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I Believe in Sleeping Beauty (1)

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Once upon a time an evil witch cursed the princess.  On the princess's fifteenth birthday she climbed up an old tower, pricked her finger on a spinning wheel, and immediately fell into a deep sleep.  The king and queen fell asleep as well, as did the horses, the dogs, the pigeons on the roof, and the flies on the wall.  Thorny rosebushes grew tall and spread around the castle, concealing it from view. 

 

     One day a prince arrived in the country and heard from an old man about the castle hidden behind the thorny rosebushes, and that inside the castle the beautiful princess lay sleeping.  He also heard that many had attempted to awaken the sleepers, and had lost their own lives in the attempt.  The prince was not afraid.  He reached the castle.  The thorns made way for him but closed up after him, the dangers of the enchanted castle threatened him as well, but he was not deterred.  He reached the tower and found the sleeping princess.  He kissed her and she awoke.

 

     The prince and the princess married and had children.  The sleeping beauty is the Land of Israel.  During the years of exile, it was asleep, and its castle was overrun with brambles and wasteland.  Both vegetation and animals disappeared.  Was this indeed the same princess who was described as a land flowing with milk and honey? The prince, the Jewish people, believed in the legend and awakened the slumbering princess. 

 

The Love of the People and the Land

 

Today we use the term homeland.  The Bible and our Sages used another term: "Mother."  The Land of Israel, Zion, is a "mother," and our Sages play with this term.  However, the true relationship between the Jewish people and Zion, as it is expressed in the spirit of the nation, cannot be understood unless we add to the mother relationship a relationship of love and marriage between Zion and the Jewish people.  Avraham reaches Jerusalem led by the heavenly call, "go...to the Land which I will show you" (Genesis 12:1), like one who is unconsciously drawn to a mysterious being.  The yearning, the love whose vague image appeared in our dreams, gave meaning to our lives.

 

     The relationship between the nation and the Land is one of love.  This relationship has lasted for over a thousand years, and Jerusalem was and remains at its core.  The destruction of the Temple and the years of exile have distanced the Jewish people from their land.  This was the basic tragedy.  But a deeper tragedy took place when the conquerors were not satisfied with separating the lovers, and tried to erase the love itself, its remains, its memories, even its name.  The Romans were not satisfied with building a shrine to Jupiter in the Holy Temple.  They felt the need to change the very name of the land.  The Philistines - a nation no longer in existence at the time - called it Palestina.

 

     This name represents the battle against the love between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel.  The conflict with the Romans, like the earlier conflict with the Philistines, was at its core a conflict between nations.  Judah's rebellion was the uprising of a nation that preferred freedom over the oppressive peace of Rome.  Yet even then the conflict had connotations that strayed beyond the political plane.  However this was a conflict between strangers.  When Abraham became the "Father of Many Nations," and his faith spread beyond the boundaries of his nation, even more tragic chapters were added to the annals of this love.

 

     The Scriptures have become, in one way or another, the inheritance of all of humanity.  Scriptural terms and concepts became the foundations of both Western and Eastern civilization.  Christianity and Islam both see themselves as the ultimate heirs of Judaism, the ones who will fulfill the Universalist idea.

 

     However, Christianity and Islam did not battle Judaism from the outside.  The tragic irony from the perspective of Judaism lies in the fact that the descendants of these religions did not feel it was enough to establish religious centers in Rome and Mecca.  They received much of the content and symbols of their religion from Judaism, but were not satisfied.  They saw themselves as legitimate inheritors of the father, and in an Oedipal act wished to conquer the Mother, Jerusalem.  The murder of the father, the Jewish people, was carried out in various ways, some biological, some theological.  There were those who persecuted the Jews passionately.  More tolerant theologians satisfied themselves - like Cham the son of Noach in the Aggada - with castration of the father.  He is allowed to remain alive merely as an aged witness, who cannot even die until he witnesses the success of the son who has risen against him.  To the political conflicts, the most difficult conflict was added: religious conflict. 

Translated by Gila Weinberg

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