Shuvoo Newsletter

Issue No. 2 – January 30, 2006

 

Hevron ...

Where the Heartbeat of the Patriarchs Pulses On.

 

Thoughts on Ancient Times & Current Events by Ashirah Yosefah

 

 

 In recent weeks, Hevron has been in turmoil.  Sadly, the plight of the Jews of Hevron is either overlooked or maligned by the media for the most part – barring Arutz-7.  Children and young people have borne the brunt of inhumane behavior on the part of security forces, while their parents stagger under the heavy burden of a looming forced eviction from their homes in the central part of Hevron near the Avraham Avinu neighborhood and the area of the former Arab shuk.  Men, women and young people have been incarcerated for the slightest suggestion of resistance to the pending loss of their homes and community, while the memories of Gush Katif linger all too vibrant in their minds.  Yehudi lo m’garesh Yehudi – Jews don’t expel Jews.  Well, so we thought, but the reality is some do.  This central area of Hevron, now the focus of another Jewish expulsion, is home to many young families.  They have established a warm and loving community in this area in memory of the innocent life stolen in a tragic terror attack five years ago.  It sits in the heart of the oldest Jewish community in the world, a location twice bestowed to the descendents of Avraham, first by G-d, then by virtue of Avraham’s purchase of the field of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite as the burial site for Sarah and his descendents.  Hevron is mentioned 87 times in Tanach.  It is Jewish to the core.

 

The entrance to Ma’arat Machpela in Hevron.

(The Cave of the Patriarchs)

 

Hevron still retains its tangible sense of antiquity.  It sits at the base of a ‘spiritual spine’ that stretches the length of Eretz Yisrael from Hevron through Jerusalem on to Shechem.  Avraham, Sarah, Yitzchak, Rivkah, Ya'akov, and Leah were buried in Hevron, King David in Jerusalem, and Yosef in Shechem.  This ‘spiritual spine’ vibrates with the eternal consciousness of these Tzaddikim of Jewish history; ancestors of the Jewish people who have continued to share their vitality and their ageless wisdom throughout the centuries. 

 

Hevron tangibly throbs with the heartbeat of the Patriarchs.  Avraham built an altar to Hashem there and dwelt there (Bereshith/Genesis 13:18).  It is a place revered by Jews everywhere.  Thousands of Jews travel to Hevron every year to pray in the tiny synagogues now housed in the large building that Herod built over the Cave of Machpelah more than two thousand years ago.  Paradoxically, most of the imposing structure is off-limits to Jews much of the year, but open to Arabs.   The "Yitzchak Room", a main hall near the room that tradition locates as being over the tomb of Yitzchak, is only open to Jews on Yom Kippur and perhaps once or twice more each year.  Despite the glaring inequity of such restrictions, Jews gather at Ma’arat Machpelah daily to daven and to study Torah.

 

Men study Talmud inside Ma’arat Machpelah

 

Hevron is a "hot spot" in Israel these days – not that it has ceased to be a proverbial bone of contention throughout the ages to Israel’s enemies.  The descendants of Ishmael contend furiously that it is theirs, not Israel's, and they continue to fight long and hard to eradicate Jewish presence from Hevron.  The tragedy that now faces us is that Ishmael’s subversive battle has reinforcements from amongst the rank and file of Israel’s government and security forces. 

 

Following the 1929 Massacre, a Jewish presence in Hevron was not restored until

after the Six Day War, with a permanent Jewish community being re-established

in 1979.  During the years that Hevron temporarily lacked a Jewish presence,

the Avraham Avinu Synagogue was used as a goat sty.  It took more

than a decade to restore it to the uniquely charming place

of prayer and worship that it is today.

 

 

In the Avraham Avinu neighborhood of Hevron, a vibrant Jewish community clings to each other and to their land.  They have paid dearly for this piece of their inheritance.  It is not easy living in an area where Arab snipers regularly set their sights on them from the hillside across the way.  It was here on March 26, 2001, that Yitzhak and Oriya Pas, two Jews who chose to settle in Judaism's second holiest city, were taking their 10-month-old baby for a stroll.  From the Abu Sneineh hills, a hundred or more yards away, a Palestinian Arab sniper put the baby's head in the crosshairs and killed her with a single rifle shot.  The little girl's name was Shalhevet ... which means "flame". 

 

Shalhevet Paz was murdered but a few yards up the lane

from this playground in the Avraham Avinu neighborhood.

 

The flame of Shalhevet’s young life was brutally extinguished by murder, but the "flame" of her pure soul lives on.  It is part of the fuel that sustains the passion of the Jews of Hevron.  The sniper attacks, the killings, and the stonings have not dampened their resolve to build and to live in vibrant communities close to the burial place of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, where they can continue the tradition of Torah-based lives.  How tragic that what Arab guns, bombs and stones failed to do, a hardened national consciousness appears willing to let occur.  The base of the spiritual spine of Eretz Yisrael is about to experience destruction at the hands of Jews.  And just as we read in Parashot Va’iera and Bo of Pharaoh’s heart growing progressively more calloused with the passing of each plague, the hearts of those who purport to lead this country grow colder still.  Gush Katif … Hevron … One has to wonder, will there be any compassion left to save Jerusalem?