Heat is on in the Holy Land after diplomatic debacle

The heat continues here…weather-wise as well as politically...and the Israeli Army has sealed off the West Bank for the duration of the Jewish holidays. I turn to Professor Shlomo Einstein for an interpretation. From the breaking of a hospitality gift under Bibi's elbow to the naming of a forest after Joe Biden's late mum, the diplomatic signals have been so mixed as to yield a fiasco.

The professor pondered and penned this:

What the media has not noted here/hear in the Holy Land of God's Chosen is that the shaming of a person in public...an ordinary person who is struggling to survive or even the VP of the USA... is one of Judaism's major sins...a "No..No" for both God and man.

The warmth of my greetings remain as I continue to experience that I live among Sabbath misusers, people abusers...a group of ritual wretcheds.
SO…I will share a story I was told this week…a Hassidic tale…a tale by which to greet The Shabbat queen.

One day, after much internal weighing, saying, struggling... one of the Hassidic Rabbis shared with his followers that one might not have to experience…carry out the Sabbath on Shabbat. He was a learned, honest teacher.

And so…they all met one day during the week…dressed in the Sabbath clothes which one wears when one goes to God’s abode to pray…as one would in the secular world wear finery when invited to the Queen and/or King of England. Palaces are not just architectural outcomes…and surely not of one’s God.

And the prayers of the Sabbath were prayed and the special foods of the Sabbath were eaten…notwithstanding…or perhaps because of one’s poor economic condition…and songs and melodies of the Sabbath were voiced…and the peace and contentment of being apart from the daily struggles of survival were distanced…for the Sabbath moment…a long moment of a day…and the Sabbath was ended with the special prayers alive from so long ago…the special candle lit…the wine blessed…the aromatic spices inhaled and one returned to ‘the days of regularity’…to the problems and realities of survival…until…
until…

The Rabbi was not simply able to ‘let go’ of what he and his followers had done. And so he went to another Hassid…one who could/would judge…described what he and his followers had done…not WHY…( there are and no doubt always will be WHYs) but rather WHAT.

And this learned man…having experienced so many Sabbath experiences did not judge…did not criticize…did not approve or disapprove. Rather he suggested that if indeed one experienced the Shabbat in its many dimensions and carried out the essence of this unique gift to mankind that calendar and chronology were not critical. Shabbat, after all, is not an institutionalized ritual to be documented…She is a gift to be experienced and celebrated in the best way that each of us can.

This week science, the secular DNA testing, which does not have to rest on the Sabbath, and the BBC…a 7/24 human creation… increased the Jewish People, who may want to know and to care, by approximately 80,000 Zimbabwen and South African Lemba; a tribe whose members abstain from eating pork, wear yarmulke-like skull caps, conduct ritual animal slaughter, has an oral tradition that links them to the ancient Jews, circumcise their male children, which is not a common practice in Zimbabwe, and even put a Star of David on their gravestones.

Interestingly enough the scientists and the media noted nothing about a Lemba Shabbat.

--guest post from Shlomo, who is not from the eponymous Ramat Shlomo!

Paving Paradise Can be Hell in Jerusalem

Jerusalem's black-hatted ultra-Orthodox are nothing if not forceful in their campaign to make the whole city -- Jews, Christians, Muslims and unaffiliateds-- live by their religious rules, especially the Shabbat lockdown. The latest tussle is over the mayor's decision to open a downtown parking lot on Saturday, a day when the Old City draws crowds of visitors.
Thousands of the pugnacious pious rioted-- rampaging apparently not counting as a prohibited activity. At least six police officers were injured before the violence was quelled with the help of water cannons. The demonstrators pelted police with stones and bottles and torched dumpsters. A small group of secular counter-demonstrator was met with screams of "Those who defile shall be put to death."
The parking lot-- which was operated free of charge and by non-Jews (aka a Shabbas goy) in a bid to avoid offending religious sensibilities-- closed after just a few hours.
Mayor Nir Barakat bravely vowed to keep the parking lot open on Saturdays. We'll see. In the meantime, let's all hum a few bars of that old Joni Mitchell song, you know, the one that goes: "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."

Travails of a legless man filmed in fog of war

Sometimes it seems like there must be a parallel universe out there beyond the haze of white phosphorus and the fog of war. This message arrived today from a respected academic friend in West Jerusalem. It offers a window into his careening world view. There's no way of checking the veracity of this incident while IDF soldiers are forbidden to speak on the record to the press, but Dr Shlomo offers a guest blog about an exceptional battleground incident he says was filmed last week inside the Gaza Strip.(Did anyone see this on Israeli television? Is it a documentary or a fantasy/agitprop? Help us out here! ) After the sabbath, I hope he will be willing to provide a link to the documentary film he cites. As the IDF prepares its case against war crimes charges, it's interesting to contemplate these remarkable actions by Israeli troops:

A week ago, Shabbat and war were intertwined, ...and now...the war of devastating sounds and the destruction of people and places has given way to a battle of images...and ordinary people are still suffering...on both sides.

A French journalist was in Gaza before and during the war and while the war raged she created a documentary film...ordinary people and 'freedom fighters"...as the former attempted to protect life, limb, psyche and soul within an enclosed area from which there was no retreat...no salvation...from the so-called 'enemy Zionists' nor from the modern Salach din committed to spreading their faith through terror.
And in this film a scene which has been with me since Wed. night...a young Palestinian man...both legs amputated...describing over and over...that the defenders of the Hamas "faith" had come to his home ..and machine-gunned his legs...six bullets...both legs...were about to shoot and kill him when ... the Israelis appeared...an Israeli soldier picked up a board...The Gazan was sure the soldier was going to kill him... knock him dead...the soldier created a splint ...stopped the bleeding...no description of who did the amputating...nor where...questions...words...images.
And he kept on saying in Arabic till his voice cracked and the tears overcame him and he hid his face with his hands..."The Palestinians were going to kill me...the Israelis saved my life"...on and on...a close up of his wife...sitting near by.... hiding her face...crying...his two children looking bewildered...at the camera...at the French journalist...and hours after this documentary film---IMAGES and SOUNDS...was shown on Israeli TV Hamas returned and tortured him...took him away...where to?...no words to explain...and last night's news...more words...altho' the Israeli army had left Gaza, soldiers and doctors were able to secret him out of Gaza into Israel...to treat him...a Ludlum-like tale...the border check points are only opening today...did the Israelis use the tunnels created by Hamas to smuggle weapons and kidnap Israeli soldiers and to transport terror...as well as to smuggle drugs. His family was not "saved". Are they safe? What does safe mean during these promised times of "change"?

A narrative.of a single human being...not a THEM...within worlds of CHAOS...the 5 letters of chaos unable to express its smell...its sound...its touch...its sites/sights...its volume...its overbearing colors...
Chaos and uncertainty in Gaza...and in Israel...as promises are made by Saudia and Qatar to rebuild the destroyed. To rebuild what? An Abu Dubai-like paradise in lieu of the refugee camps of the most density populated place-enclosure in the world... "home" for a non-nation of human beings?

And the trucks filled with humanitarian efforts and products ar emptied by Hamas in Hamasland before they reach a population in need...so many, many needs. A new definition for "populations-at-risk"...not AT... but within...under...encased by...a new challenge for the UN as it defines what it avoids...images which "impotize"...words...phrases...accusations...reasons announced and renounced in a new declared world of expectations for change...CHANGES...CHANGES...

Hours after a new president is sworn in in the USA a second swearing in...in order to personally note where faithfully is to be stated...at the beginning...at the end...is it a process...an outcome...just a word...a behavior...a lifestyle...so many WORDS...so many options.
And here in Israeli the war of havoc gives way to the battles of political faiths. The elections are less than 3 weeks away. The three weeks of temporary 'unitedness' gives way to promises of deeds...which are not likely to be met...and to playing on people's fears. Voting for Kadima and Labor will bring one into the range of missiles and rockets...voting for Likud will bring protection...and if organized crime ran in the elections they would also bring 'protection'


A week of words...of promises...of so many images... I wish you a Sabbath of rest to experience the joys that DO exist within all of us as well as around us...to share BEING with others...to make the opportunities to do something you have not done before...and in this process to create an image that will fill your soul and be with you whenever you call upon it....a Shabbat of and for the soul and for less violating of others...who ever they are.

Shabbat shalom.

Shlomo