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Last Updated: Nov 10th, 2005 - 19:31:01 |
A full version of this letter with photos is online at:
http://www.shechem.org/elon-moreh/enewsl21.html
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Newsletter Shvat 5765
Shalom to all those out there!! I hope that all is well with you.
We're all fine here in Elon Moreh. The kids are great, and the baby is really growing up. It's so nice to watch her developing, and seeing how the other kids relate to her. My second youngest, Yeshurun, has taken well to her, and helps me a lot! I was the most worried about him, but he seems to have adapted. I'm trying to deal with severe sleep deprivation, but that's nothing new! It's just hard to go to teach, when the night before I went to sleep at one o'clock in the morning when my little darling decided to settle, and got up a couple of times after that! Never mind, I'll have plenty of time to sleep when my kids grow up and leave home. Hang on, that could be in another twenty years, and by that time my kids will probably be leaving the grandchildren at our house so that THEY can get some sleep!! Oh well, I'll make do! As they say, we should only have HAPPY worries!
My eldest son now has a driving license. He worked over the summer to make money for his lessons, and he passed first time! In Israel a new driver has to drive with an adult escort for three months, and I've gone out with him a few times to give him some practice. Now I can ask him to go to the shops, drive the kids to their friends etc. It's just a bit difficult that he's learning in Yeshiva, and not at home, but I'm sure that in the holidays he'll be prepared to chauffeur his siblings wherever they want! It's scary to give him the car keys, but I trust him 100%, and I'll have to get used to this new demonstration of adulthood! My kids are growing up!
We are now in the middle of the Jewish month of Shvat, and tonight we celebrate two things. One is the holiday of Tu B'shvat. This is the New Year for trees, and amongst other things, it symbolizes the beginning of the period of the trees budding and starting to flourish again after the winter. After the winter??? I hear you say. Aren't we in the throes of winter right now? Well yes, we are. (You should have heard the winds howling here last night!!) But that's the beauty of it. Just in the thick of winter, when it's freezing cold and bucketing down rain, the trees start to bloom and to reaffirm the cycle of life. Hashem wants to show us that even when it seems impossible to continue onward, when it seems impossible to summon the necessary energies to develop, that's when the trees defy the odds, and the elements, and commence their journey of growth. I love this period, as nearly every day you can see the trees beginning to bloom, and watch them flower.
Of course, you didn't think I was only going to talk about trees, did you? We can watch nature in order to try to make a little bit of sense about what's going on in the Holy Land. As you all know, we are suffering in this country from collective amnesia, and a peculiar situation called "let's-give-the-arabs-everything-so-the-world-will-think-we're-really-nice-guys." This is a particularly nasty disease that causes needless deaths and injuries of Jews, as well as the relinquishing of national land. It causes total blindness to the traits of the other side, and if, for some reason, we become aware of them (by some terror attacks, for instance), then we quickly deny them, punish those who are not blinded, and rush to give in some more to keep the quiet. As you can tell, I'm not one of the blinded, and I'm very worried about the direction this country is taking. However, if we return to our analogy of the trees budding in winter, then all becomes clear. We are presently in a lo!
ng and
lonely winter, with winds and storms around us. In the midst of this, our trees are flowering. We are continuing to build the Land of Israel; we are continuing to teach our children the Torah and love of the People of Israel, despite efforts from without and within to stop us. It's no coincidence that the next festival is Purim, when our enemies' plans to bring a holocaust upon the Jewish People were thwarted, and the one after that is Pesach, when we reach the redemption. History DOES repeat itself, and we hope to reach the redemption soon!
Now, I mentioned above that we celebrate two things on Tu B'shvat. The second thing is that this is the date that Elon Moreh was founded, twenty five years ago. If you've rummaged around the Elon Moreh web site, you'll know that it took eight attempts before the Elon Moreh nucleus was finally allowed to settle where we are today. There was a big storm in the country about this, and guess who helped the founders of the settlement? Mr. Arik Sharon himself!! Yes, who would believe that the person who single-handedly built up the settlement enterprise would be the one to pull it down, G-d forbid? However, as we know that when things look dark it's exactly the time that life is reaffirmed, we can see that although things look hopeless, we are sure that this period of cold will pass, and we will come out of it strengthened, and with new power!! I hope that Elon Moreh will be at the forefront of this, just as we have always been the spearhead of the settler movement.
I hope that you're all making plans to come to Israel in the near future. Now's the time to visit, and we'd love to see you here! Please come to Elon Moreh so that you can see first-hand what's going on here.
Lots of love
Sara
© Copyright 5764, 5765 by author and Tsel Harim
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