Goldenberg

When I went into the yeshiva, they assured me it was a non-political yeshiva. They could have maintained the same level of honesty by calling it secular. One Rabbi in particular sticks out in my mind. We were getting ready on Shavuot to go to the kotel, and I asked him, just out of curiosity, "Hey Rav, I was wondering. You've lived in the country for more than twenty years. Back when we owned the Sinai, instead of the entire population going to the kotel, did people go to Mt. Sinai instead?" Unbeknownst to me at the time, this rabbi was not only one of a half dozen of rabbis personally ordained by HaRav T. Y. Kook, z"l, but he also was one of the people who was kicked out of Yamit. (If you don't know who Rav Kook (II) was, don't worry, but realize he was a rather right wing rabbi. Yamit, however, was this beautiful city that Israel built in the Sinai, it really was gorgeous, but Israel had to knock it down when it gave the land back to Egypt, so that there wouldn't be a city that in an Arab country that was too close to Israel. All of the Yamitians made off very well, receiving from the government something like five times the value of their homes. Still, there were many of them who refused to leave, saying that Israel should never give back land under any conditions, and it took foam hoses to get these guys to leave. However, that night, around fifteen thousand Israelis, with quite a few locksmiths, broke into the city, into the houses, and reoccupied the city. Begin had to send in choppers to get these people out. So, he was one of the people who had to be forcibly removed twice.)

"In the Sinai?"

"Yeah," I explained it to him in Hebrew, which was very awkward because the rabbi has a very thick Australian accent, and clearly should have understood what I had said. (Yes, I said it slowly.)

"Ah, Midbar Sinai [The Sinai Desert]. We're talking about occupied territory, well, no, that was only a one time thing."

"Uhm�well, no, it's not really occupied territory anymore, we kind of gave it back�a couple years ago�"

"No, it's occupied territory."

Right�then I remember that in the bible, David and Solomon did manage to conquer it all. "Oh, right," I said looking him in the eye, mistakenly thinking that he was joking, "you mean like how Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and a lot of Saudi Arabia are occupied territory."