Whence the Sakanah? (Danger)

בעה''י

[First Published June 6, 2002]

As it happens, Shaul Goldstein, the mayor of the Gush Etzion, sits next to me in shul. He is a very approachable person, and extremely hard working. He is continually greeting solidarity missions from America and does a superlative job representing the Gush Etzion. Occasionally, he invites me to tag along to offer my observations as a new American oleh.

Almost inevitably, I am approached after my comments by people expressing incredulity at our decision to come on aliyah - not just coming at this time, but davka (specifically) to this place. “How,” I am asked, “do you drive on the Tunnels Road every day?” “How do you deal with security?” “Your ideals are commendable, but how can you justify raising your children in a makom sakanah?”

After a few of these encounters, I have discovered the source of these concerned and anxious queries. It seems that, in order to introduce a wide-bore I.V. into your wallet, the spin doctors that drag these solidarity missions around the country weave a picture of daily life in Israel that is more befitting of 1943 Stalingrad than modern-day Jerusalem.

First, these whirlwind tours are designed to be so short, and the schedules so overbooked, that all the participants are tired, harried, disoriented and eminently suggestible. You are dragged from hospital to hospital, visiting victims of terror attacks, listening to their heart-wrenching personal stories, forced to re-live the terror with palpable immediacy.

Before you can recover from that emotional bloodletting, it’s off to the widows and orphans. Like a seedy voyeur, you sit in their cramped living rooms and are encouraged to witness their tears. Go ahead, hold her hand, tell her that ‘we stand with you.’ What a nechamah (comfort)! Give her a quick hug, and then it’s back on the comfy air-conditioned bus to important meetings with high-level politicians.

Bad news...the cabinet-level minister you were promised had to cancel for pressing reasons of State. The good news is that a sub-undersecretary of the prestigious Ministry of Potholes has stepped in on short notice (so you should be grateful.) He solemnly tells you that Israel is in the struggle of her life, and without your generous financial support, Israel could...face the unspeakable. Oops! Sorry to cut you short, but we’re late late late and we can’t miss the gift shop and then its back to the airport for the trip home...

What a spectacle! Not that any of this is new, mind you. After Ben-Gurion came to grips with his shattered expectations of large scale North American aliyah, he decided that if he couldn’t have the chickens, he’d take the eggs. But after the checks are written and the purses are snapped, what lingers on the palette is an aftertaste of Israeli life so utterly skewed, so totally unbalanced, that it reinforces all the poisonous justifications for remaining in exile, and trust me, those justifications don’t need any reinforcing.

Notwithstanding my lampooning, solidarity missions are very important, and those who are motivated to participate are to be commended. Ken Yirbu (May they multiply). Just understand that over the course of a few well choreographed days, it is impossible to pick up the tempo and timbre of daily life here. The internal, organic rhythm of the Jewish calendar. The solemn emptiness of Highway 60 on Shabbat. The echoing laughter of clusters of teenagers freely roaming about the yishuv after 10 pm on a Friday night. A Shabbat afternoon walk on Derech Avot, the pilgrimage path that connects Hevron to Jerusalem. The quantum difference in your davening and learning.

You may be able to capture the incomparable beauty of the Gush Etzion on film, but can you absorb it with the same foreknowledge as a settler of the Land...as one who knows that this will be home for the rest of his life, and IY”H, for his children and his children’s children? How do you capture on video the serenity of living in harmony with the Ratzon Hashem (Will of Gcd)?

This is not to say that we don’t have nebach (tragically) far too many terror victims, widows and orphans; we do. And this is not to dispute the grave situation Israel finds herself in; we are not delusional. And yes, we do take far-reaching precautions to minimize the sakanah to ourselves and our families. However, when you read the alarming headlines, remember this: 5 million Jews hit the snooze button every morning, go to work and school, shop and eat, and come home in the evening to do it all over again tomorrow. Also understand that if 10 million Jews were waking up in Israel every day instead of 5 million, there would be no sakanah.

The real sakanah is the golusdik kopf that weighs the relative safety of this place or that. Because while we are asking ourselves where it is least dangerous to live, we are avoiding this blunt reality: it is dangerous to live anywhere as a committed Jew, because the world is intent on stifling the Jewish mission of proclaiming Hashem’s message of historical fulfillment, hope, and geulah. That is why your self-imposed exile endangers Jews everywhere.

The only question is when, in our own shikul daas (evaluation), we will realize that living in the Jewish Land, under the protection of the Jewish Army, and tachas canfei hashchinah (under the canopy of Gcd's Presence), is preferable to going it alone in exile. The best kept secret of Jewish life today is not that Israel needs you or your money. Today more than ever, you need to live in Israel.

So come, already; you can help me talk to the next wave of solidarity missions.

Shabbat Shalom from the Gush Etzion, where we are living your dreams.