Feeling at Home
Dear
friends, shalom,
We rode
our bicycles to the “Canyon” (shopping mall) for pizzas, then it was dark and how would we find our way home?
Ariel suggested by moonlight but we couldn’t find the moon. We were lucky that Ariel had a flashlight and we followed
it home.
I love
coming home. It’s a pleasure that’s repeated itself since the day I was born and my mother brought me home. I’ve
always looked forward to it whether it was on returning from a vacation or every day returning from work.
I think
this is because it’s the place I know how to get to. Loosing one’s way means that one can’t find the way
home or the place one wants to get to, which is like a temporary home.
People
differ in how much they’re prepared to get lost. For example, Ettie doesn’t like getting lost at all. She wants
to know exactly how to get to a place. She’ll never go to a place that she doesn’t know how to get to.
Her philosophy
is that one must always be sure of one’s way. My philosophy is: one can never be sure of one’s way even when you
know the way. Nobody really knows the way to anywhere.
When
we got married we never knew how we’d get to our 31st anniversary. We went blindly like everybody else
On Saturday,
in Prague, we celebrated by meeting at 2 PM at a place we both knew, Malostranska Namesti, where the 22 tram stopped, where
we’d come to together the day before by walking hand in hand across the 14th century Karl Bridge.
This
time, on our anniversary day we each got there in our own separate ways.
Ettie
walked again, as we had done together the day before, but today it was snowing. I got there by a combination of walking, tram
and metro. We were together again after each taking our own separate ways. Then we went together, by tram and Metro to Namesti
Republicki where we had lunch at the same restaurant where we’d had lunch the day before, The (M)eating Place.
The need
to feel at home is so great that it’s almost instinct for every creature to find a home to come to. I think this is
what motivates birds to build nests and humans to seek spouses, to build families, build beautiful homes and spend a large
part of their lives and income on beautifying them.
The question
is: What part of feeling at home is played by the nation? For example does a person need to feel part of the nation in order
to feel at home.
If we
were all sparrows is it necessary for all of us to live together in order to achieve the feeling of feeling at home? Or would
we be able to achieve that feeling even if we built our home in some part of the world where we’re the only sparrows?
Can a
Jew feel just as much at home whether he builds his home in England, Russia, the
US etc instead of in Israel?
Since
the establishment of the state of Israel Jews can choose to live in the Jewish State or in a foreign state. Before the Jewish
State was established he didn't have a choice. Wherever he lived it was a foreign country.
The State
of Israel came into being because a great number of Jews did not feel at home living in some other nation.
Israel set out to be a homeland for the Jewish People, a refuge, and it has succeeded in this.
After
65 years of existence of the Jewish State about 5 million Jews have made their homes here.
I don't
think that those who came in the early years came in search of security and material comforts. Those were difficult times.
Most came because living among other Jews was an important part of feeling at home.
Even
today in the new climate of material well being and physical security the reason why most Jews immigrate here is still to
live among their own nation.
Now even
non Jews are attracted to live here. For the first time in 2000 years another new, possibility has arisen, namely that the
Jews have a state which a Jew regards as home but a non Jew might feel that he is a foreigner.
The question
never arose because Jews took it for granted that non Jews would be happy to live side by side with Jews.
This
conclusion is well based in the Torah where Jews are commanded, in more than 40 places to make the non Jew feel at home.*
The Jews were the only nation in the world, at that time that had laws to protect the civil rights of foreigners. Even today
only the democratically governed nations of the world have such laws.
Protection
of civil rights and material comforts make Israel
an attractive country.
Now some
political parties are promoting the dissolution of civil rights laws and the recent spate of discriminatory activity (demonstrations
against women on busses together with men, no women on advertising billboards, fires in Mosques etc) which creates an impression
of chaos, are being used to gain support for this undemocratic cause.
The total
affect of all this discriminatory activity is that gradually the general public gets convinced that there are people who should
not be made to feel at home in Israel.
Once
one begins curtailing civil rights one needs to stipulate who are to be excluded from having civil rights. Then the list becomes
interminable. E.G. Arabs, certain women, non Jews, liberal minded Israelis, secular Jews, fanatic religious Jews etc. etc.
The list gets bigger as one goes along. Some people support the discriminatory activity others support its suppression.
We begin
to think that the wonderful idea of civil rights for everybody isn’t so good after all.
The protection
of civil rights is more important than the need to preserve the purity of the Jewish People.
The protection
of Jewish values is important and the purity of the Jewish people is only important in so far as it promotes the continued
protection of Jewish values.
Wishing
you a great no news day
Yours
truly
Leon
Gork.
Some
examples:
Lev 24:22 Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as
for the home-born; for I am the LORD your God.'
Deut 24:17 Thou shalt not pervert the justice due to the stranger, or to the fatherless; nor take the widow's raiment
to pledge.
Exod 22:20 And a stranger shalt thou not wrong, neither shalt thou oppress him; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Exod 23:9 And a stranger shalt thou not oppress; for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the
land of Egypt.
