Dust at our Feet

The other day, while we were touring the Kotel tunnels, our guide told us a fascinating story. A famous Israeli archaeologist (whose name escapes me) had a very peculiar Tish Be'Av ritual. Every Tisha Be'Av, he would go to the Israel Museum and scream. At this museum stands a very large statue of the victorious emperor Vespasian standing arrogantly in his triumph over the Jewish rebels. The archaeologist would yell at the statue, taunting him over the disappearance of the mighty Roman Empire. He would ask him where his people vanished to. While all that is left of Vespasian is this statue, the Jewish people once again live in their land.

Today, we toured the Crusader fortress of Akko. I soon thought of how strong the Crusaders were and how they no longer exist. Besides a few piles of stones and artifacts, there are no traces of them. How much Jewish blood has been spilled by the hands that built Akko? Before setting off to battle the heathens in the East, they decided to massacre the christ-killers among them. The Crusaders massacred entire Jewish communities in the Rhineland, in Germany and France. The massacres were so traumatic that the Jews wrote a special memorial prayer, "Av HaRachamim", that is still recited every Shabbat morning, 900 years later. When the Crusaders finally reached the Holy Land, they slaughtered the entire Jewish community of Jerusalem. Blood ran through the streets up to their knees. These marauders who seemed so powerful, so mighty, are but dust. The irony is that today, their christ-killing victims, the Jewish people, tour their empty sites.

Every people that has opposed the Jewish people has disappeared. The Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Nazis and Communists are gone. All is temporary, except for the nation of Israel. Very soon indeed, we will walk in the ruins of Hamas and Hizbullah. Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah will be names in a history book, while the Jewish people dwells firmly in its own land. We will tour museums full of "Palestinian" flags, suicide belts and other Islamic weapons of terror. They will be gone, dust and ashes, wiped away and relegated to the dustbin of history and the Jews will remain.

May it happen speedily in our days. Shabbat Shalom.