From Shushan to Jerusalem

“Why did the members of that generation deserve to be destroyed?” our Sages ask, and they answer: “Because they derived peasure from the feast of that evil one.”

In other words, “the new world order actually suits us”. Yes, our Temple was indeed destroyed – but that was a long time ago, seventy years ago. Most of us were born here in the pampered courts of the enlightened kingdoms of Babylon and Persia. The mighty Persian leader, Cyrus, who conquered and united almost the entire world under his rule, even suggested that we return to the Land of Israel and build the Second Temple. That was really nice of him, but he didn’t understand that we’re not so primitive anymore – you can be good Jews here in Persia, you don’t need Jerusalem for that. With all due respect to Cyrus, we’re sick of wars already – and look – Cyrus himself was killed in battle and now we have a kingdom of peace – a king who rules from India to Kush (127 provinces!) not by the power of the sword but by the power of peace. The extreme minority who were tempted to run after Zerubbabel and Ezra to Jerusalem got sucked into wars with the local Samaritans, the construction of the Temple was stopped, and other daily terror they have nothing. Here, under the reign of Ahasuerus, a glorious Judaism is developing, and apart from Mordechai the nudnik – there’s no one to spoil the idyll for us. This Mordechai expected us to refuse the royal invitation to the feast. I mean, come on – Ahasuerus honors us by inviting us to the royal banquet and we’re going to insult him by not going? So what if they serve wine there in vessels stolen from the Temple. We don’t always have to look at everything negatively – maybe it’s actually a positive thing that the kingdom prefers, of all the art treasures in the world, to serve in our vessels? – Must we always think that the whole world is against us?

Truth be told, who among us wouldn’t have run to that feast? How many MKs this week boycotted the speech given in the language in which our parents were pushed to the gas chambers? This is how it is with us. Always when the time comes to return to history, to return to ourselves, to our country, to our city, to our Temple, to our destiny – always at this stage we become too comfortable with the dominant world culture of that generation. “Who needs all this history?” the president explains, and asks to cancel the studies of the past. “We’re in a new Middle East now… ”

In our generation, we no longer need a Haman. While there’s an up-and-comer in Shushan, a kind of modern Haman who seeks to destroy us, the danger doesn’t come from him. Most Israelis don’t believe that the State of Israel will still exist in 20 years, and it’s not because of the Persian bomb. It’s simply because we seem to have lost our national will to survive. We cannot protect the border settlements because we have subjugated ourselves to the will of Ahasuerus. We gave up our unique identity, we gave up the justice of our claiim on the Land of Israel, we accepted the logic and values of the new world order, and from now on we are willingly subjugated to the court in the Hague. The helicopter pilot no longer launches a missile at a house from which a Katyusha was fired if the face of an “innocent” citizen is visible from one of the windows. First of all because according to the global and binding code of ethics, it would be “immoral”, and besides – next week I’m taking a trip with my girlfriend to “Marks & Spencer”, and I have no interested in getting arrested when I land at Heathrow. And with that, the pilot – and even more so the general – and the politician and the leader and the prime minister, none of them really believe any longer, neither in their country nor in their people. They’re just fine with “the feast of that evil one”, so why burn bridges with the enlightened world and get thrown out of the palace?

And so our generation will deserve destruction as well. Not by some external Haman. We’ve sentenced ourselves to destruction entirely by ourselves, in a kind of internal dialectical process. The miniature enemy is advancing from Sderot to Ashkelon, and it’s clear to everyone that, from within our Ahasuerus feast, there’s no way for us to respond. The codes of the modern Ahasuerus allow us to react only out of self-defense, since we ourselves admitted that this is not our country, Shushan is Jerusalem. “The Golan Heights is just real estate” (Rabin), “We won’t go to war because of some ruin in Hebron” (Defense Minister Itzik Mordechai). In other words, we are the occupiers here. We don’t act by virtue of what is right, but out of some kind of inertia, and as such we only have the right to shoot at those who are actually shooting at us. In no way does he have the right – not to cut off electricity, nor even to delay supplies to the “rightful” side – to the real property owners here – unless they are actually fighting us.
Our generals no longer dare to talk about victory. At most they talk about controlling the height of the flames, and that’s how we burn little by little – on a low flame… And everyone knows it.

In the end, we’ll be pushed into a corner where we’ll suddenly find ourselves – just like in the story of the Megillah. Suddenly our Jewish Mordecais will cease to be the extreme and dangerous nudniks, but the lifeline for all of us. We will survive and we will win – this is what 4000 years of Jewish history teach us. But what’s interesting is that because of the story of the Megillah, the Temple was built. Because from Esther and Ahasuerus was born Darius. A short time later, Ahasuerus died, and the two-year-old infant (Jewish according to the Halacha…) inherited the mighty kingdom, and wonder of wonders – ordered the renewal and completion of the construction of the Second Temple. In other words, the depths of despair and the loss of hope are always a springboard to a more advanced point in the fulfillment of our national destiny.

In short – take a breath, because it’s not going to be easy – I have no idea how long the process will take, but we are about to jump.

Happy Purim