A young neighbor seemed upset about my yellow ribbons, symbolizing identification with our hostages, and approached me. I hadn’t realized his claim that there’s a reason why you see more yellow in the city than on the yishuvim, for the color has been adopted by those who wish to pay any price for hostage freedom, even giving up on the IDF’s hard-earned achievements which have cost us many young lives!
I answered that Rashi brings Chazal (Tanchuma, Shmot 14) davka in this week’s parsha (Shmot 3, 2) stressing that Hashem appeared to Moshe Rabbenu in a lowly thorny bush, to teach that He also suffers when we do, “עמו אנכי בצרה”, “I am with (Israel) in his trouble” (Tehilim 91, 15). As part of our Imitateo Dei, the Rambam stresses that one who isn’t troubled when our nation is suffering, has no share in the world-to-come, even if he seems very “religious”! (Teshuva 3, 20). It’s the least one can do for Jewish unity! This is the concept of “sharing with your friend’s trouble” (Avot 6, 6, see Tiferet Yisrael there: identifying financially, physically and personally), even by just wearing a ribbon.
Yes, there’s room to give people on yishuvim the benefit of the doubt, that in one’s “home”, you don’t need to visibly demonstrate the unanimous and obvious. But this young neighbor’s mistake of “Either .. or”, either you prefer the IDF (blue and white) or the hostages (yellow), falls into the trap of the press and some of our politicians, which is precisely the tragic Jewish disunity which preceded and (according to Hamas sources:) brought this war! Instead of stressing the broad consensus and unanimous principles, that fighting our enemies and saving our hostages obviously go together, they paint those who stress one ideal a little more than the other, as the “other” side. Both “sides” want the identical outcome, both are moral, holy and correct, and just the government has to decide on the practical question: how many murderers to free or not, how much to temporarily pull out of Gaza, or not! We the public, don’t know for sure whether Trump has guaranteed to give us the green-light to resume the battle in Gaza or not, so why quarrel regarding a lot of information we don’t have…?
Yes, there are less (although by no means, no) kipot than nose-rings at the “yellow” demonstrations, mainly because most of us, our sons and our husbands are in milu’im at the front, and our daughters and wives are collapsing from working double! Secondly, because the Kaplan Force and aforementioned press have, to a certain extent wrongly succeeded, in portraying the hostages as a political rift of right-left, for their selfish professional and political desires.
We should definitely not let the Kaplanists claim a monopoly on yellow and love of our hostages. They have been trying for years to take down the Netanyahu governments, so they see this as just another opportunity, but that doesn’t mean we should cooperate. As Hagai Luber and Eli Knoller wrote, it’s even chutzpa for them to forget that our boys (including their two sons) have given their lives for those very hostages! If many non-religious soldiers in the front have begun donning tzitzit, does that mean we religious should stop?! Similarly, if a handful of journalists and divisive politicians unpurposely aid our enemies, by portraying this issue as a society-ripper in Israel, does that mean we should give them that satisfaction? Hashem is sending us educational and THERAPEUTIC exercises, issues of CONSENSUS which could and should unite all Jews internationally (hopefully also LA’s progressive and Bnei Brak and Monsey’s Haredim!). Let’s not pass them up. In kabbalistic terms, He is teaching us that Avraham’s Hessed (morality) and Yitzchak’s Gevura (strength) are supposed to unite in Ya’akov/Yisrael’s Tiferet.
Rav Kook writes in Orot haKodesh, that a pipe must go two-ways. Only if we can see “yellow”, others will be able to see “orange” (the color used to protest uprooting Gush Katif), when necessary. The world is not black OR white, but black AND white, yellow AND orange, all included in blue and white, as well.
BTW, for those who don’t know, Betzalel Smotrich davka wears a yellow pin, and if Ben-Gvir doesn’t, he’s definitely making a terrible mistake!
So I tied even more yellow ribbons on my car and outside my house, connected also with an Israeli flag on each one, which is the unity we must deliberately and consciously (!) seek. Enough with the divisiveness! This unity will pay off militarily and will also free our hostages by not raising their price, as well as deterring our enemies from thinking that we will fight each other instead of them (as we mistakenly did in the time of the Romans and before last Simchat Torah)!
Shabbat Shalom and may Hashem help our leaders reach the best decisions ASAP to bring all our hostages home and chase all of Hamas from our home! 🇮🇱🎗️🇮🇱
Rav Ari Shvat (Chwat)