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Muslim demonstrators at the Temple Mount
Yaron London

Primitive extremism

Dream of 'return' prevents refugees from joining Palestinian society

In a letter to the editor of Yedioth Aharonoth last week, a resident of Gush Katif requested his house not be destroyed. He is convinced, he wrote, that one day, not too far in the future, he will return to the home he is being forced to abandon.

 

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who left, or were expelled, from Jaffa, Haifa, Jerusalem and hundreds of more villages and towns, also think they will one day return to them.

 

They carried with them the keys to their homes. They dreamed of returning and wrote poems about the date trees in their gardens and the streams that ran through their grandparents' backyards.

 

One can imagine that even if the Palestinian exile had never happened, the date tree would have still been uprooted, the stream would have been drained and an apartment building would have been built in place of the garden.

 

But disparaged people have a tendency to cling to the past, to dream of a sweet, yet impossible, alternative. It seems to me that this rural romanticism has stood in the way of attempts to absorb the refugees and has weakened them. 

 

Many Jews admire the attachment of the Palestinians to their former homes. They see in it a sign of rootedness that we, the wandering nation, have yet to develop.

 

Religious fanaticism is supposedly also a sign of their rootedness. Many Jews are jealous of the inner power that Arab Muslims draw from their religion, so much so that one minister from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party once said if Israelis want to be tenacious warriors, they must emulate the Shiites in Lebanon.

 

One can see the roots of this jealousy as far back as the first Aliya (1882-1904). The European pioneers were very impressed with the modernism they thought they were bringing to this provincial Ottoman backwater and they were shocked when the "savage" Bedouins reacted violently to the perceived insult to their honor.

 

Temple Mount disease

 

The drive to pray on the Temple Mount, or even to take down the mosques currently there and build the third temple in its place, is part of the primitive, extremist disease. Up until several years ago, these groups included only a tiny number of activists at the fringe of Israel's religious Right. Today, the Temple movement has thousands of followers.

 

The religious justification for not allowing Jews at the shrine is based on biblical ideas of ritual purity. Today, we are all considered to become impure from touching a dead body, a situation that precludes entering the Temple Mount and remedied only by the ashes of a burnt red cow, as the Torah explains in the Book of Numbers.

 

Rabbinic sanction to stay away 

 

Generations of religious scholars have excelled at finding creative ways to enable Jews to live within the guidelines of the Torah, but they have curiously not pushed for a "solution" to the red cow dilemma.

 

Perhaps scholars such as (12th century rabbi and philosopher) Maimonides intentionally avoided finding a "solution" to the red cow prohibition specifically so that the third temple would NOT be built.

 

The longing for the Messiah and the Temple have the ability to raise people to spiritual heights only so far as they remain symbolic, but they can turn tragic if people actually try to realize them. This tragedy is now staring us in the face.

 

I once visited a museum with a friend and fell in love with a particular painting, to the point of fanaticizing about stealing it. 

 

Wisely, my friend talked me out of my grand plan, instead advising, "instead of stealing the painting, which could land you in prison, just declare it yours. After your virtual acquisition, lend it permanently to the museum. That way, you can even feel charitable, save yourself all the insurance payments, and you can come here occasionally to visit your painting."

 

So, too, must it be with regard to the Temple Mount. The Mount is ours, but the fact that Muslims also feel it is theirs need not boil our blood.

 

The sages of yore taught us that Judaism is strongest when Jews concentrate on spiritual pursuits.

 

The Muslims can promise to "redeem" al-Aqsa "with blood and spirit" all they want. We'll save the energy for things that really matter.

 


פרסום ראשון: 04.20.05, 14:57
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