„There is a story of a certain young man who approached the Rav after…”

I am very sorry, Rabbi, that I am not prepared to accept upon myself the moral teaching I heard in your address, for I am emptied of all religious feeling, and heavenly matters have already grown distant from me.

The Rav answered him with a story that carries a moral lesson:

- Let me tell you a story of a Jew, one of the men of wealth, who came to Jerusalem and sought devices for how to acquire the site of the Temple, in order to establish upon it a great market. The young man leaped up as though bitten by a snake and cried out in agitation:

- I would stab that swine with a sword.

- If such are your words, the Rav remarked, it means that you are merely mistaken; you are not, God forbid, emptied of religious feeling and love of Judaism. A spark of God flickers in your soul, and I take it upon myself to fan it into a flame of God.

Had the Rav been here today, what would he have said about this week? In my humble opinion, he would mainly have acted and spoken less, tried to draw close and to reconcile between the sides, spoken of the unbreakable bond between a people and its land and between a land and its people...

May we all have a Shabbat Shalom!