Sharing the Sorrows with the Joys
A few weeks ago, it hit me how utterly awesome it is that our entire nation shares simchas with each other.
"Simcha" is Hebrew for gladness/happiness, and it's also used to describe happy and joyous events like weddings, baby namings, brits, etc. "Simchas," or "Smachot" ("smay-chot"), would be the plural.
I remember years ago constantly being weirded out when I would say to someone that I was going to a wedding, and I would be told, "Mazal tov!" It wasn't *my* wedding, or my baby... so why were they saying "mazal tov" to me?
Because we, as the Jewish nation, share responsibility for each other. And it's also a commandment to make other people happy at their happy occasions... so the mere fact of being able to attend a wedding is an opportunity to fulfill a commandment. That means it's like a double "mazal tov" for the guest, in a way.
And we do it with genuine joy. Even those events we attend because we feel obligated cause us to feel happiness for the people involved.
It's truly a beautiful thing, then, to understand that wherever we go in this tiny nation, we share our happy occasions, our simchas, with each other.
But there's a flip side to that, as well.
Because it also means that when one person is in pain, we share that. It hurts us when we see other Jews in pain.
Today is the "prisoner" exchange.
As I was watching a cheesy British Biased Corporation (BBC) video of the Hizbullah prisoners being released, I was crying. I was crying for the families of those murdered by the prisoners. I was crying for the families of the kidnapped soldiers. I was also crying for my entire nation, because I am in pain with the belief that this was a no-win situation... but there was a no-win option and a losing option, and I believe we lost.
To use the terms "win" and "lose" seems ridiculous. We're talking about human beings (well, on our side. I have a hard time thinking of someone who dragged a father and his 4-year-old daughter out of their home in the middle of the night, proceeded to shoot the father in front of the girl, and brutally smash the girl's head as a human being), and winning and losing sounds stupid.
This isn't the olympics.
But this is the Middle East. It's a different mentality. The mentality here is hundreds and hundreds of years old. The mentality is that it's important to show your strength in order to deter the other side.
And lucky Israel, we get to be on the losing side of that.
We gave up five LIVE terrorists, along with 199 dead ones, for what appears to be the bodies of two of our kidnapped soldiers and the assorted body parts of 12 more.
Lebanon has declared a national holiday. There will be parades and celebrations for their victory.
We're preparing two funerals.
Kuntar, the vile terrorist, may G-d punish him with all he deserves, will be receiving a State welcome. It's said that Nasrallah might even leave his bunker to welcome him.
I would like to say that at least the families of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev will finally have the knowledge of what happened to their sons/brothers/husbands/friends. But it's hard to find comfort in that, when it seems that this exchange will only make things worse.
If we're releasing five LIVE terrorists and 200 dead ones for two dead soldiers, what will we have to give up for Gilad Shalit, who we believe to be alive? (May he come home safely soon!)
So it's a hard day for Jewish Israel.
May we only have simchas in the future.
"Simcha" is Hebrew for gladness/happiness, and it's also used to describe happy and joyous events like weddings, baby namings, brits, etc. "Simchas," or "Smachot" ("smay-chot"), would be the plural.
I remember years ago constantly being weirded out when I would say to someone that I was going to a wedding, and I would be told, "Mazal tov!" It wasn't *my* wedding, or my baby... so why were they saying "mazal tov" to me?
Because we, as the Jewish nation, share responsibility for each other. And it's also a commandment to make other people happy at their happy occasions... so the mere fact of being able to attend a wedding is an opportunity to fulfill a commandment. That means it's like a double "mazal tov" for the guest, in a way.
And we do it with genuine joy. Even those events we attend because we feel obligated cause us to feel happiness for the people involved.
It's truly a beautiful thing, then, to understand that wherever we go in this tiny nation, we share our happy occasions, our simchas, with each other.
But there's a flip side to that, as well.
Because it also means that when one person is in pain, we share that. It hurts us when we see other Jews in pain.
Today is the "prisoner" exchange.
As I was watching a cheesy British Biased Corporation (BBC) video of the Hizbullah prisoners being released, I was crying. I was crying for the families of those murdered by the prisoners. I was crying for the families of the kidnapped soldiers. I was also crying for my entire nation, because I am in pain with the belief that this was a no-win situation... but there was a no-win option and a losing option, and I believe we lost.
To use the terms "win" and "lose" seems ridiculous. We're talking about human beings (well, on our side. I have a hard time thinking of someone who dragged a father and his 4-year-old daughter out of their home in the middle of the night, proceeded to shoot the father in front of the girl, and brutally smash the girl's head as a human being), and winning and losing sounds stupid.
This isn't the olympics.
But this is the Middle East. It's a different mentality. The mentality here is hundreds and hundreds of years old. The mentality is that it's important to show your strength in order to deter the other side.
And lucky Israel, we get to be on the losing side of that.
We gave up five LIVE terrorists, along with 199 dead ones, for what appears to be the bodies of two of our kidnapped soldiers and the assorted body parts of 12 more.
Lebanon has declared a national holiday. There will be parades and celebrations for their victory.
We're preparing two funerals.
Kuntar, the vile terrorist, may G-d punish him with all he deserves, will be receiving a State welcome. It's said that Nasrallah might even leave his bunker to welcome him.
I would like to say that at least the families of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev will finally have the knowledge of what happened to their sons/brothers/husbands/friends. But it's hard to find comfort in that, when it seems that this exchange will only make things worse.
If we're releasing five LIVE terrorists and 200 dead ones for two dead soldiers, what will we have to give up for Gilad Shalit, who we believe to be alive? (May he come home safely soon!)
So it's a hard day for Jewish Israel.
May we only have simchas in the future.
posted by M at 09:49
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