Shine - Steel and Silk

Dr. Chaim Shine
Israel Hayom
04 November '11

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=772

In these days of political and nuclear threats to the very existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state, as well as serious economic difficulties, I recall a young couple's wedding I recently attended, where I felt encouraged. The groom is an outstanding officer in an elite IDF commando unit. This couple, in its essence, combines steel wire with strands of silk. These wires and strands form the special fabric woven among the Jewish people. This exquisite embroidery has survived years of threats and fear, just as it has also enjoyed days of joy and merriment.

Among the many celebrants at the wedding, a small group of officers and soldiers, the groom's friends and unit comrades, stood out. Though most of them were secular, they danced and bounced around with youthful enthusiasm and excellent combat fitness to the Hasidic band that graced the evening. The bold desire of these friends to please the young couple reminded many of those in attendance of the neighborly values that were once the foundation of the modern movement to return to Zion. "Grant abundant joy to these loving companions," as is said in one of the Seven Blessings of the wedding ceremony, and which was exemplified by these friends in the most simple and natural meaning of the words. True joy that leaps from a full and loving heart.

Excitement filled everyone's hearts when the band played, and the crowd joined in, singing the traditional song from the Passover Haggadah: "In each and every generation they rise up to destroy us." This is the same innocent faith through which we are still here, now and forever. This faith has won out over the deadliest weapons in human history. These soldiers don't even understand how, to our generation, they are the standard bearers of faith in the eternity of Israel. When the band played the song, "Humble ones, humble ones, your salvation has come," the audience understood that the band was singing to those same modest and quiet young people, with and without yarmulkes, who carry the burden of the entire nation on their shoulders as if it were "stretcher exercise" in their army training, filled with ascents and descents. The scene, and its meaning, was part of the Jewish journey, for thousands of years, on the way to redemption.



This young couple grew up in established families, but they are going to make their home in a caravan on one of the hilltops in Eli, a Jewish community in Samaria. In this community, the young bride can receive support from many friends whose husbands also serve in elite IDF units. Their service requires them to stay away from home for days on end. From this hilltop, on a clear day, you can see all the way to Hadera and Gedera. This is a hilltop that some irresponsible Israelis are willing to give up for the benefit of Hamas and Fatah militants.

The groom's friends from his unit volunteered, on their own private time, to help place the trailer on the rocky hilltop, while they were planting a small grassy area (water efficient) and a rockery made from local stones. These are the very stones that Abraham, our father, walked upon when God told him to "Get thee out of thy country" (Gen. 12:1) and a rockery that only Jacob might lay his head upon to dream about a ladder with its bottom on the land and it's top in the heavens. This hill was not taken from anyone, but rather returned to its rightful owner.

These days our faith and our path are lost. In these days, when despair and depression trickle from the media into segments of Israeli society, I discovered at this wedding that there is still hope, and no despair in the world at all. Together religious and secular people rebuild the soul of the nation, which was crushed in the last decade by the droppings of the Golden Calf. We possess a great and generous soul that can restore us to what we were in the days of yore.

Great spirit and magnificent tidings are flourishing. Young people are willing to sacrifice themselves for the common good facing the reproach of egoism. These young people are convinced that only if we create a true combination of matter and soul will the state of Israel reach its true destination. These young people understand that only true consolidation of all the different strands of Israeli society will lead us out of the darkness into a great light.

Many great and powerful developments in Jewish history began with the flag-waving of a few. At this wedding, I saw this type of person, the minority willing to wave the flag. Another Jewish household situated like this is one of the signs that restoration is at hand. Once upon a time it was said that, “if you will it, it is no dream" (Theodor Herzl).

Today this dream is the desire of this exceptional generation to lead the people of Israel with their great spirit and passionate conviction. This faith is still found in abundance among the descendents of Abraham, the father of this small nation, with its eternal wisdom that against all odds, is still here.

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