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Suddenly, in the blaze of this year, and now with the pogrom undermining any infrastructure of social structure here, this title came to my mind. I searched a bit about its origins and found that it appears three times in the Book of Judges - always after a state of distress or a long war. Gideon ben Yoash argues that this is a time for contemplation, to make an Introspection that God gives to the people of Israel.
And from my life experience so far, I ask what is quiet? And are 40 years in the time of the judges 40 years of today? Maybe referring to 40 months, 40 hours or 40 seconds ????
Somehow we are unable to be here without something happening. Just like that, with family and friends leading a routine life, something boring .... In recent years something has been happening all the time - endless government elections, corruption of the leadership of the government, the Corona saga and now internal and external strife on all levels.
Unfortunately, I was not surprised by what happened, everyone talked about it and just hoped they could leave it for another time. But now that time has come and there is nowhere to postpone it. We do not have 40 years and we do not have enough time to observe and listen which is so necessary now. The house of all of us is on fire - everyone is suffering from the situation: Jews and Arabs, leftists and rightists alike for and against, and any polarization and compartmentalization that we will try to divide human beings and separate them from being one great human tissue.
I hear many who are looking for culprits. Someone else who is not "me and my friends" who "because of him" we have come this far. I am sure that most people in Israel, Arabs, and Jews oppose violence and hatred as human beings, as Muslims, Jews, Druze, women, men, children, leftists, rightists, ultra-Orthodox, secular, and under any label, we want to give someone - I believe most people do not want hatred and violence as an expression of connection human.
Yet throughout my life, I have heard inappropriate expressions, at school, in the military, on the street, on television, or anywhere. The problem is not with the fanatic minority, but with the silent "good majority" = we, those who heard, saw, experienced expressions of violence and turned our heads aside in fear, discomfort because this is not our problem and we have no power to deal with it.
So now - this is our problem and if we wait for someone from outside to change something here for us - we may see how every social structure and basic trust between human beings is erased and instead of 40 years of peace, we will live here as beasts for a long time.
The best of all this evil is that many wake up and decide to do human and hopeful and trustworthy deeds to remind us of sanity, caring, and human rights for all.
I encourage all of us to come out with human gestures that show that we care about others and that we will no longer be silent for fear of expressing our disgust at the violation of human choices, trust, and brotherhood that are our existential basis here.
For your mental health, I recommend not seeing and hearing news and not listening to any politician! All of these blinded our eyes and flooded our minds with evil, cruelty, and human disrespect instead of the basic beauty that is the essence of our lives and souls.
Find your way to express yourself well and share it with friends. Let's infect the whole country with a "bacterium of basic goodness", trust and human brotherhood.
In the meantime, here is a picture of our mosaic, a group of Arab and Jewish residents of Meitar who decided to make a gesture of a good humane neighboring and gave a flower on the eve of Shavuot to passers-by in the shopping center with a note "Jews and Arabs hold hands for peace."
In pain and love,
love the other as yourself
حب لنفسك ما تحب لغيرك
If you have an Arab / Jewish friend, a colleague, someone you worked with or worked for. It's time to call and ask, "How are you?" "I was thinking about you and it hurts me what's going on here now"
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