Today marks the 613th day of my
older son Ze’ev’s reserve-duty service as an army kashrut mashgiach
since the October 7th War broke out. I know that number sounds like
I made it up, but I didn’t. Just saying. Some people have been in uniform for
997 days. Others have been in uniform for hundreds. One of those is my
son-in-law.
A few months ago,
my daughter Tzippora and her husband Shaked were making plans for summer
vacation. Shaked, who learned in yeshiva and passed a year of semicha
tests, is a popular Tanach teacher in a secular school in Kiryat Gat. As an
idealistic baal teshuva from the Iranian community of Ashkelon,
becoming a role model to kids from a background similar to his own was always
his dream, and now he is living that dream. He is already a homeroom teacher in
charge of the Tanach department in his large high school, and the school is
starting to push him to take an interest in being a school principal, but he
wants to keep teaching.
Over the past three years, he has been
juggling teaching with hundreds of days of intense army service, mostly in
Gaza. At age 34, he is no longer in the very front lines like he was 10 years
ago as an elite Givati infantry reservist participating in four Gaza
post-Disengagement wars, but he is still very much involved in active combat
service.
But now he has finally
had a number of months of quiet to concentrate on his teaching (and to allow
his family to recuperate). A few months ago, my daughter and son-in-law decided
that at the end of June, when Shaked’s two months of vacation began, he would
go back to yeshiva for two months of intensive learning, something my daughter
knew that Shaked was intensely interested in.
But then came the notice
that Shaked was being called up again, for the sixth time, this time for 45
days, precisely on the first day of that vacation. He has been informed that,
as a 34-year-old, he will be placed on the Lebanese border, but inside Israel
rather than at Beaufort Castle with the younger soldiers. So, there is less
chance that he will come into direct contact with nasty types. But of course,
this is still a source of concern and uncertainty for the family: my daughter
and their three young sons. Tomorrow I will be going there to spend the night.
The town shul knows me very well.
Shaked is a
creature of duty, and his wife is a devoted reservist’s wife. He does what he
believes is expected of him, works very hard, and does not complain. He is Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow’s “village smithy,” with a gentle sense of humor. I learn
from him every day and thank G-d that I am so blessed.
Will the Real Trump Please Stand Up.
After 80 years of
Israeli statehood, the skin of the average Israel is pretty thick, and that of
the Torah-true is elephantine in its thickness. We are cautious about the good
and philosophical about the bad.
That is why we are
still sane after the rollercoaster ride we have been on over the past month.
Two men seem to have Trump’s ear: J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio. The first is serpentine
and isolationist. The second is warm, passionate, and loving, almost a
non-Jewish David Friedman,* lehavdil. If he’s not the head of American Friends
of Beit El Yeshiva, he should be.
We’re still not
sure what has just occurred, but it looks as though Trump listened to Vance
long enough to make a deal with Iran that would ultimately undo all the good
that has been achieved in Israel’s conflict over the past three years. It is a
deal that would throw Israel and Lebanon under the bus, giving preference to
Iran, Hezbollah, Turkey, Pakistan, and other such distinguished parties. And it
was accompanied by unbridled attacks on our prime minister. Most of us in
Israel found this disturbing – the Kaplan protesters were thrilled (bad press
for Bibi!) – but since we have experienced so many disturbing developments over
the past 30 years, we were able to relate philosophically to it almost at once.
Parashat Balak was approaching, and people in my town were going about
quoting Chapter 13 of Maharal’s Netzach Yisrael, which develops Bamidbar
23:9: “It is a nation dwelling alone,” about the existential aloneness of the
Jewish people on the world stage. They were also quoting Rabbi Yaakov Moshe
Charlap in Ma’ayanei HaYeshua, chapters 29-30, who taught that the
Mashiach cannot come as long as Israel has even one friend among the nations.
Then, overnight,
the U.S. and Iran began attacking each other once more, and now there is an Israel-Lebanon
deal, pushed by Marco Rubio, which pushed Iran aside and gave Israel backing
once more to remain in Lebanon and finish the job with Hezbollah – as though
nothing had occurred.
So is everything okay
now? I think the point is that it is not okay now. Because we still have to
remember the Maharal and Rav Charlap. What they wrote is the ultimate truth.
When things are quiet, when things are good, we tend to forget what they
said.
The Glass Roof
The edifice over Me’arat
Hamachpela, the graves of the Jewish patriarchs, was built by Herod as a
rectangle, a miniature version of the Temple Mount. It was built as an enormous
open plaza, with no roof and Herodian walls reminiscent of the Kotel around the
four sides. After the Muslims conquered the Land of Israel from the Christian
Byzantines in the seventh century, they allowed the Jews to build two roofed
synagogues within the walls under the open sky. The synagogues were constructed
in 631, and lasted until 1100, when the Crusaders destroyed them.
So, some of Me’arat
Hamachpela is roofed, specifically the areas built as churches and
mosques by the various Muslim dynasties. And some of it remains an open plaza
without any roof. When my wife and I arrived in Kiryat Arba in 1984, the
Yitzchak hall was the largest enclosed prayer space in the edifice, and that is
where we Jews davened on Shabbos. It is covered by two roofs, a Moslem roof,
with an angular, European Crusader roof above it.
Starting in 1994, following
the Goldstein Purim episode,** the Yitzchak hall was off-limits to Jews 355
days a year. Therefore, during the past 36 years, the largest prayer space for
Jews, most of the year, was the “chatzer” or courtyard, standing to the
left of the Yitzchak Hall, directly between the Avraham Hall and the Yaakov
Hall. That is where the two shuls were between 631 and 1100, until they were
destroyed.
The courtyard is a large, attractive area, and
it can serve hundreds of daveners. Friday nights, there is a Carlebach minyan,
where you can have hundreds of young people dancing and singing. That
experience is a famous crowd pleaser, and for dozens of years, I would
regularly take my guests there.
The only problem
with the courtyard is that it has no roof. During the winter, there is cold
rain, and during the summer, there is the hot sun and dust. In 1994, when the
Jews first began to daven there, the army built a large tent over most of the
courtyard, which offers passable protection from rain, wind, and cold. But it
does not cover the entire area. Therefore, when heavy rain falls, the floor,
with thick walls on all four sides, can accumulate inches of water – not very
pleasant for a visitor making his first trip to Hebron.
Twenty-five years
ago, as one of the Hebrew-to-English translators in Kiryat Arba-Hebron, I was
hired to translate the proposal of the Jewish Community of Hebron to build a sealed
glass roof over the center courtyard, stretching from end to end, with a
sophisticated air-conditioning and lighting system. The proposal was being
rendered in English because it was going to be presented internationally to the
Arab Wakf, the Muslim religious council, which somehow, due to the “efforts” of
Moshe Dayan after the Six-Day War, was given control of the entire edifice and
the right to make such decisions.
Well, obviously,
the Moslem Wakf rejected the proposal, even though it would only enhance the
edifice and was going to be entirely paid for by the “Yahud.” In fact,
the Jewish community of Hebron knew full well that the Wakf would reject the
proposal but reasoned, quite correctly, that if they did not begin by at least asking,
it would never happen.
Twenty-five years
passed, and I had forgotten about that proposal, and now the glass roof and the
air conditioning and lighting systems are being installed. After the changes
made by the present government over the past four years, the Arabs are no long
in charge!
The project
involves an enormous amount of work and causes us, the Jews who daven and learn
daily inside the Me’ara, a great deal of inconvenience. The entire project is
supposed to take 60 days. But if, in the end, the Tomb of the Patriarchs
becomes a more pleasant place to pray, then the entire project will have been
worth it.
The 15th of Tamuz
Today, 15 Tamuz,
marks two yahrzeits that are significant for me. It is the yahrzeit
of the Ohr HaChaim, Rabbi Chaim Ben Attar, the great Sephardic Torah
commentator who came to Jerusalem. It is also the yahrzeit of my father,
Professor Arnold Blumberg, Avraham ben Aryeh Leib.
This past Shabbat,
the Me’ara was open, and I was able to attend my regular vatikin Daf Yomi
minyan there. Because of my father’s approaching yahrzeit, I asked the
gabbai, Noam Federman, to give me an aliya and make me a Kel Malei Rachamim
for my father, and he gave me Shevi’i. After I said my bracha, I
recited kaddish, and Noam sang the Kel Malei Rachamim for Avraham ben
Aryeh Leib.
Ten seconds later,
Noam the gabbai called out “Ya’amod! Avraham ben Aryeh Leib,
lamaftir!” and I almost fainted. Noam had called up for maftir someone
with the same exact name as my father, 10 seconds after I finished my Keil
Malei Rachamim! But the person being called up was just Avraham
Gottlieb, our 14-year-old ba’al koreh; I had forgotten that his
name was Avraham. And his father is Aryeh Gottlieb, who brought his family
to live in one of the new Jewish Hebron neighborhoods that are popping up like
mushrooms.
Nothing
extraordinary – just an odd coincidence that made me think for a moment
about Mashiach and Techiyat Hameitim. May Mashiach
come soon in our day!
* Former American ambassador to Israel,
appointed by Trump in his first term.
**On Purim, 1994, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, an
American-born physician and resident of Kiryat Arba, entered the Me’arat
Hamachpeila and opened fire on Muslim worshippers, killing 29.
