Chronicles from Home

Part  3

"The Strength Not To Hate My Enemies"

September 15, 2003

For the first time in my life, I am facing some challenges that are truly shaking my soul. Where can I find the strength not to hate my enemies; how can my lips refrain from cursing them; why should I banish the wish that they burned forever in Gehinom?

If HaShem, Himself, blessed Ishmael, how could I curse his sons?  Maybe those monsters who corrupt their religion by pretending to do something holy, when they simply want to kill, are not from Ishmael; maybe they are from Amalek, pretending to be what they are not.

I don't know.  The only thing I know is that, despite my fears, my anger, my despair, I remain, above all else, a Jew, with my Jewish strength and my Jewish weakness.  I pray that the wild beasts unleashed on us will fail to kill us and to change us.  We won't teach hate to our children.  We won't shout screams of joy when they die.  And we won't give up our Land, our gift from G-d, out of fear.

We know that HaShem wants our prayers.  So all day long we pray.  People are reading Tehillim at bus stops, as if they were about to cross an ocean.  And they are, indeed, prepared to cross a sea of fears, tears and pain.

We know that HaShem wants our tears, so all day long we cry.  Every morning, I see the same young soldier guarding her assigned territory.  She is pretty and smiling and my heart is sick with worries for her.  Will I see her again tomorrow?

But we have to try harder and better. 

And we have to try to love each other.  Each time I am challenged by this Mitzvah, I think that whoever is challenging me, at the very least, is, in fact, here.  That is good enough for me.  I feel love and admiration rushing through my veins.  If some people are rude, let them be rude.  They have been at war 24 hours a day for 50 years.  If some people have a nostril ring, so what?  They are my brothers and sisters.  They are my heroes.  They are my people.

The clowns at the United Nations cry for every dying gentile in this world, but never for our 5 month-old baby who made the mistake of being on a bus.  We know better than to expect anything from the Vatican and the so-called European Community.  Nobody cried for our deaths.  And nobody will ever will.

There is only One who shares our pain and our mourning.  Like a father waiting for us to return home, He is waiting for us.  He is our Shield, our Redeemer, and our Savior.

The day is near when only tears of joy will be shed.  It is up to us.


Sara Brownstein