From Barbara Ginsberg’s
Desktop
K A H A N E
The Magazine of the
Authentic Jewish Idea
Spring 5744 – 1984
THE CUCKOO’S NEST
“Though
thou poundest a fool in a mortar with pestle…yet will his foolishness not
depart from him.” Proverbs 27).
It has surely become a
cuckoo’s nest, one huge madhouse. There
is certainly no other explanation for it.
Lebanon and all the insanity of the Begin-Sharon-Lukid policy collapses;
the United States deserts Israel without a by-your- leave; Reagan entertains
Mubarak and Hussein in the White House (and one can imagine what was privately
plotted there); soldiers inside Lebanon are killed and wounded without a
response from Moshe Arens while soldiers outside refuse to serve there; the
economic index goes up by 14% in ONE MONTH (an annual rate of over
400%); Egypt laughs at Camp David and moves openly back into the Arab fold;
three rockets fall on Metulla as “Peace in the Galilee” becomes more of a naked
joke; leftists and liberals march in the streets demanding suicide and they
gain more and more support in the wake of a paralyzed, tired, frightened
government; Arabs grow bolder or simply GROW inside Israel and the
territories; and a terrible drought grips the country; in the neighborhoods and
moshavim and development towns social unrest grows as crime shoots upward.
And in response:
The city of Petach Tikvah
votes to allow legal mass Sabbath desecration with places of entertainment
opened wide; the Haifa Theater produces a play, The Messiah, in which
words of desecration and abomination are directed against G-d; a group of
parents organizes to fight the yeshivot because their children have become baalei
tshuva; Yossi Sarid, the Labor M.K. writes an article in Shmuel Shnitzer’s
major newspaper, Maariv, to declare his disgust for the Biblical story
of Abraham and the sacrifice; the head of the League Against Religious
Coercion declares, in Al Hamishmar, that there must be an uprising
against the religious including “hangings from lampposts” since without
this “things will not go”; Knesset members vow that the law that would make the
definition of a Jew one based on halacha, will never pass; and in the
Brenner school, a student, member of the Noar HaOved (working youth),
burns a Bible in a regular test of “who believes in G-d?
One would imagine that
seeing the country disintegrating before their eyes, the Jews of Israel would
pause to consider the possibility of Divine anger and punishment. One would fancy that – seeing shear tragedy
and horror loom before them and the utter bankruptcy of both Left and Right,
dove and hawk, the socialist and secular nationalist, - Jews would ponder the reality of secular
failure and at least the feasibility of the events that are unfolding being
part of Divine retribution for our sins.
One would logically hope for at least contemplation of the need to
examine our ways and premises of life, our overview and philosophy of
existence.
But no, “though thou
poundest a fool in a mortar with pestle…yet will his foolishness not depart
from him.” We remain the children of our
fathers, the people, stiff-necked and with uncircumcised heart. What a pity! What a tragedy! How we will –
all of us – pay for the blindness of the fools in the mortar.
I listen to the speeches of
the braying secular asses: Shamir, Arens, yes, Sharon and Rafael Eytan,
of the dead Tehiya of Geula Cohen and Yuval Ne’eman – of all of the experts and
ministers and politicians and, G-d help us.
LEADERS. I listen and
wait for the one little word that will show that they understand something. I hear nothing; they understand precisely
that. I wait for the one little world
and so does the world. It never comes. And because of that, in its place, will come
the awesome horrors upon a people who even the pounding of the pestle cannot help. I wait for the one little word. G-d. And
so does HE. But the word never
comes and no one calls Him. And so, He will not come and help
until the awful time has passed.
And in the meantime, Peres
and Shamir and Rabin and Arens and Tehiya and Mafdal and the intellectuals and
experts and leaders will continue to run about madly in the cuckoo’s nest.
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