MULLINGS
Easterine Kire
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the 30th of June, the search for the three kidnapped Jewish teenagers came to an end with the discovery of their bodies in a field north of Hebron. EyalYifrach, Gi-lad Shaar and NaftaliFraenkel had been abducted on the 12th of June. The funerals for the three teenagers were held in their respective home towns and attended by thousands of mourners. Thousands more attended the burial at Modiin cemetery, and instead of dispersing after the bodies were laid in the ground, the mourners stayed on singing and reciting psalms. The Rabbi Ashkenazi David Lau has beenquoted as saying,
“God tells us, there are things we cannot understand. I wanted to bring you closer to me, says God. And (the past eighteen days) have brought us closer. Closer to the heart, closer to the people, closer to unity among the people of Israel.
We have prayed for days and saw what a nation we have. No one can hurt this nation because it is special.”The Rabbi ‘s words come close to what another Israeli said about her nation: We are not a nation, we are a family.
The kidnapping and search for the three teenagers has united the Israelis not only in Israel, but on a worldwide level, as Jews in different countries gathered to pray for the safety of the boys. The discovery of the three bodies brought the search to a heart-breaking end. Israel’s leaders declared that it was a nation in mourning for their three murdered citizens.
This tragedy has brought up all sorts of narratives. The political narratives insisted that Israel was using the search operation as an excuse to persecute Palestinian civilians. (While the search operations were being conducted by the IDF (Israel Defence Forces), Gaza continued to fire rockets into the south of Israel, killing an Arab-Israeli boy in the event.) Encounters between the IDF and Palestinian civilians resulted in four more deaths of Palestinians. These civilians were shot when they lobbed explosive devices at the IDF. Several caches of hidden weapons were discovered by the IDF in the course of their search operations.
Tensions ran high in Jerusalem when rightist groups shouted for revenge against the killers of the three boys. Shortly after the three funerals, a young Arab teenager was kidnapped and killed, and his burnt body retrieved by police in a Jerusalem forest. PM Netanyahu has come out strongly against this revenge killing, and Israeli rabbis are appealing to people to desist from taking the law into their own hands. In Israel, Jewish individuals and groups found guilty of incitement are being arrested and imprisoned. Many peace-keeping groups are holding rallies to ask for a stop to the cycle of hate in Jerusalem. (Sadly, western media continues to ignore these efforts, both by the Israeli people and by the government to stop racial violence, and by deliberate omission transmit news that only contributes to more incitement of the Arabic world againstIsrael.)
But all the lessons that are emerging are not political. They show the spirit of the people and the deep humanity with which they are coping with this loss. Rabbi and scholar, Jonathan Sacks writes, “Cultures that worship death, die, while those that sanctify life, live on.” He called Judaism supremely a religion of life and stated, “Those who practise violence against their enemies end by committing it against their fellow believers.” Sacks further wrote, ”God lives in life. God must never be associated with death,” and invoked the God of life to teach all humanity to serve Him by sanctifying life.
Shoshana Jaskoll, an American Israeli, wrote that “to be Israeli, is to feel with one heart, to cry with joint tears and to mourn their child as your own.” She voiced the mutual pain they all felt when they read about their partners in peace celebrating the kidnapping of the boys. But, she writes, “we will not break, we will not be defeated. We will stay strong. We will love our children, all of our children. We will go on. We will learn that we are stronger, better, when we are together with one heart.”
The same writer wrote in this manner about the strength of the mothers of the murdered boys,” I am ashamed that they are giving me strength when I should be giving them strength.”
Unity, strength and togetherness from choosing unity. Yes, it is true that the government has declared it will bring the abductors to justice dead or alive, and warned that operations against Hamas will be expanded if need be. It is sadly true that riots erupted following the burial of the three teenagers, and some Israelis and Palestinians were at each other’s throats. And Jerusalem’s authorities are trying their best to contain the anger of its people. In spite of all that, there are things to be learned here.
The greater lesson is in what the people have taken out of the three deaths. We will love more, they affirm. We will stay stronger by staying together. And we will affirm the God of life by placing great value on human life. Every nation can learn deeply from this.
