By Aaron Weinkrantz
Mark Wills - I Do (Cherish You)
Dear Into Israel Readers,
Location: Austin, Texas, SXSW
Pedi-cabber Aaron, my son, picked up two pretty girls during the recent Interactive/Film/Music festival, and headed for their destination. The following conversation ensued during the trip.
Aaron: “Where are y’all from?”
Girls: “Eh… Mexico.”
Aaron: “Don’t lie to me. I know you are not from Mexico.”
Girls: “Okay, you’re right, we’re from Israel!”
And then they chatted in Hebrew and English the rest of the trip.
What was that about, what happened? Does anyone want to call it out what it was, what it is?
Yes, we know Israel gets her share of negative press, regardless of this press being right or wrong, it is negative. Israelis are sensitive to this when they leave the borders of Eretz Yisrael.
But that is just the surface explanation, because Israel is now code for Jews. Heaven forbid the world should utter anything negative about Jews for that would make them appear unkind and anti-Semitic, but Israel, well, Israel is fair game.
In a few weeks I will be posting my peace plan, The Persistence of Peace. I have chosen a date that is special to me to publish, and it also coincides during the Lord’s Feast of Unleavened Bread. The plan is about Disassociation and Acknowledgement.
And this is what ultimately occurred during this trip. These three young Jewish people, our future, represent us as they traveled down the road together with the moonlit night guiding their path.
Since I have returned to the diaspora, friends and family have asked me what are the biggest changes coming back? They know better than to say coming home!
I love the United States, I love Texas, and I love Israel. There’s a saying that every man, adam, loves two women, the bad girl versus the good girl. The one his mother wants him to marry, and the one his mother does not want him to marry. It relates directly to a running theme in the Tanakh originating in Breishit with The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
We tend to focus on the good and the bad, and skip over and dissociate away from an important clue of what it is intended for us—the meaning of the Knowledge. In essence, every man loves three women, the good one his mother wants him to marry, the bad one his mother does not want him to marry, and his Intended love, the one his neshama desires to marry. Yet too many do not.
It was like I was on a slow moving train traveling at twilight during the first fortnight of being back in the States after I was gone for over a year with no break. I’m all settled now back in the groove of living in Austin, back to my own dissociation, but I can still recall with clarity what I was thinking and feeling those first few weeks.
A close American friend in Jerusalem has this saying, “Israelites are People of the Book, and Americans are People of the Checkbook!” There is without question a sense of wealth when you arrive in the United States; there is this perception that the priority is towards money. And it is not that there are no poor amongst us in the United States, or the very rich in Israel, it is about the priority and Intention.
Wanting to have money is a Universal theme; we need it to live. The US personifies kind and benevolent people, yet somewhere a shift occurred that to be successful in life meant having money, and preferably lots of it. The poor are viewed as not living up to their potential, and that translates to money and that is equated with the value of a person.
In Israel many of the Hasidim don’t work, and devote themselves to the studying of the Torah, and they live off a stipend from the government. Some of the fortunate ones may have a small teaching job, but most barely make ends meet. The Ministry of Finance has run the numbers, and knows this can’t go on or the country will go broke.
Yet Israeli secularists do not look down upon them as if they are not living up to their potential. Actually just the opposite view is taken as the secularists lament why should they pay for someone to live up to their potential while the rest have to go to work! One’s potential in Israel is not tied to money. Money is money, and value is value. They are separate.
I was not at home when the news came about the bus bombing in Jerusalem, and I went out to my car and sat there. I felt deep sadness within me, and anger outside. I was distraught towards my self for being here, and I apologized to YHVH. I wanted to scream, and I did.
All roads lead in and all roads lead out. The area from the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, CBS, and extending down Yaffo Street to the Shuk symbolizes the crossroads of the Jewish People. Maybe at one time it was Egypt, or Babylon, or even New York City, but no longer. It is here, and it is forever here it will remain.
Often, whenever I had to transfer from either another bus in town or coming into Jerusalem from an out of town bus, I transferred at CBS. I would choose between the #13 or the #74 which both stopped one block from my apartment. I liked the #13 because it was a few steps closer and less crowded, but if I saw the #74 turn the bend onto Yaffo St., I ran for it. On Shabbat day I would walk down to my friend Yonit’s home on Kaspi St. These walks through Baka are some of my most beautiful memories. The air was clean and crisp, and the streets were clear with mostly pedestrians such as myself out for a leisurely Sabbath stroll. Yonit and I would sit on her balcony overlooking HaShalom Forest and talk about all the things one should discuss on Shabbat, and then fully satiated from her cooking she would walk me to the #74 stop after darkness came and the buses had started running again post Havdalah. Many times it was cold and I would plead with her to go on home, but she always waited to see that I was on the bus safe and sound, and we wished each other a Shavua Tov. I would sit in a front seat near the driver, and would wave good-bye to her. Hence, I took the #74 all the time, and it was #74 the terrorists bombed.
The entire infrastructure of the United States is run on Oil. From the method of transportation, mainly cars, that people take to get to work, to the distribution of goods that people rely on, to the deployment of our Troops that protect and defend us, are all dependent upon Oil. If restricted, our system would go haywire, and wreck untold havoc.
With a few exceptions, the United States has not taken the steps to implement a mass transportation system for its citizens. This has left us vulnerable, although most do not want to acknowledge it. Yes, we admit we need to decrease our dependency on oil, but we definitely don’t Acknowledge our vulnerability.
If you think this is not possible, then think back to the 1979 oil crisis, and if you are not old enough to know or remember it, review it. Multiply it by ten and then you’ll get an idea. If you don’t think this is possible then reflect how warning bells had been sounded prior to the economic collapse that there were massive dangers in the secondary mortgage market, but no one wanted to step up to the plate and Acknowledge it. There was too much money in it.
Now granted, Israel is incredibly smaller in geographical size to the United States, but one of the things that began from her statehood was the requirement to be as self-sustaining as possible. This wasn’t just for altruistic reasons; they had to be.
Israel continually receives substantial monetary allocations from the United States. Whether this two-way street is worth the US’s ROI is a matter of opinion. I only pray that we never have to find out for either side. It’s like insurance; you pay and you pay, but you hope you never have to file a claim.
The Middle East, and the World at Large is in turmoil. From now on, we’ve entered the homestretch and are headed to the finish. Which ones of us will make it across the line, and which of us will not? I have no idea when this will occur, but it will be sooner than later, nor individually who that will be, but the successful ones will be the ones who are the most prepared. It will be the ones least Disassociated and most Associated to Elohim, and the Acknowledgement of the One who at the end of the day rules the World.
Shalom,
Barbara
