not of the few native Arabs who lived here before we started returning. Anyway, it doesn't matter, G-d has a plan, and it will be fulfilled, this way or the other. We have to do good and watch Him do good.

I'll try to write more perhaps after Shabbat.

Ki Tetze / Isaiah

Elections (again... unbelievable...) is on this coming Tuesday, and everyone seems to be sleepy and indifferent, there's a lot less 'noise' than there was in the last elections, just a few months ago. I'm going to vote the same way - to the National Religious party: those who will not give up even one small part of our G-d given Land, and those who will make room for the Torah in our secular way of life.
Our prime minister, Netanyahu, disappoints me a lot recently, sometimes even angers me, but I do not think there is anyone else who can head the government at this time. I guess he will be elected for one more term, until a new leader will emerge. Hopefully THE leader, if you know what I mean. As Shabbat was over and I turned the radio on to hear some news, I heard that Netanyahu got a 'promise' from US president Trump to "grant Israel a defense treaty". What? Really? Is this what we need? This is so infuriating. In Hebrew it sounds even worse: ברית הגנה ("brit haganah", translated loosely as a "covenant of protection") - the only brit (covenant) we have is with G-d. The only protection we have is G-d's. There is no other covenant, and no other protection. Talking and thinking and seeking a covenant of protection from human beings is such an affront to G-d. It shows weakness of character and weakness of faith. And such a treaty, if signed, is going to tie our hands. We will have to get America's approval for every military operation we will do. Remember Operation Opera (Operation Babylon) in 1981, when Israel attacked the nuclear reactors in Iraq? This was such an important operation, and it took the whole world by surprise, but now - if the "defense treaty" is signed, we will not be able to do something like this if there is a need - we will have to ask permission from Trump to do it! Remember Operation Entebbe, in which Israeli soldiers (including Yoni Netanyahu, Bibi's older brother) flew to Uganda, to liberate Israeli and Jewish hostages who were kidnapped by terrorists on an airplane? If the need arises to have such an operation today, we will have to ask for the USA's permission! Remember the Sabena Flight 571, that was supposed to go to Israel but the plain was hijacked? Israeli soldiers (including Bibi himself!) went there to liberate the hostages. In such operations, every second of delay is fateful and can ruin everything - and now we'll have to ask permission from the USA? For what? What will we get in return - "protection"? Thanks, but we're not interested. We need protection from the ONE and only power who rules the world. Not from humans like us. I hope that such a defense treaty will not be signed. We have survived miraculously without it so far, we will prosper forever - without it. This Shabbat we read in synagogue from the book of Isaiah, and it is so relevant in this regard: "For the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall My covenant of peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath compassion on thee."

Think about it. There's a lot more to say, perhaps I'll write another post soon.
In the meantime,
Shavua tov (have a good week),
R.

Shoftim / Isaiah

I wanted to go to the hospital today, to play some music to patients before Shabbat, but I didn't plan my time well and figured out that I won't have time to do so and come back in time to prepare for Shabbat. I'm reading a lot of professional materials recently in my field, and I give it top priority at the moment, and this may be the reason. But I did have a few chances to play music to patients recently, and it is always sweet. People's reactions are so nice. In one of the wards, two young Arab nurses, a man and a woman, stopped everything and asked to film me on their smartphones. Of course, I said no. I hate to be photographed or filmed. So they recorded anyway, just without me in the frame, which was OK with me. The male nurse followed me from room to room with wide opened eyes and a big smile on his face. It made me feel like this was not a waste of my time, like people were enjoying it and appreciating it.
One day I got to the hospital exactly as the doctors were changing shifts. They were going from room to room and the head doctor was briefing the new shift about each of the patients. I was always one room behind them, playing to patients they had already reviewed. Then, as I was leaving one of the rooms, the head doctor approached me in front of the whole group of doctors, and told me that he liked this and that he thought it was a good idea, but that I should also play music that is suitable to "other" cultures (he meant Arabs). I play music that I know - mostly Israeli and American songs, some religious Jewish songs as well, but I'm not familiar with Arab music. There are many Arab patients in the hospital, and I usually play to them melodies without words, like the 'The Lonely Shepherd', and they love it. I had tried to listen to Arab songs, so that I could play their music for them, but I do not have the 'ears' for such music. Arab music is so hard for me to understand and grasp, so even when I'm trying to listen to it, I cannot reproduce it. The scales are so different than the ones I'm used to thinking of as understandable music, they have many half tones and quarters of tones, and it is something that I have no idea how to play - not even how to hum... In addition, the songs are normally very, very long, and I can't recognize the musical themes in them, it sounds almost random. What can I do? I'm giving up. I'll play the Lonely Shepherd and they'll have to be happy with it. Usually they are. Before I play, I always ask: 'Can I play something for you?' One Arab man was almost offended, and said that they are not goats, and therefore there is no reason to play to them with a recorder... OK, whatever... But most of them are very receptive and grateful.
Another subgroup at the hospital is Haredi people who want to hear Yiddish songs, Hasidic songs, etc. I'm clueless when it comes to such songs. I'm trying to listen to Hasidic music, but again - this is not my type of music. When I just moved to my new neighborhood, I teamed up with two more musicians to play at the hospital (I wrote about it a few months ago). But after an amazing first time with them and a couple more lukewarm ones in which they played mostly Hasidic music that I am not familiar with, I decided to leave them, and go solo. They were sorry that it happened, and urged me to stay, but I didn't find meaning in doing this with them. Two weeks ago I went to the hospital on a Friday to play at the hospice - the last stop for patients who suffer from cancer. A few minutes later came a group of Haredi musicians and played. I joined them and we played amazingly well together. It was so much fun, really. There was a guitarist, a drummer, a clarinet player (I don't like when they have clarinets - you cannot hear the recorder when they play!), and a singer. It was beautiful. I'll try to join them again next week. They were familiar with the kind of music I know, so there was no problem in this respect.
This week, one evening in the middle of the week, I went to play to one particular patient at the hospice - Ariella, a woman who is probably around 60 or 70 years old. The reason why I go specifically to her, is that on the last times that I went to the hospice to play, she was the one most responsive, and kept asking me for more and more songs, doing movements of a conductor with her hand as I was playing. So I went there this week. The nurse told me that Ariella had been asleep all day, and they couldn't wake her up no matter what. The nurses tried, her husband tried, they tried with different ways, but she didn't wake up. She just warned me so I would not be upset or disappointed. But I went into that patient's room and started playing. She woke up. She looked at me and recognized me, which made me happy, but she looked awful. She is SO thin, she looks more like a skeleton than anything else. Her facial bones stick out, her teeth stick out, her lips are fallen down, her skin is so tight around her face that you feel like you look at a skull. She looked really bad, but when the music started, she lifted her hand and again played the conductor and then with her blurry speech she said that it was wonderful. She kept asking me for more and more songs. I played some Beatles, some Simon and Garfunkel, some Back, some Israeli songs, some Jewish songs. She gave me her hand to shake. I took it. It was warm, and well taken care of - nice nails painted red. I thought of the differences - here is an older dying lady, all skin and bones, and her hands are so warm and nice looking, whereas me - without any good excuse - My hands are cold or just not warm most of the time, and never, not even once, do I paint my nails. Not planning to, either. It's so not me! I did manage to stop biting at my nails recently, and I even had long nails for a period of few weeks, until I've had enough of it, it's so uncomfortable!  I felt appreciation of her, for taking care of herself even in her last days of life, even when the rest of her body looks terribly sick.
I want this idea - of people playing and/or singing to sick patients at hospitals - to become a world-wide thing. My dream is that in every country, people who can play an instrument will go and give some good time to patients. This is why I write about it. I want this to become a model for others to emulate in their own countries. We can definitely make this world a better place when doing this - and we don't have to be professional musicians for it. I'm not, and neither are any of the other volunteers. We're all amateur people who want to bring a bit more joy to a corner of the world in which people suffer.
I'm not in the mood of writing so much recently, so I'll just end this with a verse from the Prophet Portion that we read this Shabbat in synagogues (Isaiah 51: 1-3):

"“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness
    and who seek the Lord:
Look to the rock from which you were cut
    and to the quarry from which you were hewn;
2 look to Abraham, your father,
    and to Sarah, who gave you birth.
When I called him he was only one man,
    and I blessed him and made him many.
3 The Lord will surely comfort Zion
    and will look with compassion on all her ruins;
he will make her deserts like Eden,
    her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness will be found in her,    thanksgiving and the sound of singing."


Shabbat Shalom,
R.