Di nakht: darkness or toward dawn

Tuesday Mar 18, 2008

The countdown "Israel: + 60 years" has shown some defects from the very beginning of the Jewish year 5768 and even before. Firstly, it is a "shemittah = remittance" year for the land and this is a silent question with numerous answers and resolutions. It is not possible to confirm that the adamah is having some rest in Eretz Israel with all these qassams, tanks, then killings. Maps vary and will continue to change quite many years. There are points of confusion showing that legality and legacy are weakening. Young girls would not respect the civilian rules and accept the Rabbinical decisions instead. This constitutes a hapax - something totally new for the Zionist movement that always recognized the decisional ruling of the secular law applicable to all Jews.

At the long-prepared wake of the Shishim - the Sixtieth anniversary of the State of Israel that was launched with the UN partition into two States, it is totally baffling that Germany is the first official visitor as foreign country to come at the eve of the Feast of Purim. This is stunning, unreal, kitsch and weird. Either we have no soul and conscience, or, on the contrary, some anniversaries allow mediatic events can be covered by some unuttered forgiveness that is beyond any kind of understanding, safe some actions of the Lamed-Vavnikes, the 36 righteous that keeps the world alive. Who would have thought of a German Kaenzlerin, chancellor, in a modern State of Israel? And she originally comes from East Germany, with a cultural background that , via the former Soviet Union and the Russian civilization, roots her closer to the basements of the State of the Jews.

Judaism has a very special blessing: "Blessed are You, Lord of the Universe / shehecheyanu (Who sustains us in Life) vekimanu (and revives us) vehigiyanu lezman hazeh (and gives us to reach to this time).We may not be able to understand the value of what seems ordinary.

It has been a great moment of my life that my mother who had survived the Shoah specifically decided that I should perfectly speak German. At the present, it is special She had been vehemently criticized for having taken such a decision. She would speak German in case of emergency. She answered that I belonged to the generation that will have the task to reconnect and pardon. Thus, I spent months in the Austrian mountains close to Salzburg. The family, the villagers were "normal evident" Hitler supporters. Erasing the Nazis? They were simple guys and I went to school there, later in Germany (Limburg). Today, Israel has welcomed a lot of German boys and girls, students. Many married here, mainly to Orientals (Mizrachim), which is definitely easier.

The above blessing insists on a regular, cyclic, on the move development and renewal of life. This is what "zikkaron - memorial" also means. If Angela Merkel only lands in Israel because it is a good and juicy economic period when the world is in deep turmoil, this would be useless or just some toasts before further sinking.

Then, it may be puzzling that Elie(zer) Wiesel refuses at the last minute and right out of the blue, to hold a torch for the Sixtieth? He went through "Di nakht - the Night". The reaction that condemns him for personal money profits, utilizing the Holocaust as a self promotion... Nu so what? Jews, as Christians, are none without compassion and loving-kindness. In the "Night", E. Wiesel looks, with the inmates of the camp, at the gallows and the hanging body. A man says: "Where is God?" Wiesel whispers: "There, he is hanging at the gallows".

Elie Wiesel has never become the man he should have been as a member of the Yiddishkayt. His Jewishness and normal route sank during the Shoah. Today, he often would say this and that, partly dreaming, partly surviving. The intriguing part is that only Israelis are entitled to yell at him or be judgmental. Any soul - that solely passes by this Land of Canaan today is place beyond any capacity to measure the value of life. It is far beyond mean survival concerns and still it is interwoven with horrible fears.

From growing flowers, trees, roads, pets, computers to human bones, all of them ache or ached or will go through terrible pains. We are simply at the dawn of some new humanity.

You can join Av a. ont Facebook: Av Aleksandr - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1126861596

Chag Purim sameach