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From
Eliyahu
There is a special joy that comes over people who have been to the edge and back. When I was a teenager I had an incident like that. I was showing off, as teenagers sometimes do, having climbed up a vertical rock face. My problem was that I got stuck about 10 feet from the top. It was a sheer drop of at least a hundred feet, with jagged rocks at the bottom. There was no going up or down, and the little branch growing out of a crack in the rock that I was clinging to was starting to pull loose. I realized I probably was going to die. The person I was trying to impress, my older brother, was down below. Now, I was reduced to yelling to him for urgent help. He looked around in the rubble for something that might be useful, and found an old rusty cable. In a desperate attempt to save my life he climbed to the top of the cliff above me by an easier route around another way. He twisted a loop in the end of the cable and dangled it over the edge down behind me. In an impossible move I could never duplicate again I managed to jump and put my foot in the cable as I clawed my way up the side of the cliff. He pulled as I clawed and in seconds I was over the edge and on the top of the cliff. My brother and I were gripped with relief and joy as we hugged each other and rolled around on the grass, laughing like fools. I was filled with joy, just being alive.
As I had done that day at the cliff, at Sinai Israel had made a horrible and stupid mistake that had brought them to the edge of oblivion. Just as my brother stood in the gap for me, Moses had stood in the gap for them. As I was saved from my own stupid behavior by my brother, and by YHWH that day, so was Israel saved at Sinai. In the Midrash this week we find YHWH bringing joy to those humbled Israelites - the incomparable joy of a second chance.
Blessings and Shalom!
Eliyahu ben David
www.tsiyon.org
PS - Many of us have a vital interest in the relationship of the USA and the state of Israel. The recent article below from the Jerusalem Post gives a sobering Israeli perspective.
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Candidly Speaking: Obama-Netanyahu rift is unbridgeable
03/09/2014 21:39
Netanyahu and Obama shake hands at start of Oval Office meeting, March 3, 2013 Photo: REUTERS
In an
unprecedented breach of diplomatic etiquette,
President Obama once again sandbagged Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. In a carefully
orchestrated interview with Jeff Goldberg, a
columnist for Bloomberg, released a few hours
before the prime minister’s arrival in the US,
Obama reverted to his May 2011 role as an Israel
basher and engaged in personal savaging and
humiliation of Netanyahu.
This despite Netanyahu’s intimation that Israel
intended to adopt the Kerry framework, albeit
with reservations.
Obama accused Netanyahu of leading his country
toward disaster, condemned the “more aggressive
settlement construction” and rhetorically asked,
“Do you resign yourself to what amounts to a
permanent occupation of the West Bank?” He
effusively praised Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas – who had rejected prime
minister Ehud Olmert’s offer for 97 percent of
territories over the Green Line and refused to
even conduct negotiations unless Israel released
mass murderers whom he currently fetes as
heroes. Obama made no reference to Palestinian
intransigence and total unwillingness to
compromise.
Obama’s most ominous remark was a veiled threat
that unless Israel made further concessions, the
US would be limited in its ability to protect
Israel from “international fallout” at the
United Nations and other international bodies.
Some allege that Obama was playing a “good cop,
bad cop” routine with Secretary of State John
Kerry, who despite his earlier role conveying
similar intimidating threats against Israel was
now reverting to a pro-Israel posture. The more
likely explanation is that in the absence of
another election, Obama no longer feels obliged
to be nice to Israel and is unconstrained in
promoting his biased outlook.
To Netanyahu’s credit, he retained his cool and
avoided directly confronting Obama’s offensive
remarks. He said that “Israel has been doing its
part, and I regret to say that the Palestinians
haven’t.” He added, “The tango in the Middle
East needs at least three. For years, there have
been two – Israel and the US. Now it needs to be
seen if the Palestinians are also present.”
Reiterating his desire to achieve a peace
settlement, he nevertheless emphasized that he
would resist any pressures that could compromise
Israel’s security needs.
In the midst of this, the Ukraine crisis
exploded and Obama’s impotent response again
highlighted the dramatic retreat of the US from
the world stage.
Obama’s incompetence and failed diplomacy led to
the debacle in Syria which, combined with his
misguided support of the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt, paved the path for Russia to resume its
role as a central player in the Middle East.
Obama’s courting and appeasement of extremist
adversaries like Iran and his alienation of
friends, and hollow threats, have convinced
traditional allies that the United States has
become a paper tiger and can no longer be relied
upon.
Many regard Obama as even more ineffective than
president Jimmy Carter.
However, when faced with another insoluble
maelstrom in the Ukraine and humiliation at the
hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin and
requiring congressional support, Obama must have
realized that it would be somewhat bizarre to
launch a new confrontation with a democratic
ally.
At the joint press meeting with Netanyahu, Obama
gushed that “we do not have a closer friend or
ally than Israel and a bond between our two
countries and our two peoples is unbreakable.”
In a 360-degree reversal, he commended
Netanyahu’s efforts and praised him for having
“conducted these negotiations with the level of
seriousness and commitments that reflects his
leadership.”
Netanyahu responded indirectly to Obama’s
earlier outburst stressing that “the best way to
guarantee peace is to be strong and that’s what
the people of Israel expect me to do – to stand
strong against criticism, against pressure,
stand strong to secure the future of the one and
only Jewish state.” He emphasized that “what we
want is peace – not a piece of paper... a real
peace... based on mutual recognition... a peace
that we can defend.”
He urged Obama to cooperate with Israel to
prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons. He
concluded with formal praise of President Obama
and especially John Kerry for their tireless
efforts to promote peace.
After the meeting, according to news agency AJP,
a senior administration official described the
talks as “not as contentious as on previous
encounters” and said that the president told
Netanyahu that he would “push Palestinians” to
match any Israeli concessions.
And so we witnessed an extraordinary reversal.
At the subsequent AIPAC conference, Kerry was
effusive in his praise of Israel and Netanyahu.
He called on Palestinians to recognize Israel as
a Jewish state and stressed that Israel could
not compromise its security.
In his AIPAC address, Netanyahu made scant
reference to the president. He restated the
danger of a nuclear Iran, reiterated the need
for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a
Jewish state and refused to compromise on
security issues. The bulk of his speech was
devoted to passionately conveying his desire to
reach a settlement with the Palestinians,
stressing the great economic, political and
social benefits that peace would bring to Israel
and the region. The speech reflected the
centrist position that he had adopted and thrust
the onus on the Palestinians. It was an
extraordinary display of good diplomacy, for
which Netanyahu deserves full credit.
Yet we should be under no illusions. Despite the
ultimate ritual exchange of diplomatic
pleasantries, the negative chemistry and
ideological differences between President Obama
and Prime Minister Netanyahu seem unbridgeable.
Obama’s calculated savage outburst against
Netanyahu prior to his arrival stands in stark
contrast to the soft and engaging language he
consistently employs toward leaders of rogue
states like Iran. Despite the chaos and
bloodshed engulfing the Middle East and other
parts of the world, Obama remains obsessed with
beating up Israel. His latest outburst
reinforced the concerns of most of the Israeli
public that he lacks any real understanding of
the situation and confirmed their estimate of
him as the most hostile US president Israel had
ever encountered.
Israel will go through the ritual of approving
the Kerry framework agreement with major
reservations. If the Palestinians do likewise,
negotiations will continue, although nobody will
be holding their breath in expectation of a
positive outcome in the short-term.
The best achievement would be an agreement to
concentrate on interim solutions until such time
as the Palestinian people and their leaders are
genuinely willing to engage in peaceful
coexistence.
But for the next two years while Obama is in
office, there must be a concerted effort to
retain American public and congressional support
in order to deter the current administration
from implementing Obama’s threat to stop
protecting Israel at the United Nations and
other anti-Israeli dominated international
forums.
In addition, we must not become complacent about
the special military assistance and cooperation
we receive which was even strengthened by the
Obama administration and remains crucial for the
IDF to retain a qualitative advantage against
its adversaries.
To this end Israel must seek to minimize public
disputations with the administration and
strengthen our standing amongst the American
public. AIPAC must endeavor to retain the
support of a bi-partisan Congress.
We must also continue to demonstrate our
willingness to reach a reasonable accommodation
with the Palestinians if their leaders come to
their senses – a highly unlikely eventuality.
As we witness the consistent US abandonment of
its major allies culminating with the ongoing
Ukraine crisis, it is now evident that under
Obama, it is unlikely that the US will resort to
military power to defend its friends. In this
climate, most Israelis would endorse Netanyahu’s
determination not to compromise on security or
be willing to subcontract areas controlled by
the IDF to any third parties, including NATO.
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