As Red Cross patrol cars rushed toward Kerem Shalom, carrying the third group of prisoners who had returned to Israel, I sat at the table, watched TV and ate a stew of roast scourges that I had prepared myself. With bread. Anyone who does not know this dish now grimaces in disgust. What is this word, "scourges". Those who know and know are now filled with warmth and tenderness, and I'm willing to bet they see their grandmother in her memory of blessing right before his eyes. With the good eyes and hands, and with the bone protruding next to the toe of the foot. Grandmother.
Scooters are the cheapest part of chicken. More than wings and powers. In my opinion, there are butcher shops that also pay customers who buy them. No one eats scooters because they love scooters. It is impossible at all to love a thing with such a name. We eat scourge stew to remember grandma and home.
And when I devoured the little circles with the thick sauce and watched the peddlers return, I was overwhelmed with double joy (excuse me, that's just me, just a human being) and thought about the fact that home is a very intense and powerful thing. It is not for nothing that these returnees, who are actually returning to life from the death of Hamas and from fear and destruction, are called to return "home." Everything that has been happening around for the past two months is a story that has a "home": the intrusion of the murderous devils into homes, house-by-house, and the murders and atrocities within the so-called protective houses; And the burning of the houses, and the realization that they are fighting for home, and the heroic warriors who leave home, and the homeless exiles who will soon return to their new home. Everything is home.
And this whole midrash I understood and felt very strongly through, well, stew of scourges. And it was weird to me, and it kind of made me laugh and warmed my heart, so I immediately sat down to write it. And after I wrote it, on Facebook, I looked at it and decided no, I wouldn't post it. Suddenly it didn't seem appropriate to me. Suddenly it seemed to me that I was posting this because I was in love with this idea that flashed in my mind, that you would admit that it may not be the softest victim in the pot but it is not bad at all, and not out of real excitement, and I just abandoned the text and continued eating.
And about this, about this decision, I would like to talk for a moment. I think it's wrong.
• • •
Men and women everywhere and everywhere benefit from the situation, large and small. It happens at all levels. First of all, this is how the world is built. In every situation where there is someone who loses and suffers, there is someone else who gains. I have a good friend who owns a candy marketing company. He always says that the original business was founded by his grandfather, who opened a chocolate shop 100 years ago in the belief that "Chevra Kadisha and chocolate sellers will always have a job."
There are those who make a living even when it is bad. But it's not just that. Chaos is always an opportunity. With my own ears, this week I heard my wise friend Eyal Doron say this. Do not survive, reinvent yourself out of chaos and through it. And so it happens that all those with initiative and inexhaustible energy harness the pepper that is tucked into them even in peacetime for the benefit of wonderful volunteer activity, which besides saving the country is also giving them satisfaction.
Singers write new songs and get downloads and playbacks, and maybe royalties, and along the way excite and do good for everyone, and commercial companies publish the transparent and embarrassing ads about embracing and togetherness and even when it's hard Blue Friday and the network, oh the network! There's nothing like war to hunt attention and followers and likes. And writers and creators like me, who sit at home and freak out, try to relate to the situation, and here and there succeed and the numbers go up. And there is some contentment.
• • •
And you know what the story is? Which is just fine. Just fine. This unwritten deal, built on the premise that the confluence of the drive for good and utilitarian opportunity yields salvation, is a great deal. On which the world stands. Everyone who does, volunteers or volunteers, initiates or initiates, writes, speaks, performs, calms, teaches, entertains – they are holy and pure. And the fact that they derive some benefit from it not only does not detract anything from their actions, it even completes the act into a cosmic synthesis of tikkun olam.
It's not that a bum like me who travels to make soldiers happy and uploads a picture on Instagram (kobiarieli20@) and counts likes stands at the level of the soldiers sitting and laughing in front of him, dirt I am under their feet; But there is certainly no problem here and no interest to comment on. And if the specific health plan wants to remind, through war and tragedy, of its existence and keep itself and its commercial advantages in the air for the day after – that's fine. If along the way it even produces some kind of benefit for the forces or for the evacuees or for everyone - that's complete righteousness. No problem. This is how a corrected world of normal people works.
Therefore, what I described here before that happened to me and my victims is a story of self-righteousness and unnecessary purity. It's perfectly fine for me to say what is in my heart even if it doesn't really come from the Supreme Source of the pure righteous. It's also OK to write something nice for a like, as long as it's good and successful.
• • •
And as with any system, there are scavengers, excuse me. I don't have all the professional data, and it's not an empirical assertion and it's also without names, but there are exceptions. Some of the financial institutions that these days boast the feathers of unity and open hearts are doing just the opposite. Some of the Grace loans currently given to customers by banks are a terrible exploitation and exploitation of an opportunity of distress.
Is a bank obligated to freeze loan payments, stop the interest rate race and ignore the coming months as if they never existed? Not at all. It would have been really nice, and it would have been appropriate for these difficult days and it would have even been very beneficial for him in image and marketing, but he doesn't have to. Between this and vicious deferrals of payments collected at the end of the maturity period with interest and compound interest for the entire period, there is a long distance. And between this and the "generous" offers by financial institutions to postpone principal payments and charge only interest payments during these months, the distance is great. Thousands of customers in distress fall into this trap, and it's really terrible.
I call on my fellow economic journalists to pick up the gauntlet and carefully examine institution-by-institution. The day will come when this destruction will be behind us, and we will have time to praise the banks and financial institutions that did come before the customers and lost, or at least did not profit from their plight, and those who cynically exploited the situation for profits, even for one shekel! And more were quick to post how much they embrace and love. Shame on them. Or in the beautiful language of Ness and Stilla: Taffy on them, nephews of Amalek.
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