DebbieWinks – Debbie’s Blog from Israel #16

We would like to create a separate distribution list for Debbie’s blog. Please reply if you would like to be on the list.
Thank you.
Yossi

DebbieWinks — Blog #16 — April, 2024

Blog #16

Last week I drove to Netanya, a coastal city located around 25 kilometers southwest of Pardes Hanna, to fetch my vacuum cleaner that had been in repair and now ready to be picked up.

Luckily, I found an available parking spot right near the shop. Upon arriving there was a line up of people outside with cleaning appliances to drop off or pick up. I waited patiently to retrieve my faithful vacuum cleaner that we bought on sale and paid the same price for repairing it! There were two filters that were clogged and needed to be replaced. Yossi and I deliberated whether to pay for the repair or to buy a new vacuum cleaner, yet we decided to stay faithful or foolish to the original carpet/floor cleaner.

We are now approaching the most celebrated Jewish holiday -Passover. It is a holiday celebrating, commemorating, and reading the story about the Israelites’/ Hebrews’ exile from Egypt, from slavery to freedom. It is customary or for some, obligatory, to orchestrate different degrees of spring cleaning. And for those that adhere to strict Jewish Orthodox rules, a time to scrub down everything in sight or on site whether in the house, car, office etc.

When I arrived back home, I eagerly unwrapped the bubble paper that bound the vacuum cleaner. I got the manual out and started to read about how to look after and effectively use the AGM model vacuum cleaner. After a quick glance at the manual I reverted to write the list of the cleaning projects to get done before Passover. The goal is to have a clean organized home ready to start fresh physically and mentally in anticipation of the Passover Seder night that marks the beginning of the eight-day Jewish holiday. Funnily enough, I saw a connection between the vacuum cleaner and its’ dirty and clogged filters to our present-day world of chaos.

In an organized fashion we will soon be sitting around the Passover table with friends and family to retell a historical story of the Hebrews in bondage in Egypt and their ultimate exile to freedom. This story called in Hebrew ‘The Haggadah’ has many angles of interpretation and newer innovative customs that have been introduced. Regardless of which Haggadah you will be reading from, the deadly horrors of October 7th 2023 are on our individual and collective minds. The harrowing and heroic stories are alive, vivid, wounded and buried.

We ask many questions during the Passover Seder storytelling. There are still hostages in Gaza, leaving our souls wounded and gaping, reminding us of the ongoing suffering of their Hamas bondage. The memories are still fresh of the unfathomable barbarism that happened 6 months ago against the Jewish state. The heroic stories of the Israeli citizens Jewish, Druze and Arab represent the abominable spirit alive in this country. These are acts of pure altruism depicting the war of the forces of goodness against those of pure evil.

Our present reality post October 7th that has spread worldwide and especially in American and Canadian academia has many who support Hamas’s actions and to our horror also deny the stories and facts. The overwhelming streams of information that is carpet bombing our world on social media is indeed a dirty game promoting Antisemitism. We all have the daunting task of filtering the narratives influenced from fake news to the search for facts that sift and reveal truth telling. I just heard on the radio that in countries such as Finland and New Zealand they are combatting this social media war with educational tools to help students think critically with an understanding of historical unbiased contexts. I urge you all to check out on YouTube the lectures of an informative historian Haviv Retting Gur.

Accounts of the historical story of Passover retells the famous repeated plea of the leader of the Hebrews. “Let my people go” pleaded Moses to Pharoah.

And in this modern digital era of chaos can we let go of the following:

* Let go of the shackles of fake news and begin to work with just and critical filters of thinking.

*Let go of our addictions to our screens and phones and if you are enslaved to these devices then make them more transparent, cleaner, and clearer.

*Let our ancestral and modern-day stories be told now and forever honoring our past and our present.

*Let us painstakingly rebuild a much better future for our next generation in our beloved conflicted Israel and beyond.

And let us continue to fight for sovereignty and our right to exist as a Jewish people that came back to their ancestral land as refugees.

Let us continue to cry a sea of salted tears and do not let go of the fight.

LET THEM GO!

BRING THEM HOME NOW!

Rachel Devorah

Israelis: The Jews who lived through history