Abraham’s legacy still alive and well

Abraham’s legacy, still alive and well, is the crux of our existence, not only in Hebron, but as a people, in Israel and around the world.

David Wilder..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
07 November '12..






A few years ago, following one of his last visits to Me’arat Hamachpela, the Cave of the Patriarchs, as Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu entered his car, the other door opened and two people literally pushed their way into the vehicle, one civilian, the other in uniform.

The civilian, a senior employee at the holy site, said, “Rabbi, I’m sorry to do this, but this man, a border police officer, works here very hard and greatly helps the Jewish people. He has a problem. He and his wife have been married many years and have yet to be blessed with children.”

Rabbi Eliyahu looked at the man and responded, “He should continue to help the Jewish people and next year he will be witness to salvation.”

A year later his daughter Miriam was born. The border police officer’s name is Shuchralla Morav.

Much has been written about Hebron’s relationship with security forces, be it police or IDF. As much as we say about our good, positive relationships with them, we are unfortunately generally not believed.

The roots of our national essence, in Hebron, begins with Abraham and Sarah. They were known as people of chesed, that is, overwhelming loving-kindness and generosity. Our sages have taught that we must express the attributes of our Creator: as He is kind, so too we must be kind. The primary examples of kindness are Abraham and Sarah.

Abraham’s compassion was not limited to “his own.” Numerous stories are told of his assistance to strangers, many of whom worshiped idols, the very antithesis of his life and ideology. Yet this did not prevent him from offering them food, drink and a place to sleep.

The present Jewish community of Hebron tries to continue walking in the footsteps of our illustrious Forefathers, learning from their deeds, and acting accordingly. Therefore, when Rabbi Shalom Alkobi, then director of the Machpela authority, realized he had an opportunity to seek a blessing from one of our generation’s most righteous people, he did so, without thinking twice.

And the rabbi’s blessing was received and came to pass.

Morav, as he is called, served at Me’arat Hamachpela for 17 years. Living in the north, several hours from Hebron, he wasn’t able to spend enough time with his wife and young daughter. Recently he was transferred to a position much closer to his home, allowing him to enjoy his blessings.

IRR - When Israel's ambassador to the UN presented Genesis 23 as the legal basis for Israel's stake in Hebron

Israel Resource Review
18 November '11

http://israelbehindthenews.com/bin/content.cgi?ID=4586&q=1


EXCERPTS FROM STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR CHAIM HERZOG, IN EXPLANATION OF HIS VOTE ON THE DRAFT RESOLUTIONS IN THE REPORT OF THE "SPECIAL COMMITTEE" TO INVESTIGATE ISRAELI PRACTICES AFFECTING THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE POPULATION IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, 15 December 1975.

In its statement of 3 December 1975 in the Special Political Committee, my delegation spoke on four draft resolutions under agenda item 52 on which that Committee was about to vote.

Whilst reaffirming our views on all those resolutions, which meanwhile have been voted on and now appear in the report in document A/10461, I now wish to speak more particularly on draft resolutions A and D in paragraph 9 of that report.

The Assembly has by now grown accustomed to the inevitable, one-sided, biased, anti-Israel resolutions which do not relate to the facts and which are a direct result of this Organization's becoming a centre of bias and discrimination as it is dragged down by a group of extreme despotisms to the level which it has reached. We are here witnessing the process of double talk, double values and two faced cynicism which now characterizes this organization, financed as it is to a very great degree by the free countries of the world in order to become the main instrument for the destruction of those values which free and democratic countries of this world hold dear. Resolution A in the report contained in document A/10461 is an unbelievable mosaic of untruths, falsehood and distortions, in furtherance of the anti-Semitic motives which animate the automatic majority in this body.

The Government of Israel has not, does not and will not co-operate with the so-called Special Committee, because this General Assembly refused at the time of establishment of that Committee to extend its mandate in order to investigate Arab practices affecting the human rights of the Jewish population in Arab countries. The entire Jewish population is being held hostage in Syria under the most terrifying of circumstances, in blatant violation of the elementary rights of human beings and yet this General Assembly was unable to request an examination of the conditions of the Jewish population of Syria.

Perhaps nothing could more readily illustrate the utter baselessness of those resolutions than draft resolution D on the al-Ibrahimi Mosque which is an utter travesty, not only of facts but of history. We are referring to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the City of Hebron, known to the Jewish people as the Cave of Machpela.

Wilder - A free people in our land - Hebron

David Wilder
Op-Ed Contributor
JPost
16 November '11


http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=245849

Can we be a free people in our land without the first Jewish city in Israel?

Several years ago, on the anniversary of the liberation of Hebron in 1967, I was interviewed by a journalist who queried me about various problems facing Hebron’s Jewish community. His concluding question/statement was, “Well, I guess you’re not celebrating today?”

“Why not?” I replied.

“Well, you have all these problems and issues, how can you celebrate?”

“You just don’t understand,” I answered. “Look at where were we 70 years ago, or 60 years ago. Were we in Hebron? Today I’m here, in the first Jewish city in Israel. I live here, I work here, I’m bringing up my children here. This is my home. True, we have problems. There are ups and downs. Issues must be dealt with. And they will be overcome. But I’m here. And as long as I’m here, I have what to celebrate, and that’s exactly what I’m doing today!”

One of our most special celebrations will occur this weekend. The Torah portion of Hayei Sarah, otherwise known as “Shabbat Hebron,” is an extraordinary event. It is not an ordinary Shabbat (which in Hebron is also unique). Rather, it is an event.

Over the past decade, some 200,000 people have capitalized on this special Sabbath to crowd into Hebron and nearby Kiryat Arba to rejoice. Starting on Friday morning, Israelis young and old will begin flocking to the city. Jews from the United States and other countries fly to Israel to be in Hebron for this exceptional occasion.

Well over six months prior to this Sabbath we begin receiving phone calls and emails requesting places to sleep and eat on this auspicious day. Dozens of tents are pitched outside Me’arat Hamachpela, the Cave of the Patriarchs, and Matriarchs. Public buildings are transformed into dormitories, with separate facilities for men and women. It’s the only time of the year when my living room is wall-to-wall people sleeping on the floor.

One year, on Saturday night, a young woman walked into our kitchen to thank my wife. She asked what for. The woman said she had slept in one of our rooms. We had no idea she was there, or where she slept, because the room was already packed.

A huge tent is constructed outside the Avraham Avinu neighborhood, providing meals thousands of guests. Literally every nook and cranny in Hebron is utilized, with people sleeping and eating wherever they can find a few free meters.

All hours of the day and night the streets are full of people walking to and from the various neighborhoods in Hebron. Saturday afternoon, multitudes tour the city, visiting the Hebron Heritage Museum at Beit Hadassah, the tomb of Jesse and Ruth in Tel Rumeida, and the Avraham Avinu synagogue in the Avraham Avinu neighborhood. Special Casba tours are also included in the day’s agenda.

UNESCO demands removal of Cave of the Patriarchs from historic registry

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
31 October '10

The coincidental timing couldn't be more appropriate.

UNESCO -- one of the UN's many agencies with an anti-Israel agenda --pressures Israel to remove the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron from its list of national heritage sites. The cave is the burial place of Judaism's three Patriarchs -- Abrahma, Isaac and Jacob -- and three of its four Matriarchs -- Sarah, Rebecca and Leah.

The fourth Jewish Matriarch, Rachel, is buried near Bethlehem. As part of its campaign to help Palestinians with their efforts to deny historic Jewish ties to the Holy Land, UNESCO also announced that Rachel's Tomb is really a mosque.

However, UNESCO's timing turns out to be a bit untimely. Because this week, in synagogues around the world, Jews read the "Chaye Sarah" portion of the Book of Genesis, which recounts how Abraham, in his search for a burial place for his beloved Sarah, bougt the Cave of Machpelah and its adjacent land from Ephron the Hittite for 400 shekels of silver as a deed in perpetuity.

Thus, this week's Torah reminder squarely puts the spotlight on the first real estate transaction in biblical history -- the start of nearly 4,000 years of Jewish ties to the Holy Land. Because of the Cave of the Patriarachs and the Matriarchs, Hebron is Judaism's second holiest city -- after Jerusalem.

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Abraham Calls to Me

Paula R. Stern
A Soldier's Mother
29 October '10

(Posted for 32 minutes before candle lighting, Parshat Chayei Sarah, Kiryat Arba-Hebron. What could be better? Y.)

Every once in a while (perhaps more often than I let myself believe), I take the liberty of writing not just as a soldier's mother, but as an Israeli, a Jew. I could tie this in with the blog, and I will, a bit, but for now, let's start with history.

The thing about history is that there are often sides, shades, and personalities that we can only imagine. The longer between the event and the reporting, the harder it is to imagine, to believe, to know. Sadly, this is what is slowly happening with the Holocaust. As we move into a generation that knows no survivors, the fact that there are films, videos, direct testimonies of those who did survive, physical evidence that corresponds and confirms all that they say and said - still there are those who would twist, deny, inflame.

Imagine now, that the history happened thousands of years ago, and not merely a few decades ago. Imagine a man who married a woman and they have a child. That child marries and has two sons. One of those sons marries not one, but two women. One of those dies young and is greatly mourned. The second is buried in the same place as the first man and his wife, the second man and his wife, and her own husband, the child of the second man.

So far, other than there being a man who married two wives, our story is common enough that it takes little imagination.

But the man was named Abraham and his wife was Sarah. In the technical writing terms I often live by, Abraham revolutionized the world - perhaps the first of so many great Israeli/Jewish discoveries and innovations that have graced the world. There was no US Patent Office, but his idea was certainly unique. If you can fashion stone into a figure, calling that figure "God" is absurd.

Abraham's patented system of global management was simple - recognize the Power...where the Power really is. When Abraham's wife died, Abraham did something else that is well documented and stands through time. He buried her, we all know that - but more. He refused the gift of her burial place. He demanded to purchase the land and so, in effect, the Bible that documents this transaction proves a legal and binding land contract in which Abraham purchased what is now called the Cave of the Patriarchs, in Hebron.

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Planting the seeds of a people

David Wilder
Hebron.com
29 October '10

This week Hebron’s Jewish Community received an unusually large number of greetings. Specifically, 14 ministers, five deputy ministers, and 24 MKs from both the coalition and the opposition (3 from Kadima), including Knesset speaker Ruby Rivlin, sent special messages of support to Hebron. This, as part of an annual celebration, as we read the weekly Torah portion, Chaye Sarah, in which Abraham purchases Ma’arat HaMachpela, the caves of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, almost 4,000 years ago.

Not only are politicians participating. Usually somewhere between 15 – 20,000 people arrive in Hebron and Kiryat Arba to join in the festivities. Several hundred Jews, mostly from the US, arrive in Israel especially for this special Shabbat in Hebron. Youth and adults, with knitted kippas and black kippas, some in suits, some with shtreimal fur hats, rabbis, laymen, pour into Hebron beginning early Friday afternoon. Tents are pitched outside Machpela on the garden lawn and across the street in a park. Others find a patch of floor at the entrance to a building and set there their sleeping bags. It is the only time of the only time of the year, when receiving a phone call requesting to stay with me, and I answer, ‘we still have some floor space available,’ the response is a resounding ‘great!’



One year I recall a young woman approached my wife in the kitchen Saturday night, and thanked her. My wife asked her, ‘for what.’ She answered, ‘oh, I slept here.’ To this day, we have no idea where she slept because the house was full without her.
Shabbat evening thousands fill the 2,000 year old structure atop the caves of Machpela and thousands more worship outside in the Machpela courtyard. Some pray very traditionally, while others sing and dance to tunes of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. The atmosphere is both holy and joyful simultaneously.

Shabbat morning the Isaac Hall, opened to Jewish worshipers only ten days a year, is packed to the brim, with some having to stand for a lack of chairs. Here the ancient words are chanted from a Torah scroll, written by hand on parchment, reciting the purchase of the caves and the field by Abraham for some 400 silver shekels, thousands of years ago. It should be noted that according to recent studies, four hundred shekels in the time of Abraham is worth about $700,000 today.

The day continues with meals, lectures, discussion groups, tours of the Jewish neighborhoods, rest and Shabbat song, a wonderful way to commemorate this unique event.

The basic question that must be addressed though, is why? Why was it special then, and why is it special today? Why should so many thousands of people arrive in Hebron to recall what happened almost four millennium ago?

Let’s start at the beginning. Abraham paid a small fortune for a commodity he could have had for free. Efron the Hittite offered to give him the caves gratis. But Abraham refused. Years earlier, according to accounts in the holy Zohar and other sacred literature, Abraham had discovered in these very caves the tombs of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman. Here was the entrance to Paradise, the Garden of Eden. Realizing how holy the site was, Abraham knew the only way to ensure his continued possession of it was to sign a contract and put money down on the table in front of witnesses, thereby preventing any counter claim as to the ownership of the place. And so he did just that, at an extremely high cost.

Our sages taught, some 2,000 years ago, that there are three places the nations will never be able to say we Jews stole, as it is written in the Bible that we paid money for them: Joseph’s tomb, Temple Mount, and Ma’arat HaMachpela. And today, what are the three ‘most controversial places in Israel?

Just as it was special then, so too today. The site has not lost any of its sanctity or allure. To the contrary. It must be remembered that Jews (and Christians) were prevented from entering Machpela for 700 year, following the Mameluk expulsion of the Crusaders in 1260, until the return to, and liberation of Hebron in 1967.
Why today do some half a million people visit Machpela annually, with 50,000 during the Succot holidays and this Shabbat some 20,000?

People understand that Hebron and Ma’arat HaMachpela are the roots of the Jewish people, the commencement of monotheism, the beginnings of humanity. Roots must be watered, to prevent them from drying up. Tens and hundreds of thousands of people visiting, identifying with and worshiping at Machpela is a figurative irrigation of these roots, allowing Jews and other believers around the world to soak up spiritual nutrition, so necessary for our being, both individually and collectively, and as people, as a nation.

In reality the wonder of Hebron, of Machpela, and on a larger scale, of all of Eretz Yisrael, is not what was. The amazing facet of Machpela is not that Abraham purchased it 4,000 years ago, rather it is that we are still here today, at that same exact place. How many peoples can say, ‘here we began, thousands of years ago, and here we remain today, not as a memory, but as a living, thriving organism, keeping our past alive in the present?’ I daresay, no one, excepting the Jews, here in Hebron, Jerusalem and throughout Israel.

Hebron is the beginning, the roots of the roots. We know what occurs to a tree should its roots be chopped off. In 1929 we lost Hebron. In 1948 we lost Jerusalem. In June, 1967 we returned to Jerusalem and the next day, returned to Hebron. Hebron and Jerusalem, our heart, our soul, our roots. Our past, our present and our future. This is why our holy city lives on and will continue to live on. This is why so so many people arrive to celebrate the planting of the seeds of our people in the field of Machpela, in Hebron.

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