Spies Among Us

It's been a while. We were away from home for 3 weeks. During that time my youngest daughter chose to make Aliyah  and has informed us that she wishes to draft in the Israeli Army in  November. Along with the expected fear there is also great pride. She will make a remarkable Israeli.

Speaking of remarkable Israelis, we went to see Wonder Woman last night. If somehow you are not aware, it stars Israeli actor Gal Gadot and has had the biggest opening of any movie staring an Israeli actor. Without giving anything away it involves WW I , Spies, Germans and an Israeli actress that kicks their asses. I was surprised at the overwhelming pride I found myself feeling while watching this movie. It was not only because this Israeli actor is now one of the biggest stars on the planet, it is because she is not afraid to be Israeli. Unlike Bar Refaeli and Inbar Lavi who chose not to serve in the Army, Gal Gadot served and is proud of it. She had no problem defending Israel in the Gaza war of 2014 and does not shy away from who she is or where she comes from. The pride that she exudes to the entire world should be a source of inspiration to us all.

Contrast that with a different story from the news here this week. The son of Dov Lipman, a former MK for the Yesh Atid party, was surrounded and attacked by an angry mob in Mea Sharim as he went to buy some sephrim. The reason for their anger was that young Shlomo Lipman is an Israeli solder serving in the Golani brigade and was in unifrom. They called him a nazi, and threw stones at him. He had to be spirited out in an ambulance although he was not physically hurt. This sort of thing happens all the time and is tolerated not only by the government and the police but also by the Hardei Rabbis and MKs who say nothing about these horrific acts.

I often wonder what would happen if they tried to pull this kind of thing in the USA or an European country. I  also wonder what would happen if this was not Haredim but Arabs or Bedouin. I think it would be handled differently. What would my own Modern Orthodox community say about the latter. They say nothing about the Haredim and even more so send millions of dollars to their ( sometimes worthy) organizations which in turn allows them to continue these actions with impunity. ( I will surely elaborate on this at a later date)

The problem that the Haredim have of course is that they see the State of Israel as a type of corruption of what they incorrectly assume Judaism is about. They only see the things that offend them but don't realize that it is because of the State that there are more people studying Torah than in any other time in history with a freedom that the Jews have not had in 2000 years. The State provides the only place that they can be safe to act the way they do.

They see only the bad. This brings me to this week's parsha ( torah reading) , Shlach. In it is the story of the spies that the people forced Moshe to deploy to provide reconnaissance on the land. The story does not end well. Most of the spies come back with frightening stories of large armies and giants. Only 2 , Caleb and Joshua come back with a report of what the land could be for the Jews. After this event g-d punishes the Jews to wander the desert for 40 years. He knows that no one with this defeatist attitude can do what needs to be done to liberate the land and the Jews are forced to wander until this generation of naysayers is no more. The Maharal says had this sin not occurred the Jews would not have had to fight for the land and that the sin of the golden calf would have been forgiven. This is a major event in the creation of our nation. A group of naysayers not understanding their role in the world causing pain and suffering for all.

This Shabbat we will be celebrating שבת ארץ הטובה ( the Shabbat of the good land). It is an attempt by some communities to take time this Shabbat to combat the sin of the spies and talk about all that is good about Israel.Unfortunately, this sin is playing itself out again. There are whole segments of society who only see the bad. The are on the losing side of history but the damage they can do is great. We can only hope they can see past the blind hatred and someday join the rest of us in שבת ארץ הטובה.