Desecration

Thoughts after seeing the Nova Exhibit

(Joseph Budko (Plonsk, 1888 - Jérusalem, 1940), Dans la ville du massacre, Berlin, 1923, Illustration for the eponymous poem by Haïm Nahman Bialik, In the City of Slaughter)

There is an intimate relationship between the earth and blood. 

When Cain kills Abel, it is the ground which cries out to G-d – not Abel, not Adam, not Eve – it is the earth itself. 

“The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground, And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;" (Genesis 4:10). 

Because the land itself is Holy, and because the land itself had been desecrated by the spilling of Abel’s blood. 

There is nothing less sacred than blood – it defiles everything it touches. 

To see blood spilt is to see G-d’s creation mutilated. 

But, even more than that, the earth itself has a far more intimate relationship with Cain than we give it credit for – the earth is Cain’s grandmother. 

Remember, G-d crafted Adam from the earth, the Adama in Hebrew. 

Adam comes from Adama, and so does Dam, the Hebrew word for blood.   

Our lifeblood is the earthly material which animates our bodies and gives life to our souls. 

G-d created man by infusing the earth into our veins, by trapping it within our skin so that it could ebb and flow within our bodies like the tides of the sea. 

So when Cain set upon Abel, he did more than end his brother’s life – he insulted one of G-d’s divine creations. 

G-d had made man by infusing our blood with earth, and Cain unmade him by spilling that blood back into the earth which bore us. 

Cain killed his brother and made his grandmother drink his blood. 

This was the first desecration of G-d’s great creation in human history, and it was a desecration of the land. 

There are countless other times in the Torah when G-d describes the earth as having been desecrated and the people of Israel as needing to re-consecrate it. 

The whole land of Israel, in fact, had been desecrated by the Canaanite idolators, and the Land had to be purified and reconsecrated before the Jews could live there and tend to the land.  

For the Canaanites were a truly depraved people who participated in the monstrous cults of Baal-Peor and Molech, a people who joyously and ecstatically burned their own babies alive to serve their hateful idols. 

The Land of Israel is sacred.

Its fruits are sacred, its trees are sacred, and even its bugs are sacred. 

But more sacred than all of those things is the very land itself. 

The dust and the dirt, the sand and the silt, the mud and the muck – all of that land is holy. 

And that land has been desecrated. 

Blood has been spilt in the Holy Land of Israel. 

Innocent children were murdered, maimed, and mutilated on G-d’s holy soil. 

The voice of my brothers’ blood is crying out to me from the ground.

Recently, I went to the Nova exhibit in Los Angeles. It was more haunting and affecting than all of the Holocaust museums and concentration camps I have seen combined. 

If you have not seen it, you must go. 

It will not be easy, and you will not have fun, but you need to see it because you need to understand what really happened on October 7th and what really needs to happen from now on. 

What happened on October 7th is as follows. 

At the Nova Music Festival in Southern Israel, thousands of people from around the world, from all different faiths and walks of life, had gathered to celebrate the joy of life together. They came for Trance music, for art, and for community. 

When one looks at the videos from the festival before the attack, one is overcome with the sensation that this is what true human happiness looks like. 

Smiling faces, hugging friends, dancing bodies – these are the markers of life lived well. 

As the sun rose over the Holy Land of Israel, festival goers watched its glorious ascension with reverence. 

However, at the same time, in Gaza, men were arming themselves and reciting religious devotionals as they prepared to invade the Holy Land of Ibrahim and make war on his children. 

In the space between these two different sets of videos exists the fundamental division of the universe: light and dark. 

The light of the lives of the festival goers, and the darkness of the violence of their assailants. 

In a world that has struggled for so long to remember what distinguishes wrong from right, there can be no clearer example than the distinction between these two sides of that tragic day. 

The Holy Land of Israel, of which Gaza is a part, has been desecrated by Hamas and Palestinian terrorism. 

And not only have they desecrated G-d’s holy land, but they have also desecrated G-d’s holy name. 

For there are 2.5 billion Muslims in the world who call G-d Allah, and Hamas has desecrated the Muslim devotional to the point that more people associate it with rape and pillage than with righteousness and responsibility. 

Anyone who is a true believer in G-d would look on the actions of October 7th with nothing but disgust and shame. 

In our lifetimes, there has been no clearer demonstration of evil. 

In order for us, the people of the earth, to move on from this event, we will need to reconsecrate the land. 

We will need to come together as a community, to bear witness to the evil of what has been done so that we may commit to what must now be done. 

Because a new covenant was made on October 7th, a covenant not between G-d and his people, but a covenant between me and his earth. 

For I have now seen true evil, and I have looked into its face. 

I have seen true happiness, and I have seen it stolen from those who earned it. 

And only now do I understand the true holiness of the earth.

True joy is simple – it comes from spending time with the people you care about.

The truest, simplest joy comes from sitting on the ground with your friends, picking daisies, playing games, laughing. 

In Hebrew, the word for a Shul is a “beit Kinesset,” a place of gathering, because it is the gathering of different people that makes the place holy. 

By extension, the earth, then, is the largest Shul in the world, for it is the ultimate place of gathering for all men. 

Which makes October 7th the greatest desecration of G-d’s earth in living memory. 

And, once again, the voice of my brothers’ blood is crying to me from the ground, but, this time, I will answer.

This time, I will reconsecrate the land.

I will return to the land, and I will dance upon it, and I will smile in the faces of everyone I meet, and I will be a man of light and joy who seeks only to bring light and joy into the hearts of those around me.

Because that is what our Holy Land needs.

It needs us, it needs our love, and it needs our joy. 

Together, let us reconsecrate this world in the image of those beautiful souls who were taken from us on October 7th, and let us make their memory into the greatest blessing the world has yet known. 

("I don't want to be the last one to see them," says Shye Weinstein, a photographer who took joyful photos of strangers at an Israel music festival before violence broke out. You can read the story of him and these photographs here.)

Spread love, Spread light, 

Am Yisrael Chai.