Each person knows the world through his personal peephole. I, for example, know the workplaces where I am invited to perform or lecture. Like the back of my hand I know them. About 100 cultural halls scattered throughout the country, community centers, libraries and lottery centers.
I get to these places from the back entrance. From the "ramp". From the toiling, sweating, dusty side of life. The audience I will meet will come from the main entrance. The solemn passage of things. From the "foyer" - a monstrous French word that adds a shekel and seventy to the false glamour.
But it doesn't make an impression on anyone. Foyer or ramp - within a minute and a half it is clear where we have come. We've all been in the business for many years, the artists with me – the producer, the stage, sound and lighting people – and within two moments we look at each other and know: Is this place run properly, or was there a political appointment here?
Managing a hall is a profession, and also a matter of character. When the hall is run, then someone is waiting there to ask if anything is needed, the toilets are clean, the artists' rooms have light refreshments and a drinking corner, or at least a whole mirror, and something to hang the shirt on.
Do I need to describe here what a cultural center run by a man whose meager skills amount to "I'm friends with that one" looks like? After the past month, since October 7, is there a single Israeli who needs to be clarified what a system run by someone who may really be friends with that person looks like, but otherwise nothing?
We will return to the halls of culture and the ramp. Real managers know the side of the ramp. When we meet them, we immediately see that they have come to work. They are dressed to work. Say words of work, run around and make sure everything works. The political appointees come to be photographed. They praise themselves and say things like "generalize," but when necessary, they can't be achieved.
If a problem arises, they will not try to solve it but find blame for it. You yourself, probably. When we ask for a bottle of water, they send us to the kiosk at the other end of the street. But at the end of the evening, after it turned out that the performance was a big success and the audience flew, they walk towards us with a huge, empty smile, surrounded by important people from the municipality and the local newspaper, and ask to be photographed and register their rights.
In the past month, all shows have been canceled. Neither a hall nor a foyer. And yet, every day I – and you too – encounter painful reminders of the intolerable gap between a world where things are run by hardworking and loyal workers, and systems that have fallen into the hands of political jobs.
Once the IDF has turned the tables upside down, it's time to think about Israel the day after. Israel, which knows how to learn from its experience, will develop a different political culture and will appreciate not only opinions, slogans and headlines, but also executive ability, professionalism and a deep belief that a public mission is indeed a mission.
• • •
A wise man once said, "There is no joy as the removal of doubts," and I never connected with that sentence. When the picture clears, there is direction and there is something to do, but joy? No woman is happy to find out that her partner is cheating on her, and no parent is happy to find out that their child is indeed associating with criminals.
Many doubts have been allowed in the past month. No joy. We learned something about the infinity of human evil and the hypocrisy of the nations of the world, and many of us who wanted to believe that anti-Semitism was a museum exhibit, imprisoned behind opaque glass panels, had to sober up. But at the same time, we are witnessing points of light and learning something about the infinity of human goodness and fortitude. Great joy about it.
In our home, which has become a war room, we end each exhausting evening, look at each other and agree that there is nowhere else in the world we want to be right now, and there is no other human group with whom we would like to share our joys and pain. Only here and only with you. Us.
Among the most impressive bright spots that have recently glittered here have been the unequivocal appearances of Arab personalities such as Mansour Abbas and Issawi Freij. Their courageous words—and it takes unparalleled courage to stand where they stand—were a beacon of hope and humanity in a time when there was nothing as fragile as these two.
It is quite clear that until our last day we will deal with what has happened here since the Black Sabbath of Simchat Torah. We will be much more careful. Tough and suspicious. No one is going to touch us with any fence, and no one is going to mess with us, or test our patience, say, with incitement.
Judaism has a very strong tendency toward memory and forgetting. I don't think there is any other religion that has laws commanded to remember things (ten remembrances) and laws that are commanded to forget (commandments to forget; "Not a tour"). Part of the effort that must be mobilized right now – that is, all those who do not serve, fight or cook for the families of the evacuees – is to make sure that we never forget. Not the mistakes, nor the tremendous power that can take us to heights.
Among those bright spots, I know we will never forget Abbas and Frej, and others that made me better understand the concept of Abraham's allies that we read in Genesis right now.
We won't forget the bad guys either. Those Israeli Arabs who reacted with joy to the massacre, rape and kidnappings basically said that at the first opportunity that fell into their hands they would be happy to stick a knife in their back. After being immediately fired from their jobs, they still dared to come to the courts armed with jurists who would try to juggle and downplay the seriousness of the matter.
I hope that the referees in Israel also understand that this game is over. True, as soon as they wrote that post they thought that was it. Israel has been decided, the fate of the Jews is doomed, and all the emotional filth can be taken out openly. But the fact that the massacre was stopped and Israel recovered, unfortunate as it may be, cannot be used as grounds for forgiveness. The legal roads exist in the book, and they lead to Allenby Bridge and out. In Israel the day after, traitors of this kind will not think that you can say "oopsie" and come out clean.
• • •
For many years I have been dealing with the connection between this week's Torah portion and current events. The connection never seemed artificial to me. The words, and especially the ideas, always sounded lively and fresh to me. But I admit that trying to find too direct clues to what is happening here and now in the verses embarrassed me a bit.
But in the last four weeks this has been excessive. In the portion of Genesis we heard about Cain, the innocent murderer, and about human evil, which is actually the only example of evil in creation. The portion of Noah began with the fact that "the earth is full of hams," and Onclus translated hams = kidnapped. In Lech Lecha, after we found out which family members had been murdered and who had been kidnapped for two weeks, we read about Avraham, our forefather, who sets out to free his kidnapped family members "and will chase until Dan." After all, Dan is the family name of my wife, who moved from Kibbutz Dan to Nir Oz.
And in the final portion "Vira," when the people of Sodom attack Lot's family home – a mixture of murderous and sexual violence – the verses that detail, in a nerve-wracking way, the attempts of the people of Sodom "went to break the door." Even the righteous Abraham, who tries to find a few innocent people in Sodom, righteous or uninvolved, finally gives up and realizes that there is no choice but to arrange a humanitarian corridor for the Lot family, and out. Without looking back.
shishabat@israelhayom.co.il
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us