The burn of it all...

The hardest part of talking about the tragedies in Israel this week is that I knew while I was typing that the boy in the west bank settlement of Itamar wouldn't be found alive. There was a look in his eye that was somehow foretelling a sad discovery made by searching soldiers near Ramallah. Buried in a field, the missing boy, Eliyahu.

Tanks and other pieces of armor gather just inside, and just outside, the Gaza Strip. The power is off, and the sweltering heat seeks to consume the squalid dusty streets and the mirage of a distant army, poised to tear your home apart - even if only to find another body, buried in a field.

A mother wails in the arms of her husband. Her boy is dead, laid to rest at home in Israel. Not in some wretched settlement, but in Jerusalem. A sign that they know that soon graves in the West Bank settlements will be pulled up and moved home to Israel.

There is something else on the Jewish horizon, poised to tear some of us further apart than we have ever been. I feel quite strongly, that there is no worthy reason to take World Pride to Jerusalem. I am horrified that it is going to take place, and I can see the ease in the jump for my Orthodox brothers to think that the absolute last insult is about to be hurled at Ha Shem, and the Jewish people.

If only one person behaves as ludely and immodestly as many do here in the US, and in other nations, in Jerusalem, it will be too many. I don't want there to be tweeking and PNP and all other manner of disrespect paid to Ir Ha'kadosh. I believe that there is sanctity and holiness in that place, and I do not want to be counted in the number of those who would behave in an undignified manner in that place.

I pressed my tear-filled face into that cold stone wall and I cried my heart to Ha' Shem, and Ha' Shem heard me. I prayed and was heard. I blessed, and was blessed.

Do not go to that place and - en masse - allow yourselves to behave immodestly - for you shame One that must be honored.

I sound quite horribly rigid and conservative I know, but I believe this one thing to be above my otherwise liberal sensibility.

I just want there to be some peace and quiet in the Middle East. I want to believe that it can be obtained in my lifetime.