Page 4-The Ganadian Jewish News, Thursday, August 10^1989
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Rab|[)i Burak
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RABBI MOSES J. BURAK
i QUESTION: As we prepare for TIsha B'Av, I should we arrange to discuss the question of our i times: Why did the Holocaust b^all us?
I ANSWER: No this lii question is still too pain-;| Jul for discussion, and I |; feel that all who do dis-:| cuss it are guilty of not |: taking their cuesfrdm the |i words of the Bible, and I the Talmud. Jeremiah, % the prophet who lived I through the destruction of \ I the First Temple, found I the ruin and the devasta-;. tion of the Holy Land to-$ tally incomprehensible.
Here are his words in Chapter 9:11-12 of his
great book: '-Who is the wise man, that may un-:j derstand this? And who is he to whom the mouth I of the Lord hath spoken, that he may declare it?
Why is the land ruined, withered like a wilderness I without anyone passing through?
" And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken I My law which I set before them, and they have :i not hearkened to My voice, nor walked by it." ;: Note, that only God could say that.
The Talmud, in Tractate Nedarim. 8 la, exa-j mines the issue Jeremiah raised, and niake clear i: that no person had an apswer: "Now this q\ies-i; tion (why is the land ruined?) was put to the I Sages, Prophets, and Ministering Angels, but they
could riot answer it, until the Ahnighty Himself did
Now, I don't understand why it was thatnobody i knew the answer. In another passage in the ;j Talmud, it's qtiite'clear that everybody kne;w the ij; answer. It would be amazing if our scholars who ;! are so expert at finding answers for every conceiv-ji able problem, shoiild not have had an answer to I this one. And they did have a statement why all ji this destructipri took place:
In tractate Yoma, 9b, we read: '.'Mikdash Ri-: shon, why was the First Sanctuary destroyed? Be-; cause of three (evil) things'which prevailed there; j idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed." Apparent-; ly the Sages did khow the reason; then why have i we read in Nedarim that not even the Ministering } Angels knew the answer?
The question Has been asked by themaisters of Talmudic thought, Azulai on the one hand, and the Machneh Chaim oh the other. To me it is clear, that only centuries after a tragedy has tkken place can one discuss it calmly and rationally. At that time it is possible to understand the causes that brought on the tragedy.
Butj when.the heart is bleeding from its horrible wounds, let no one diare tospeak. As Ec-clesiastes said, in Chapter 3:7, there is '*a time to keep silence, and a tune to speak/' So, when the destructMMi of the land had just taken place, in the days of Jeremiah, everybody was sUent.
We have amongst us living witnesses who saw the most wonderftil, saintly nien and women consigned to the flames at Ausch\yitz. For. them there is no answer as yet, ahd they struggle even as Samuel Usque in his day'' ... struggled with the eternal problem of his people's endless sorrow. Unquestioning faith in God did not resolve the problem.lt only deepened the mystiery surrounding Israel's destiny.
"To be sure, our people fell short of the Divine ideal set before them. They >yere not always true to their profAetic calling. But what of the other nations? Who among them could lay claim to higher standards of morals, justice, or the perception of religious; truth?"
Chir consolatton as we approach Tisha B'Av is to be found in the fwrt that the wanderers are returning home again, reclaiming the Hebrew language as well as the bmd ot our fathers. They crnne from the four comers of the earth.
Build the land of Israel and in the process the Jewish soul will find itself.
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Women pushed, splattered with mud
service
JERUSALEM (JTA) -A dozen wwnen attempting to conduct monthly Rosh Hodesh services last week at the Western Wall were dragged away, one by one, by female security guards.
The trouble started immediately after the group, which calls itself Women of the Wall, arrived at the Kotel, where 15 security guards hired by the religious affairs ministry were stationed.
According to Bonna Haberman, a member of the group, the guards encircled the women even before they started praying. "They pulled us and pushed us so hard that finally we were all on the floor," Haberman said.
UltithOrtbodox women praying individually at the wall, who oppose women conducting prayer services, threw water and mud at the group. Haberman said afterward she lookied as if she had been in a mud fight.
Reached at her home, Haberman, a recent Canadian immigrant, expressed her horror at what happened. She said she was covered with cuts and bruises.
"We kept our calm all the time, and stayed ab-
solutely passive through the horrible scenes," i£e said. She claimed that Rabbi Meir Yehuda G«tz, who is religious , trustee of the wall, kxrfced on at what was gohag on with pride.
She also said that this latest incident has not deterred the women, but rather made them more determined than ever to ensure that their rights are upheld.
Women are allowed to pray at the wall, but they must do so individually. Men, on the other hand, organize minyanim for prayer, as they would in a synagogue, wear prayer shawls and carry the Torah.
Women of the Wall contend there is no halachic ban on their doing the same.
The batde for die right of women to hold regular prayer services at the wall, just as men do, began last Dec. 1, at the close of the First International Jewish Feminist Conference in Jerusalem.
A group of women, mostly tourists who had attended the conference, took a Torah scroll to the site for early morning jsrayers. Some wore kippot and tal-litot (skullcaps and prayer
shawls traditionally worn only by men);
They were reviled by uitra-Orthcklox men and women at the wall, which has partitions separating male and female worshippers.
Physical and verbal harassment on several sub-
sequent occasions led the women to obtain an order from the High Court of Justice in May permitting them to pray as a group at the wall, though not to carry the Torah.
Women at the Wall has now decided to ask the High Court to speed con-
sideration of its pending lawsuit against the religious authorities, currently scheduled for Dec. 27.
yaberman said the women would spare no time or effort to "have our rights recognized and for us to be protected."
Schools in territories reopen
cesston
JERUSALEM (JPFS) -The Chief Rabbinate has issued a halachic decision that the Torah foibids making territorial concessions in the Land of Israel.
The ruling apparently was a' reaction to statements by former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who recently told Egyptian Preskfent HqsniMubarak that the halacha justifies territorial compromise. Yosef had said it was a matter of pikuah nefesh — the saving of lives.
The Chief Rabbinate statement recalled that in 1948, the Chief Rabbis had declared that it was a mitz-va to occupy the Land of
Israel and hold on to it. One was not allowed to withdraw "because Arab murderers were threatening bloodshed." That principle still holds and applies to Judea and Samaria, the rabbinate maintained.
The rabbinate did not mention Rabbi Yosef by name, but clearly referred to his meeting with Mubarak when it said it was " surprised and sad'' that Jews had told "anon-Jewish ruler: By law we must hold on to Israel, biit because you are willing to kill Jews unless we retreat, then we must withdraw."
The statement pointed out that holding on to land could actually save lives.
JERUSALEM (JPFS) -
Five hundred and nine Palestinian have been killed by Israeli soldiers and civilians since the start of the uprising in December 1987, according to figures released last Week by the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. Ten Israeli civilians, including three infants, and five soldiers were' killed in the territories during the same period.
According to the figures, 477 Palestinians were killed by live ammunition and plastic bullets. Twenty-three of these were children aged 12 or under, and 76 were between 13 and 16 years of age. Thirty-two Palestinians were killed by other-causes, such as beatings, bums or electrocution.
More than 70 odiers died shortly after exposure to tear-gas, including almost 30 babies. (It is difficult to establish medically that tear-gas was the direct and sole cause of death.)
According to the figures, there was a sharp rise last month in the number of Palestinian deaths, which totalled 32 (compared with 20 in June).
Meanwhile, 68,000 Palestinian junior high school students were to return to thdr classrooms last week in phase two of the civil adnunistration's plan to reactivate the West Bank educational system, according toM^j. Gen. Aihrm Mitzna, head of Central Command.
The schools have been shut all year except for a few weeks in December and January. West Bank primaiy sdM)ols reopened three weeks ago after army officials said parents and school principals had assured them the children would not hold demonstrations during classroom hours. Mitzna said the army would decide within a few weeks whether to reopen classes in grades 10 and 11, the two semor high sciiool years in the West Bank.
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"The time is ripe for reopening the schools," Mitzna told members of the Knesset education committee who visited primary schools in Ramallah and El-Bireh. "The pupils and their parents have come to the conclusion that they (the children) want to learn."
Mitzna also told the legislators there were no West Bank youths under the age of 14 in jail and that the army had recently released all but 50 of the 147 high school-aged children currently detained. He added that there were no Palestinian teachers in Jail at the moment.
The general, who gave up his command last weiek,
said the split between the PLO and the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas organization over whether school children should have participated in a recent sti-ike indicated "that the Palestinians are arguing among themselves and that there are many children and adults ready to challenge those who use terror to intimidate."
An estimated 80% of the Palestinian children ignored orders to observe the strike and showed up for school as usual.
Palestinians reported widespread dissatisfaction with the call to boycott classes, only days after schools had reopened. The gap between popular sentiment and the orders of the uprising leadership was especially evident in Nablus, where activists loyal to Fatah broke publicly with the call to cancel classes. Residents reported that youths identifying themselves as the "Abu Jihad Brigades'' broadcast louspeaker calls urging Palestinians to defy Israel's "policy of ignorance" and go to school.
"People are speaking out qjenly against the orders of the Unified Leadership, and say the instructions show thoughtlessness and disregard for the people," said a prominent figure in Nablus. In several locations in the West Bank, teachers and pupils resisted calls by activists who arrived at schools and urged students to leave class, military sources. said.
Cost of fighting intifada
miUion
JERUSALEM (JPFS) -
The cost of fighting the Palestinian uprising in the territories is exjpected to reach approximately 1 billion shekels ($500 million) by the end of the current fiscal year in March 1990, according to Brig.-Gen. Michael Navon, economic adviser to the chief of general staff and director of
the defence ministry's budget department.
Navon says this figure, which translates into about 1.15 millkm sherds ($590,000) per day, includes only the amount the defence establishment has been forced to spend. Even higher losses, he said, are uicurred by the civilian economy.
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