Last weekend I was invited to what is called a "home class" in the center of the country. The subject I was asked to discuss was the sad and bitter affair of the abductees, our family connection and the struggle for their release. The listeners, if I got the impression correctly, were people who had successfully passed the age of 60. They came in pairs. National religious. Next to the excellent coffee and cheesecakes, they proudly told me that for more than 30 years they have been meeting to hear lectures. I marveled. At the end of the evening, I came home upset and worried.
I met people of their age and financial and family situation who were supposed to make them peaceful and bursting with comfort. But you can't, and I don't want to, ignore the fact that they feel hurt and trampled. They kept saying that their voices were not heard. I became convinced that we would all still have to treat the deep wound of the disengagement. It's a blow that hurt not only the Gush Katif evacuees themselves, but also those who see them as their likenesses. And the pain stems not only from the very displacement, but also from the arrows of ridicule and contempt that journalists and cultural figures have sent at them. They remember every arrow. For every Israeli who dreams of resettling in Gush Katif, there are five who would settle for an honest and painful conversation, including the necessary apologies.
"Say, if October 7 had taken place not in the surrounding communities, but in Samaria, and most of the abductees were religious, how much public empathy would there be? And in the media?"
I don't argue with pain, and the day after we have a lot of work waiting for us on empathy.
• • •
I knew someone there would ask how right it was to talk to a terrorist organization. Negotiate with evil itself. So I began with an ancient story, which I wish to write here as well. This is a story from the Talmud (Babylonian, tractate Ketuvot) about a fascinating man who lived here, in the city of Lod, about 1,800 years ago, and his name was Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi.
Talmudic stories usually have no introduction, but this story begins with the fact that at that time, most sages were very averse to boils and lepers. You could say that a struggle of prestige has developed between them: who will go further away from these unfortunate people. One rabbi did not pass through a street where lepers, and another warned about flies passing by. And since you will always find someone who is even more meticulous - there was also a wise man who made sure not to eat an egg that was likely laid in an alley where a leper passed... Well, you get the point.
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi went against the wind and actually sought the closeness of the lepers. The Talmud says that he was bound after them: He sat with them, brought them closer, and studied Torah with them, contrary to the opinion of the sages of the generation.
The Talmud that tells this story does not seek to belittle these sages. Moreover, they are not anonymous – they are enormous Torah scholars, one of the pillars. Names such as Rabbi Yochanan, Rabbi Yossi, and Rabbi Zira appear in almost every important discussion of the Talmud. Still, this story seeks to point out Ben-Levy, arguing that mainly because of his ability to bring the farthest and love the most maligned, he got to end his life in a legendary, even amusing, way.
• • •
Indeed, on the day of Rabbi Yehoshua's death, the angel of death received an unprecedented order: Do it to him as he pleased, he was told from above. Things, one might assume, did not go well for Mr. Death. He may be a clerk, but a senior official. Who has heard of "at will"? What is it, a program as you request? Where will we end up if everyone ends up in the land of the living however he wants? Angel or not angel - death does not hide his rage.
Angel or no angel - death does not hide his rage, illustration: Nadav Machete
He appears at his doorstep, and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi knows that today he is about to transform from a sage to a sage. But since he won the ticket "as he wishes" - he demands to see first where he is going to go. Right. He then demands that the Angel of Death hand the knife to him (in other cultures this angel has a scythe - Judaism went smaller). It's already a little too much for Death M, and he grumbles loudly. But this instruction is an instruction, and the two do all the way to the border crossing with the ability to kill in the hands of the righteous man. You can actually see him smiling.
When they reach the wall that separates this world from what lies beyond, Ben Levi politely asks the Angel of Death to lift him up a bit so he can take a look. In popular Hebrew they say, "He does death to me" - and this is exactly what Rabbi Yehoshua does to the angel of death. Then, when the old righteous man sits on the shoulders of death, like a child at a fair, just then the righteous man seizes the opportunity - and jumps over the wall to the other side, becoming one of the legendary figures who are said to have passed to the afterlife without a travel form and without the orderly bureaucratic process.
Later in the story, the angel begs him to return the knife. Rabbi Yehoshua makes some fun of him, and only after G-d implores him (humanity needs death!) does he agree and return his tools. But there was a moment in the story when death itself was confiscated by one righteous man, who was unwilling to hear about social boycott or distancing, even to those the whole world was fed up with. If life is good and death is evil, as the Law of Moses declares, then Rabbi Joshua ben Levi is the embodiment of the good man. So on his last day on earth, he gets to climb the Angel of Death, and jump over it.
• • •
I chose to tell about Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi at that meeting for several reasons:
A. The question often arises whether it is right to talk to absolute evil. If it is wise to negotiate with him. If so, I don't give it legitimacy. This is a difficult and honorable question, but this story shows that when a person knows his worth and advantage, he can not only converse with Satan, but also climb it.
B. Because people often ask how we can identify among all the voices and wise ones that are really worth listening to, and this story makes some order. Slander and split - anyone can. It is very easy to build a separatist doctrine of life that turns its back on anyone who is uncomfortable with him. Excommunication and ostracism are the bottom of the human spirit, and anyone with teenage children knows what I. But the future belongs to those who seek battle and bridge, and who are willing to absorb the insults along the way (the Talmudic narrator spares us the part of the insults, but you can bet that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi got hit quite a bit).
C. The first person to tell me this story, with the wonderful image of the elderly Ben Levy literally sitting on the shoulders of the Angel of Death, was Sarit Sussman. The heroic mother who this week marks 30 days since the death of her son, Sergeant Major (res.) Ben Sussman, z"l. Years ago I attended Beit Midrash Elul for storytellers, and it was there that I first met Sarit. With the help of heroes like the Sussman family, who remind us all of the choice of life and the love of life, we will continue to defeat the forces of evil. And like Rabbi Yehoshua, we will take the knife out of their hand.
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