Visit the Gush

Amital died last Thursday and Friday he was buried in the rocks. I am beginning to try to think of it as the death of the high priest, cohen gadol, which frees the accidental killers from the cities of refuge. Today, arranged weeks ago, I met dov for lunch in the Gush. The place looks quite different from/than 20 years ago, let alone 36 years ago. 36 years doubled leaves us on the eve of World War II, so we see how long ago that is.

On the way there passing through the settlements of Neve Daniel and Elazar I appreciated the land conquering impulse and came up with the following analogy: conquering the land is id, putting the brakes on is superego. we need id to live, although we need brakes to define the limits. Decent analogy.

Dov sparked thought and I stole a lunch and didn't say hello to Wolf the friend of Kenny's and didn't stay to hear Rav Amital eulogized. "All those years ago" by George Harrison and "diamonds and rust" by Joan baez. "you tell me you're not nostalgic, you who are so good with words and in keeping things vague. well, i need some of that vagueness now I see it too clearly, I love you dearly and if you're offering me diamonds and rust, I've already paid."

Mondoweiss comment:

Off the topic of taxes, but on the topic of settlements and occupied territory.
I’ve been living in Jerusalem for about 3 and a half years now. Certainly from an American point of view I visit occupied territory often. I visited Sheikh Jarrah twice for purposes of demonstrating/observing a demonstration. I walk through the neighborhood adjacent to Sheikh Jarrah once in a while, because it is a more interesting route from my parents’ to where I live. I go to a doctor in Gilo. I visit the Old City once in a while, for it is the most interesting part of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem aside and one visit to a cousin for a Sabbath stay, my sole sojourn into occupied territory has been to visit my sister (in pre 67 Israel) near the city of Beit Shean, where the shortest distant between two points is not quite a straight line, but includes a sojourn through the Jordan Valley which is occupied territory.
Today I went to visit my alma mater, Yeshivat Har Etzion, located in Gush Etzion, specifically Alon Shvut. The route is different than it was 20 years ago when I last visited. At that time one passed through Bet Lehem and the Dheishe refugee camp to get to the Gush. Since then they have dug a tunnel and shortened the ride considerably. When the bus passed through the settlements of Neve Daniel and Elazar I was attracted to the rural atmosphere and wondered how to reconcile my attraction to these settlements and my opposition to the settlement movement.
I proposed the following analogy. The urge to settle is an urge of the id. (Those who reject the Jewish attraction to the Land, will not agree.) Just like the id is necessary to keep the species alive and interesting, so the id is essential. (Without a love for the land, Zionism is bloodless, merely a refuge, which could have taken place in Madagascar except for circumstances.) But man does not live on id alone. There is also the superego that needs to put the brakes on the id. To tell the id that there is more than id in the world, there are others in the world- laws and other humans to consider. But superego does not make the world go round. It is not the lifeblood. It is the brakes. Superego alone is lifeless, bloodless. For Israel to function it needs to have both superego and id in consideration and negotiate with the world through the ego.