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Empty sky overlooks violence on Israel

By Daily Bruin Staff

March 5, 1996 9:00 p.m.

Empty sky overlooks violence on Israel

Bloodshed causes God to retreat from his chosen people

By Orna Livine

I look to the sky, and I don’t see anything … I look to the
sky and it is empty. Maybe I just cannot see anything because my
eyes are covered with tears. Or maybe there is nothing to see. Not
even one cloud above; even the clouds hide. Of course they’re
hiding, I think, they don’t want to see.

I always thought that the clouds were the walls of the house
where the one in charge of us dwells. So my conclusion is that
clouds that have vanished mark his disappearance. Or maybe, he is
sleeping. For if he is sleeping, he is taking a long nap; a deep
winter sleep. He would never let this happen, otherwise.

This must be the reason he has not witnessed the dozens of
civilians, soldiers, Jews and Arabs, scattered into pieces like the
strong waves that crash on a beach. He didn’t look; no one wants to
look at hell in its most powerful form of existence on earth. No
one wants to look at it, out of leisure, as a hobby. It is one of
those things you just don’t do.

There is the possibility, however, that he woke up from the
reflex or the hellish noise of bombings; that he might have noticed
more than 50 innocent people blowing into thousands of little
pieces, flying up to the sky and falling right back to the ground
so we would have something to collect and bury. For someone has to
collect the pieces of human flesh that are spread all over the
place after something like this happens.

But our God, for a long time now, has had his hands full. He has
been too busy to guard us – the world has changed. Really, I have
thought it over. The world has turned into this tiny, crazy, media
village. And he has one too many extensions. You see, his focus has
enlarged. It has grown too wide to notice a little spot on the
globe known as Israel.

This is the cable era -so right near the madness of New York
City, close to the war in Bosnia, by the sickness going on in
India, the draft in Africa, the constant bleeding of this part of
the world is hardly unusual.

This world is catastrophic.

This humanity is not human at all.

This pain is too hard to bear.

And right now, I am not interested in what happens in the other
parts of this broken, damaged masterpiece. You see, this is a
defect world. I want to know why my home is on fire. Why, in the
past week and a half, three buses and two major intersections blew
up. I want to know why I can’t leave campus, why it is too
dangerous to walk down the streets or to step onto a bus.

I don’t have answers; nor does anyone have answers to give me. I
do not want to find myself trying to identify someone I know by DNA
tissues because nothing else was left after he/she blew up. You
see, the pathological institute in Tel Aviv is busier than Third
Street Promenade right now …

So this nation is in deep grief, and bursting out of everywhere
is the feeling of helplessness. This is a war. A war against an
unknown enemy, a hidden one. And there is no way out, at least not
right now. And who has created us is just constantly changing
channels on television when the horrors of the Holy Land are
broadcast. He also sprays some air-freshener around, for he doesn’t
want to feel the reflexes; he doesn’t want to listen to the cries
of the living-dead; and he doesn’t want to smell, tries very hard
not to smell … the smell of death that wraps us from every corner
of the world.

Our God does not want to look at his chosen people. He doesn’t
have the mental strength, like the rest of us, to watch children
blowing up and blood shattering. That is why he behaves like the
United Kingdom in World War II, in Splendid Isolation. He wants to
clarify to his chosen people, to this chosen country of Israel and
to the chosen army of this people: "And I shall pass you over, and
I shall see you in your bloods, and I shall tell you, and in your
bloods you shall live" (Psalms 26:17).

However, the Niagara Falls of blood, the blown-up buses, are
what is so confusing right now. In the past, there was a front and
there was a rear. During the Gulf War, it switched. Now, everywhere
you turn, you might be facing a front line. You just don’t know
when the next bomb is about to go off.

My home is a front; and I just pray that the next bomb will not
hit any of my loved ones. And I love my nation – each and every
individual of it. All of Israel are brothers. I don’t know if peace
will ever reach this region. And if this is peace, then what is
war? We do not deserve this. No one does. I am sorry, the price of
this peace process is too high. And I don’t see any discounts
ahead.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews say "Hacol biydey shamaim," which means that
everything is in the hands of God. That everything is in the hands
of the sky. This is the exact translation. If that is so, how come
I look up and it is empty? If that is so, why is the sky
vacant?

Livine is a 22-year-old English literature and history student
born and raised in Tel Aviv who attends the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.

Associated Press

Investigators examine the Tel Aviv shopping center hit by a
suicide bombing on Monday. The attack claimed the lives of 14
Israelis, and has left the nation of Israel with the task of trying
to heal from the violence. The military wing of the Muslim group
Hamas has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

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