Jewish Pride and the deep and abiding conviction in the justice of our cause demand, in my opinion, that the exile from Gush Katif (should it come to that) be greeted with the utmost dignity. The exiles should depart with their heads held high. Each town should gather in its center. The Sifre Torah should be taken from the Aron Kodesh. Ashes should be placed upon each Sefer and upon the heads of every man, woman and child. They should tear Kri'ah (as we all will) and recite Tehillim and swear 'Im Eshkahekh). They should walk, with heads high, out of the Yishuv, led by their Sifre Torah, singing Ani Ma'amin. If they have a Bet Almin, they should carry their dead out at the side of the Sifre Torah. Somewhere it should say, 'Qiyymu eleh, mah she-katuv be-Eyleh.'
At Kissufim junction, tens of thousands should line the road on both sides to meet them and say 'HaMaqom Yenahem etkhem be-tokh she'ar Avele Tziyyon ve-Yerushalayim.'
I have no doubt that on Sheinkin, in North Tel Aviv and elsewhere there will be Hitnatqut parties (not unlike the way in which the Bundists had Kol Nidre Balls.) I have no doubt that the media will ridicule the exiles and gripe about how much money they're making on this deal.
However, for ourselves and for the Jews who still care about why we came back here in the first place, it is important to show that they will not break us. They will not humiliate us. The Torah teaches us both how to win and how to lose, and how to keep hoping for our ultimate vindication.
במהרה בימינו אמן
12 comments:
I disagree with some of what Rav Rosen said. There should be a fight to the finish and not a total surrender.
Also, people got so worked up about the first half of his article they missed the point of his second half - he ALSO called for a disengagement from the left, a la Rav Meidan. This is significant. It hsows that even the "moderate" religious zionists have come to understand that the state has crossed the red lines. Even RAL has said there are red lines (he just won't elabortae on what they are). The religious mechinot k'dam zvaiyot are finished. The hesder yeshivot are finished. We should dismantle them now on our own before the state forces us to. We should fight against forced impressment into the army and let the "left" try and defend the country for a generation and see how Asi Dayan and Avib Gefen's children do as soldiers.
another suggestion is to copy the Kishan from the Turkish Tabu for Kfar Darom and send out a million copies to each and every household in Israel
My own thought was a bit less religious but a bit more political. I thought they should all march out and camp outside of Chavat haShikmin - Sharon's royal estate.
As to the first comment here - just one word: "higzamta"
You call for a fight to the finish and then a surrender. The blogger calls for a dignified retreat to be followed by renewed battle. I'll take the latter.
I did not call for a surrender. Taking "unilateral" steps to "disengege" from secular zionism (as suggested by no other Rabbi Rosen himself) is not a surrender. It is part of the battle against the hellenist forces and is needed to save Judaism
in case you missed this:
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART/969/004.html
"We should fight against forced impressment into the army and let the "left" try and defend the country for a generation and see how Asi Dayan and Avib Gefen's children do as soldiers."
I find the isolationist tendencies in the RZ community quite disturbing. How long did it take us to appreciate and take advantage of what the secular left built - perhaps a century? And now we should not be inducted into the army anymore??? I thought that MO believes in integration, not isolation. Sure, some may have a (very big) beef with the majority's choice of a course of action (and yes I do believe the majority of the country does support the disengagement, but in any case it is a course of action taken by the legally constituted government) - but does that mean we should abandon our ideals? I find ideas such as Medan's - that the chareidim our our natural allies - to be opportunistic, and betray the ideals that we used to profess.
I have been thinking a lot about this suggestion, which I was very moved by when I first read it. But unfortunately, it won't work. If the government declares that we are abandoning a portion of the land, and all the inhabitants pack up and leave without a fight, then the government will know that it can do so again. Sure, the 30 seconds of video of the sad procession will cause tears to be shed, but it's nothing like the impact of days or weeks of videa of soliers dragging little girls out of their homes. It's unfortunate, because it's not dignified and it's not pretty, but we need to have the army, the government, and the citizens of Israel traumatized enough not to consider doing this again. And we know they will, because Olmert already floated the baloon of additional withdrawals, by rejecting Sharon's earlier claim that exiting Gaza will strengthen our hold on the rest of Yehuda and Shomron.
I agree with Ben here. See what Chagai Segal had to say about all of these suggestions for "mourning" rituals. http://www.makorrishon.net/article.php?id=4295
Fact is that Segal is correct. History likes a good fight - not those who who give up. What Segal doesn't mention is that two months after the Yamit "mourning ceremonies", Sharon started the Lebanon War and no one ever gave two thoughts to the Yamit destruction again. Whenever it came up in way that would affect Sharons' political career he would deflect it with an apology. see http://www.a7.org/article.php3?id=4727
Here's a prediction - the settlers who left willingly to the "caravillot" in Nitzan will still be there years from now - irrespective of Sharon's promise to build them homes by the sea (see http://www.makorrishon.net/article.php?id=4290 the piece on Ronit Edri), while those who fight to the last second and go and live in tents will get much more when the politicians realize it's giving them political headaches.
I am MO and I have ideals - but I challenge you to find one widely accepted MO leader or thinker that will place the values of integration, democracy and/or secular studies above Torah values. You won't find any. The fact is that even Modern Orthodoxy has to respond to the call of מי לה' אלי perhaps even more so than the charedim.
Re: Partying on Shenkein... and if the Hitnadkut had been cancelled, and those of us in Tel Aviv who are forced to protect your settlelements would have been condemned to continued military service over the Green line against our deepest values, wouldn't the settlers have partied?
I have posted a response to your comment. You're welcome to contact me by e-mail if you like.
woolfj@gmail.com
This will probably not make me many friends here, but here's my two cents. If the settlers really want to live in ERETZ YISRAEL on the soil upon which our forefathers walked, as opposed, to living on an ISRAELI SETTLEMENT in Gaza. Then there must be "Hitnatkut" from secular Zionism, which has, contrary to popular belief, attached itself to religious Zionism like a parasitic barnacle. First and formost, the removal of the Israeli Flag which all gedolim in all generations, including Reb Moshe Feinstein ZT"L, referred to as the "The flag of the wicked" (and worse). The Symbol of mechalilei Shabbos, ochlei nevalos and treifos, people that went to great lengths to tear the faithful away from the practices of their ancestors, both before and after the Holocaust, should not fly above any city that considers itself a "religious" city or settlement. Step two, negotiations should have begun long ago with the Palestinian Administration to remain in Gush Katif being that A)It was not built on the ruins of any Arab village and was technically not Stolen "Arab" land, being there was nothing there before. B)If my intent is to sincerely live in biblical Israel, it is merely semantics what the country is called, be it Judea, Zion, Israel, Canaan, or Palestine. C)It could have been a great selling point to the Palestinians, not only because of the of the jobs and economic incentive maintaining such a settlement would entail, but also because of the propaganda value to the Palestinians to maintain (and provide security to) a "Jewish" village, not a Zionist village, which lives and cooperates peaceably with their Arab neighbors. I do not think the Arabs are any less bloodthirsty than you do, but if the intent is too live in ERETZ YIsrael, as opposed to having bragging rights about the flying the southernmost Israeli flag in the Gaza strip, that's the path I would have taken. It would also exempt the residents (as Palestinian citizens) from serving in the Army of a foreign country like Israel. I am not Naturei Karta, but Sharon's ideas of secular Zionism are pushing me in that direction.
I appreciate your therapeutic need to vent. I will only note that your suggestions display total ignorance of the Muslim attitude toward Jews and their residence here under any circumstances.
I do not support the anti-Jewish side of secular Zionism. I also respect the opinions of Gedolim who differ. However, as a discipl of the Rov zt'l, I see no problem in continuing to fight for the soul of the Zionist enterprise.
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