|
|
|
Jewish World Review Sept. 11, 2003 / 14 Elul, 5763 High Holiday Prayers — for my enemies By Jeff Dunetz
‘Getting even’ with the evil ones the Jewish way
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
I sometimes see an old Yiddish curse on Jewish joke websites. It is loosely translated as "May you lose all the teeth in your mount except one, and may you get a toothache in that one tooth" It always makes me smile to read it, even thought I know it really goes against Jewish teaching. You see, the Rabbis teach us that we do not curse bad people, we are supposed to pray that they see the error of their ways and do "teshuvah" which means to apologize and change the way they lead their lives.
With Rosh Hashanah just around the corner, there is no better time to pray to G-d for the people who are responsible for so much bloodshed in recent history. We should be asking G-d to soften the hearts of the people whose hands are stained with the blood of the Twin Tower victims, the groups behind the dead children on the streets of Jerusalem, who are to blame for horrible acts of terror in Russia and Iraq.
Of course I am talking about organizations such as the UN and the EU, groups such as the NY Times and the BBC.
Over the last 20 years Yassir Arafat has slowly edged himself into the legitimate world community. Each time that he was allowed to inch closer to political recognition without giving up his terrorist ways the message the world community was sending to the PLO was clear, terrorism is a legitimate means of political expression. It's like raising children, when you reward bad behavior, you get more bad behavior. Other terrorists, seeing the gains Arafat has made through terrorism, have learned and followed suit.
The United Nations might not have realized it at the time, but when they first invited the Terrorist PLO Chairman to speak before the General Assembly, they were signing a death warrant for over a hundred UN workers in Iraq years later.
Sure it was Al Qaeda operatives who flew the planes into the World Trade Center, but I will be praying that the people who taught them that terrorism was OK, people such as the first president Bush and President Clinton. Some of the blood spilled on that horrible day is on their hands. This holiday season I pray that they will finally understand that every time that there was contact with the Palestinian Authority under Arafat, every time the pressured Israel to negotiate with terrorists, they were moving those planes closer to the Twin Towers.
I also pray for companies such as Viacom, which owns Nickelodeon, and Disney. These companies do so much good work, trying to make children happy. It is such a shame that those companies also own networks that have been responsible for the deaths of so many kids. Networks such as Viacom's CBS or Disney's ABC. Every time one of these networks calls a terrorist a militant, every time they draw a moral equivalence between a homicide bomber targeting children and an assassination of a senior member of Hamas they are legitimizing terror and causing the deaths of more children in the holy land, Palestinian and Israeli.
I have a special prayer in my heart for France once a world leader, a country that taught much of Europe about democracy. Now it is a country that exports a cynical support of terror and anti-Semitism. There is so much blood on their hands. The French government does not even try to differentiate between good and bad terrorism, they don't recognize that terrorism exists at all.
This week Hamas sent two young Palestinians into Israel to kill themselves and as many young Jews that they could. At this writing 14 young people have been killed, countless others injured. The orders came from Hamas but the learning came from others.
With the High Holiday's so close, there is a lot for which to pray.... I pray that G-d will draw me closer to Torah, so that I can be a better person. I also pray that the people who have caused so much pain, finally recognize that they must stop teaching that terrorism is acceptable. Only then can we begin to realize the prayer that is said repeatedly during each service:
May the One who brings peace to the universe bring peace to us and to all Israel, and let us say: Amen.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes uplifting articles. Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Jeff Dunetz is a 20-year marketing veteran, and a freelance
writer. He is married and the father of two kids who ask lots of
questions about being Jewish that he can't answer. Jeff has been
active in Jewish organizations since his USY days. Presently he
is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Dix Hills (Long Island) Jewish
Center.
To comment, please click here.
© 2003, Jeff Dunetz
| ||||||||||
