Thursday, May 10, 2012

Bibi Moves and letting go of things

B'H
Well things have looked up politically in Israel. I feel it is a very positive move that there is now in place a 94 seat strong coalition headed by Bibi Natanyahu in the 120 seat strong Knesset. He has made some interesting and very astute political moves in the last few days. He may still surprise us further.
In all things there is the hand of Hashem if the right keli or vessel is made in this world for it. My viewpoint may not be as sophisticated and knowledgeable as some, but I do feel that we see the way that events are panning out in Israel, big changes are afoot.
They will have to annex Judea and Samaria if Israel is to survive politically and in its entirety. They cannot allow the left wing groups in Israel continue to give away land. Gush katif failed miserably and look what has happened to the towns and communities of southern Israel. daily rocket attacks and the like.
We must remember that Bibi is also now an ovel (mourner) and has recently lost his father Benzion at 102 years old. We all live in the shadow of our parents and when they pass we have to dig deep into emotional resources to see life in a very different light and we understand on a deeper level just how much we depended on them.  We always do miss them, even ten years down the track or twenty years. Especially people who we have not always agreed with, we still gain enormously from the exchange of ideas and different understanding of life and values.
I lost my mother a year or so ago to dementia and that is a grieving process in and of itself. It is actually worst because you have a body, but no mind, just a person who giggles inanely and does not answer your questions and is off somewhere else. A person who will dredge up things from the past about you and your father's family that she can remember and they are all bad. It is worst to lose a person to a failing mind. You need to live with the fact that the person is no longer coherent or making sense. That brings me to my next point.
When people are dead and gone there is not a need to dredge up their 'misdeeds' if they could be called that. It is upsetting to see people's names bandied about and taken out of context and what he did misconstrued. There is a certain Rabbi who I quite loved as a person and his name has been brought into a rather ugly affair in court at the moment.
Yes he could have handled incidents a lot better. But he did not and he is not here to defend himself and that is what is upsetting that these decisions are being slammed in the media and in court. I abhor the actual dragging of his name through the mud. He had a great heart and he more than anyone would have been grieved by this whole mess and would have taken a lot of guilt on himself.  He did a lot of good in the Melbourne Jewish Community and it has to be all wiped out because of one individual who was not behaving like a normal human being. It will be that individual who will  pay the price and his family unfortunately who will lose a father and a son for a while.
We are wiser in handling incidents like this now. We realise that sometimes deviant behaviour in teens and later in life, can be serialised by the perpetrators who if left unchecked get better and better at hiding what they do. It is a sickness that caught early can be cured in many cases. It is like all addictions though and the change has to come from the person themselves.
There are so many good people being hurt in the Melbourne Jewish community and so many individuals who have had their lives tainted by the misdeeds of one man, it should be a lesson to us all and not just in the Jewish community. There are so many people out there who are survivors of abuse and incest and they are coping barely with their lives because of the damage done to them in their early years.
The Rebbe said somewhere that a child is like a seed and if you mark the seed it remains marked in the adult tree. I think in terms of the spiritual and think if only we can through prayer change this world for the better and the individuals within it. The time when tshuva is complete, the offender or one who has hurt individuals has gained the forgiveness of those he has hurt.
That means gaining forgiveness of his family first, the mother of his children, his children, his mother and father, his silbings because he has hurt and let them down and he needs to beg the forgiveness of all those he has hurt - his victims and their families and it has to be sincere.
If another person trys to tell me that this is all about cheap media publicity and money, I will be very very angry. This is not about people with mental problems. This is about real people,  a good frum family and other families who have been deeply deeply wounded by the actions of one man and it was not treated correctly. They were not treated correctly or respectfully.
There are times when I wish the whole world could link up and forgive each other one day. That we could be at complete peace within ourselves. But first we have to go there into a very deep inner space. Few people want to travel there. It is too scary. They have to face themselves and that is often what they run from most.
You only find it when you have reached a point of such utter sorrow that the only thing to turn to is to G-D. You do not ask why. You understand things about yourself and others with such pain searing clarity you can begin to laugh again because it really is not important but it is of such great importance.Therein is the paradox. The Torah is the ultimate essence of life, wisdom and knowledge. We need Torah in our lives and throuogh that is peace. We find our truths each one of us. There are frum people with little Torah at times and there are secular people who are very good people who are closer to the Torah truth than some who have studied it all their lives. Something I do not quite understand but I have seen it. It intrigues me.
Shabbat shalom

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