The two largest political camps in Israel today are closer in behavior to the model of the Second Temple • Certainly they are light years away from free love in the spirit of Menachem Begin and the Gush Katif pioneers

• Praying in the place of destruction

  Photo: 

  Oren Ben Hakon

Twice in the modern history of the State of Israel, the public has received a real and chilling personal example - not just from word of mouth - to the concept of free love. It was the first time in 1948 when Menachem Begin - in front of Altalena, the Irgun's gunboat going up in flames - swore: "Never a civil war." Begin ordered his subordinates to set fire to IDF soldiers, who set fire to the ship on Ben-Gurion's orders. 

Laws of Tisha B'Av and Korona: It is obligatory to wash hands in fasting

For the second time, it was the settlers of Gush Katif who were forcibly evicted from their homes the day after Tisha B'Av, 15 years ago, with no real purpose, in what later turned out to be a colossal security and moral failure of Sharon and his government. The settlers who swore "to win with love," and believed and sowed until the last moment, refrained from raising a hand against his brother. Katif displaced persons continued to enlist and even be killed in the ranks of the army that evacuated and destroyed their homes, even after the deportation. They understood that the state - the national home of the Jewish people, even within limited territorial boundaries - is bigger than any wrong and confused government.

On the eve of Tisha B'Av 5764, many of us are very far from free love and sinners in reverse. The Jewish tradition of the Midrash attributes the destruction of the Second Temple to free hatred. It illustrates this through the famous story of the rich man who invited his beloved Kamtsa to his meal, but his servant made a mistake. Kamtsa, whose face was whitewashed in public when he was removed from the feast in front of all.Jewish history, however, is not required to be reconciled.Joseph son of Matityahu tells of three Jewish armies that fought each other inside Jerusalem during the siege, greatly facilitating the Romans' conquest of the city. The food warehouses intended for the warriors and the inhabitants of the city.

The two largest political camps in Israel today are closer in behavior to the model of the Second Temple, and they are certainly light years away from free love in the spirit of Begin and the pioneers of Gush Katif. No one is clean. Neither Netanyahu nor his opponents. Street language and public existence have become divisive, partisan, accusing, inclusive and contentious. Among many of us, hatred of the other or disagreement with him has become so understandable and inherent that they have become our primary identity definer, with only the opponent and his attitudes defining and shaping who we are.

Thus the normality, and the terminology derived from it, were erased from our private and public code of conduct. It is almost impossible to talk without slander, to argue without grinning, to discuss without "deleting" the other in front of you. What is said quietly - is no longer heard, and what does not include at least a little mud - falls on deaf ears. The argument and the content of their bodies are less and less influential, and the main thing is the level of resonance and the way they are accessible to the public.

The confusion is so heavy that we are sometimes forgotten that there is something greater than the various ways. That alongside the separate still exists together, and alongside the "I" also resides the other, and alongside the tribal war in Jewish society also exists "Together the Tribes of Israel." We will forget with us that there is a great thing in many different ways: that the Jews of this country have a common Jewish color, and a common past and present of Jewish culture and memory and existence, and especially that the whole - the people of Israel - is greater than its parts and disputes. T. Bab is the time to remember that.