Have you been following the markets? Gold is down, oil is down. Gilad Shalit is up.
Hamas has apparently raised the exchange price of the captured Israeli soldier after Hezbollah's lucrative prisoner exchange last week. Israel released five living Arab prisoners and the bodies of 199 more, in return for the remains of two Israeli soldiers.
The story of one of the five prisoners Israel released is particularly gruesome. In 1979, in a raid on an Israeli town, Samir Kantar shot dead an Israeli man in front of his four-year-old daughter, then bashed the girl's head in with the butt of his rifle. Upon hearing about his grotesque deeds, I instantly recalled the words of psalm 137: By the Rivers of Babylon.
It is a psalm included in the Jewish Grace after Meals, and well known for verses 5 and 6 ("If I forget thee, O Jerusalem . . .").
But the final two verses are the ones that really get to me, the ones that instantly sprang to mind when I heard of Kantar's murders:
O Babylon, who are destined to be laid waste, happy is he who will repay you in retribution for what you have inflicted on us. Happy is he who will seize and crush your infants against the rock!
Psalm 137:8-9
There is nothing funny to say. No punchline. Just sick revulsion at a horrible crime; a revulsion compounded by the fact that so many of my friends and families, believing Jews, chant these exact words in high spirits, words sanctioning and blessing crimes like Kantar's.
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The other day, I found out that the Agudas Yisroel of California (or Western America) and the Orthodox Union are actively endorsing the proposed ban on gender-blind marriage that is coming up in November here in California. No surprises, I guess, although it was eerie to see their names among the really Christian congregations who not too many decades ago saw them as Christ-killers.
So I went onto Wikipedia, O Ye Font of Truth, and found out that the Aguda hires a lawyer called Nat Lewin and basically endorses every measure he says they should - he has a heavy part to play in what they get involved in politically. Get his Wikipedia page, and you'll get a link to http://www.shma.com/may02/nathan.htm, where he writes (in the context of killing suicide bombers' families unless they immediately denounce the act & refuse to get money from it - which I think is morally mandatory but not realistic given the existing culture [including fanatically religious culture] and lack of education):
"Finally, can Jewish law and tradition accept this seeming punishment of innocents? The Torah commanded the total eradication - including women and children - of certain nations (Amalek being a singular illustration) because of the continuing threat its members presented to the survival of Israel. When there is no other deterrent, self-defense entitles one to take measures that are ordinarily unacceptable".
Hmm, yes, spiritual filth to be ethnically cleansed. I mean, those horrible 7 nations who never lifted a finger against the Hebrews...until maybe the Hebrews invaded. Who was threatening the survival of whom?
And the age-old belief that children are copies of their parents. Which is why, for most of human history, there has been little progress relative to our potential. And why it's so nice that some free-thinking Western philosophers in the 17 and 1800s formed the basis of our liberal societies today.
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