Friends of Itamar

Leah’s Blog – Parashat Chukat 2023

Chukat – June 2023

Old things are stored in the boidem; not stuff you throw away or give away but stuff you keep close to you but far from the eye to see. Walking downstairs, I see Moshe’s back bent deep in the boidem, in search of something in the last possible cranny of space. Shrugging perplexed at first I kind of knew what he would be taking out. Backing out of there he held his old helmet and army vest. Going back in time I heard myself saying “This is the land of Efrayim. We’re here and we feel alone.” To the day – the Shabo massacre yartzeit HYD that had Moshe in this vest, fighting for his life as shots went to and from the home where Yosef Twito HYD and Rachel Shabo and her three children were murdered as she prepared challah bread for Shabbat. Surreal, in the backdrop I can hear the first pieces of news coming in today, twenty one years later about a shooting nearby that left four people dead and many injured. Life literally had us in a crawl space during the time of the Shabo atrocity. In the heat of that summer we lost more friends than I can count on two hands to terror. June is a month riddled with memorials. And now… now the past stares us in the face, awakening.

In the Oslo days there was a selective narrative that went like this- “Sacrifices for Peace”, yes that is what they called terror victims then. The forerunners of the “Peace plan” had us walking the plank; they made it seem that WE were the obstacles to peace. If those settlers just didn’t live there it would be a new Middle East.  We would wipe houmous on pita in Damascus and go sail boating in Lebanon. It was never about the monster created, the Palestinian Authority that from its inception to this very day paid for the slaying of innocent men women and children and handed out candy wherever it happened, about the blatant Jew hatred and call for violence in its Educational curriculum. Before we developed the street sense to know better; in those days there was no platform for conservative media in this country either. They thought that if you give them guns and territory it would bring peace, satisfy the savages. Walking down memory lane has me understanding Parshat Chukat on a deeper and higher level. The foregoing “Peace Process” Israel was pushed into was no less than a means to weaken Israel and make her grovel to world powers as they did not and do not accept the fruition of prophecy unraveling. Condemning Jewish building in the heart of its country is pure antisemitism clearly. Building up choke points where terror is carried out and achieves results on a daily basis is all pre meditated and dictated to us.

We are not asking “what do we drink!”, “what do we eat!”. We are not wandering in the wilderness anymore- we are home in our Land- against the odds, against the ideology of replacement theology. We do not grumble. But we are being bitten by the venomous snake, the serpent of Eden. The fiery snake comes to bite us and we stare at it as a solvent. Hashem’s protection is surely felt here as we live in a miracle yet he wants us to learn from our mistakes. Staring at Moshe’s helmet has me thinking that we ALL must re- evaluate. Israel has no choice. !  עם לבדד ישכון-  Israel must face her demons in order to be cured of them. Israel inevitably will have to go it alone. No one is calling victims of terror peace sacrifices any more. The past comes to put us in the perspective of what has happened and what needs to be fixed NOW. It is staring us in the face.

Friends, empower us. We need that now. You know what is right! Kingship is rising! As old ideas crumble and the evil force tries to overcome, Israel illuminates. Her light must shine out this darkness.

Shabbat shalom! Leah