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| Students just outside Mir Yeshiva buying pepper spray (VIN) |
I do not understand why anyone would go into a house full of wild animals and rile them up - causing them to attack and kill.
Even if those animals would somehow be in your own house, what kind of foolish person would go into it knowing it was filled with wild animals at that moment? So what if its your house? You risk being maimed or killed and you risk those animals escaping your house on a wild rampage killing and maiming other people.
I know this is not a popular view. But this is how I see people going up to Har HaBayis - the Temple Mount. I know it’s their (our) house. And I know they have every right to go up there. But they are nonetheless dangerously foolish for doing so. There is absolutely nothing gained except for a sense of telling the world who’s boss up there.
Even if it isn’t only about that. Even if it about gaining a personal sense of spirituality - that doesn’t make it any better. Whatever personal spirituality one might gain by going up there is not being done because they believe God wants them up there. It is for personal and therefore selfish reasons, albeit spiritual ones. And whatever they gained by doing this is more than lost by the damage it has caused in riling up the Arabs.This kind of selfish foolishness has resulted in multiple deaths by the hands of the animals who don’t need much to get riled up. (I should emphasize that I do not consider Arabs to be animals. Most Arabs are fine and decent people who wouldn't harm a fly. I only consider animals - those that are committing violence by maiming and killing innocent people - and their supporters.)
I know that those who go up there will say that these animals kill and maim us all the time – even without anyone of us going up there - or without any provocation at all. That may be true. But there is little doubt in my mind that hr recent spate of attacks by Palestinians that has resulted in the deaths of many innocent Jews was sparked by it. I don’t know how anyone of them cannot feel a sense of responsibility for all the ensuing violence and deaths over these past few weeks.
I am not the only one that feels this way. Truth sometimes makes for strange bedfellows. The Eida HaCharedis has said virtually the same thing. As has a Sephardi member of the Shas Moetzes, Rav Shimon Baadani who was quoted in the Forward saying:
“Do not provoke the nations, even if we are in control here, there is a halakha. I don’t know on whose authority they permit themselves to provoke and cause an armed struggle like is happening now … they are forbidden.”
When my brothers and sisters in Israel are besieged by Palestinian monsters; when I see innocent blood spilled continuously in one attack after another – especially innocent Jewish blood, it’s hard to focus on anything else. It makes my heart grieve. I feel it in the pit of my stomach. I cannot imagine the pain their wives (or husbands), parents, children, brothers, sisters, and extended families must feel when they so suddenly lose a healthy loved one to a murderer.
These were injuries and deaths that could probably have been avoided had those who feel so strongly about going up to Har Habyis forgone acting on it. I have no sympathy at all for them. My sympathy is reserved for the innocent victims HY’D - who were so brutally murdered by those Palestinian animals riled up to do so.
Now every Israeli citizen is in danger. Even Charedi Yeshiva students who wouldn’t even dream of going up to the Temple Mount. The students in the Mir are buying pepper spray for their own protection! Until this month, Mir students probably didn’t even know what pepper spray was.
If I were the Prime Minster of Israel, I would call for legislation forbidding any Jew from going up to the Temple Mount with harsh penalties for doing so. Like a huge fine and some jail time. It may not stop all attacks. But it will at least stop those that emanate from that foolish action.