A Memorial and Monument for Eliahu Asheri
by Prof. Eugene Narrett - copyright 2006
With Operation Summer Rains, the fabric-softener incursion, morphing into its less limp sibling, Operation Bashan Oaks something and someone are being forgotten who should not be forgotten at all: the death of Eliahu Asheri, the youth who was kidnapped at the Ofra hitch-hiking stand and then murdered by Arabs — one of them disguised as an orthodox Jew — in Bir Zeit just west of Ramallah.
The Israeli media and world media frequently mentions Cpl Gilad Shalit, the kidnapped soldier who is the ostensible reason for the IDF incursion into the Gaza Strip; the Asheri youth, living in Itamar since he was a toddler is nearly forgotten except for blaming him for being where the media says he shouldn’t have been, in Ofra heading home. To those who determine the offical truths of our day, neither he nor any Jews should be in Yehuda or the Shomron at all.
The youth was a “settler” one of those Jews responsible, we’ve been told, for jihadist violence (don’t mention the homicidal treacheries, financial gifts to terror states and deals of West powers, Russia or China), and therefore he more or less invited his own murder, is the official story. So they forget him. His murder raises issues they don’t intend to discuss.
This is horrible but not new: for thirty-five years the Israeli establishment has joined or led the world in blaming Jewish settlers for Arab violence and for most of the miseries of the world. This is very convenient for the dysfunctional, theft and murder-based autocracies that control nearly all the peoples of the global ‘community.’ The more dysfunctional the culture, the more openly and frequently its rulers and/or population blame the Jews, especially the Jews of the Jewish heartland for all the world’s problems.
How interesting that our super-tolerant days and culture thus have effectively banned Judaism which requires Jews to settle the entire Promised Land, and make it flourish. And although they have made flourish all parts of it to which they have returned, the world seems hell-bent on insuring that Jews are to live in a ghettoized Israel or in the exile, — or not at all.
If only the Jewish problem could be solved, they imply or assert, then there would be peace and security and prosperity… It’s an old, stupid and vicious story.
Many reports state that Eliahu Asheri was a youth of intense prayer. And many say that his legacy is even more Jewish prayer and focus on prayer as the essence of Judaism and answer to the world’s problems. This is genuine and sweet, very unlike the previously summarized solutions to the world’s problems but it is tragically misdirected. It reflects distortions ground into Judaism during the long centuries of exile.
The Eternal One gives human beings free will. He does not micro-manage their affairs. Our dignity and task is to know that our deeds, words and thoughts have consequences and they therefore must be considered and interpreted carefully. There are several lessons in the murder of that youth, but Hashem’s wanting his prayers ‘closer’ to him is not one of them. Sincere prayer is always singularly ‘close’ to and beloved of Hashem.
Judaism is a derech, way of acting in and moving through the world that unites deeds and faith. Since Israel’s existence as a nation, at Sinai, this defining mixture has emphasized deeds first and later understanding. Not prayers first, deeds first (”we will do and [then] we will understand”). So it was at the Sea of Reeds when the Eternal One told Moshe and all Israel to stop crying out to Him but instead to jump into the sea and start walking. Deeds come first, they demonstrate faith.
Active faith led (and leads) to victory. So it was with the first great national victory still commemorated every day when Jews recite the “Song of the Sea” (Exodus 15) which demonstrates the Eternal One’s view of the appropriate Jewish response to the destruction of the enemies of the Jewish people.
It was not long after that defining event of the nation that a similar crisis occurred: Amalek attacked the people, a sneak attack, from the rear upon the weak and unprepared. The response: deeds by the national host, everyone 20 - 60 years of age led into battle by Joshua, and prayer by the leading elders, principally Moshe assisted by Aaron and Hur. The result: victory for the Jews (decimation of Amalek) and the positive commandment that every Jew must REMEMBER the hostility of Amalek, the enemy of the Jews because Hashem demands in every generation that we blot them out from under heaven: “remember, don’t forget!â€?
The Jewish response to the kidnapping and murder of the beautiful youth is to destroy Amalek beginning with Ramallah and Bir Zeit. The presence of these plague sores in the Land of Israel disgraces the Eternal One, mocks His word and plan, and is a source of constant mortal peril and distress for His people. Anyone who genuinely wants peace knows that the home bases of those who preach and practice murdering Jews must be obliterated.
All Arab towns, villages, and cities from which issue murderers or would-be murderers must be flattened. Recall how the prophet Samuel addressed King Saul and how he punished him for failing to destroy Amalek totally; consider how David addressed Goliath who dared to humiliate and threaten to roll back the inheritance of the children of Israel. Attack, pursue and destroy the enemy. In this, David, living and eternal king, remains our model: “I pursued my foes and overtook them and returned not till they were destroyed. I struck them down and they could not rise…I pulverized them like dust in a storm” (Psalm 18:38-43).
The best memorial and monument to Eliahu Asheri consists of complementary parts whose enactment will sanctify Hashem and begin to raise the fallen booth of David. Deeds show faith; the essential deed is to build the Land so Torah shleimah, the Torah of integrity and completion, not Torah galut can be practiced in it
First, destroy Ramallah and Bir Zeit because their denizens have destroyed so many Jewish lives. It is there that they teach and exalt murder including in their university which hosted an ‘art exhibit’ celebrating the bombing at the Sbarro restaurant. “Pour them out like mud in the street”; flatten them like the Jewish towns in Gush Katif were flattened and drive any survivors across the Jordan. Let the CIA’s man Abdullah (temporarily in Amman) deal with them, or let him go back to Mecca whence his family was plucked by the British.
Next, drive all the Arabs from the Gaza strip. Make amends for the omission of thirty-nine years ago, a failure of national will and integrity that has cost many lives and now threatens to take down the entire state. The Gaza strip, a relic of Egyptian imperialism and global Jew-hatred should be emptied of Arab savages raised to despise, humiliate and murder Jews. Drive them all out with fire and storm, remember Amalek, and then rebuild the entire area with fifty Jewish towns from Rafiach Yam to Netiv HaAssara, contiguous, beautiful, flourishing, productive and joyous, a blessing on the world.
Honor Eliahu by building up Itamar to a town of many thousands of Jews stretching from Tapuach to Elon Moreh, and assist them in establishing thousands of flocks and productive orchards, a model and precedent for the reclamation and flourishing of all of Judea and Samaria, a paradise of harvest plenty, bird song and joy. Jews will walk, hitchhike, sow, reap and picnic where ever they wish, and no one will make them afraid.
These are fitting memorials and monuments to Eliahu Asheri and the thousands before him who have had their precious lives needlessly cut short. “Neither the dead can praise G-d nor any who descend into silence, but we will praise…” (Psalm 115:17-18). The living will praise not mainly with words but with deeds whose fruits sing their own essential praises forever (psalm 104). His and our souls “will sing and not be stilled” when these living memorials to the fulfillment of the Promise are established.
Not xtian science or abstractions but active faith, Jewish faith put into deeds fulfills the promise and brings victory, the wholeness without which there never will be peace.
EN