I cannot really explain why I have failed to update this blog lately: I know that some people enjoy reading it, and I also enjoy the time it affords me to reflect on events that have occurred recently.

In light of that, and the fact that my absense has probably chased off most of my friends who used to count on the consistantcy of my writing, I will skip a large chunk of my trip here, and just start from the past few days, along with some thoughts on the current situation.

Friday was the first time I had left Efrat in a week. I've been holed up in this beautiful encampment for 7 straight days, studying different bits of esoteric Jewish texts, some short bits of beauty and truth by the emminant Israeli poet Yehudah Amichai, and the details of the human endocrine system (MCAT's, here I come!). I went in with the mission to go shopping for the different elements of my family and extended friends. I was mildly successful in this regard, but, after I checked a few people off my list, I (as usual) found myself distracted from this important task, by wandering into one of the greatest used bookstores...ever.

I should preface this by saying I am something of a used bookstore addict. Some people have chocolate, some crack-cocaine, others have their favorite TV show----I have used books. I would even say that it is my "anti-drug", except it has completely taken over, and I would simply call it "my-drug-of-choice." (To anyone keeping track, if you are ever wondering what to get me for a gift, it really is a simple as....a nice used book). Anyway, this used book store was very, very misleading. It was, first of all, tiny: the whole store couldn't have been bigger than 30 ft. by 30 ft. It was, literally, a hole-in-the-wall. Not only this, but about half of the store was taken up by books in Hebrew, a language that, although I have studied it for the bulk of my life, and cannot (for the life of me!) actually read it competantly. Instead, I was drawn to the small corner of English books. What made this corner so amazing, you are probably thinking? *Every single* book on its shelves were books that I either love, or I have wanted to read for some time. Not only did it literally contain every and any book I would want in a library of my own, but they were all lovely hardback editions of the books published back in the days when they knew how to publish a book (ie pre-1960!). To top it all off, none of the books cost more than 40 shekels (~$5).

The excuse I had made myself for entering this bookstore was looking for two VERY OBSCURE books that I did not really expect this place to have. The first was a famous Hebrew-to-English Dictionary compiled in the early 1950's by a famous Professor of Hebrew named Prof. Alcalay. It is considered THE definitive dictionary of classical Hebrew, and it was the key to all my Hebrew-reading problems. The only problem was: it stop being publised in 1965. The other book was a very, very obscure collection of essays written by a famous turn-of-the-century Jewish thinker who went by the pseudonym "Ahad Ha'am" ("One of the People"), aka Asher Ginzberg (). His name kept coming up in discussions with friends of mine, and I had a chance to glance through just this collection of essays, which a friend of mine at Yeshiva happened to have in his library (no small feat, considering Ahad Ha'am's radical nature, and a Hasidic reject to boot).

Do you think I would have gone to these lengths, describing these two very obscure and hard-to-find books if I hadn't, indeed, found them on the shelves of this amazing book store? No. They were both there, in beautiful, very-old editions (I can imagine they are both investments in their own right).

Anyway...I digress. I then hiked up Jaffa Street to Kikar Tzion and, deciding I had had enough of sitting by idley while my brothers were fighting up North, I joined the A.....I mean I donated some blood. I know what all of you at home in the US are thinking: are you crazy, Michael!? How could you risk such a promising, young life, right as it was getting interesting?! Well, I guess I am just an idealist.

By this time, I was hungry, a little woozy from loosing a pint of plasma, eurykothytes, leukocytes, platelets, hemoglobin, assorted amino acids, proteins, and a lot of water (note: My grandmother doubted I would actually do my MCAT studying here in Israel. I love you Mama Reggie, but I have proved you wrong). I was also itching to start reading my new book. So I got lunch at "The Village Green", an amazing vegetarian restaurant, with hippie-watching galore.

I will now do a quick run-through of my Shabbat. Two good friends of mine: Chaim Kutnicki and Samuel "Shmulik" Korb, were coming to spend Shabbat with me at my Yeshiva (where we were having our final "in-shabbat" of the summer). What is important is that I knew Sam was visiting, but I have *completely* forgotten that Chaim was going to be visiting as well. Around 1 PM on Friday, I got a call on my trusty "pelah-phone" (Hebrew for "miracle phone") from Chaim: "Hey Mike, what's up?"....Me: "Not much, Chaim, what's new with you?".....*small talk*....Chaim: "So, you remember that I am staying with you for Shabbat, right?".....Me: "Offfff course! Yeah. Can I call you back in one second...?"

Anyway, it all worked out in the end. The two of them joined me on the bus ride back to Efrat (complete with a long phonecall from Chaim's mother, in which we spent 30 minutes assuring her that the bus to Efrat is, indeed, bullet-proof.

Shabbat was wonderful: full of great food, good prayer, and some very impressive talks from the "Rosh Yeshiva" (lit. "The Head of the Yeshiva"), Rabbi Brovender. He spoke a few times over the course of Shabbat, but the thought that has stuck with me the most was, when talking about the upcoming national-day-of-mourning/Fast Day refered to as "Tisha B'Av" (lit. "The 9th Day of the Month of Av"), segwaying from a rather hilarious account of obscure Halacha that applies to the day, he declared, "...The bottom line is, Shabbat beats out Tisha B'Av. It always will. We might be mourning next Thursday, but---no matter what people try to do to us---we are still here, we are still mourning on this day, when both the first and second temples were destroyed, but we are mourning them ONLY because we never gave up hope that we would return to the land....and here we are."

I will take this chance to segway into a light review of my outlook on the "here we are": i.e. here in The Land of Israel. I don't want anyone to think I have dropped my stalwart, anti-expanstionist tendancies, and joined the cult referred to "Religious Zionism." I am *certainly* a Zionist, though probably closer to Ahad Ha'am's "Cultural Zionism" than anything else. On the other hand, in the last few weeks especially, I have become more and more sensitive to how important Israel is for Jews around the world, both physically and spiritually.

The events of the past few weeks (ie "The War in the North") have been cathartic in a few ways. First of all, it has shown how deep much of the Muslim world's hatred for Israel runs. What has really demonstrated this is something that seems to have been completely looked over in what I have read in the main-stream Western press: the terrorist group Hezbollah stands for NOTHING except the destruction of Israel, hatred of Jews around the world, and hatred of America. Please, do not mix up Hezbollah with other groups such as Hamas. As awful as Hamas is, they at least have a cause (ie the defense of the Palestinian people), and they are (many hate to admit) legitimate, especially now that they are no longer able to kill innocent Israeli in suicide bombings (well....they are still trying, but Israel is doing an amazing job at hampering these efforts, thank G-d).

Hezbollah, on the other hand, started as a defense group for the Shiites living in Southern Lebanon when Israel still occupied that land. When Israel withdrew COMPLETELY from there in 2000, the UN passed a very popular resolution calling for the disarmament of the terrorist group by the Lebanese government. For no good reason, this just never happened (see: 1,403,983 times the UN has been ineffective at doing anything). Hezbollah continued building up arms (supplied by Iran and Syria), against Israel....to prepare for its destruction. Make no mistake: they do not even pretend to be freedom fighters. They just want to kill Jews. Case in point: when Israel bombed one of their military outpost in Lebanon a decade ago, their response was.....to bomb a Jewish community center in Argentina that killed a few dozen Jews. This is not a case of Jewish neuroticism: they simply hate Jews.

Iran is even worse. I am going to stop this rant, because it is going no where, but I think the Western world, but especially Jews, should be frightened of Iran's nuclear program. They are NOT crazy, nor are they stupid. Iran wants to be one of the world's new Superpowers, and they are convinced that having nuclear weapons, as well as a good portion of the world's oil source, will help them acheive that status....and they might be right. Their leader also claims the Holocaust didn't happen, and openly stated that one of his goals as President is to "wipe Israel off the map."

Anyway, Islamic funtamentalism's anti-semitism is nothing new , but I have managed to live my life for the last 22 years believing that it has mostly been eradicated from this world, and that even the Muslim world's deep-mistrust of Israel would melt away once something resembling peace emerged in the region.

Now, I really don't believe that at all. I really don't know what to think. I am saddened by every innocent Lebanese death that has occurred in the last few weeks, but I cannot fight the feeling that....better them than us.

Final thought: the final step in the evolution from "multiple gods" to Abraham's "One G-d" was from the nationalist "our nations god versus your nations god" to the Universalist "G-d". What makes monotheism so important to this world is that, when we believe in and/or pray to that G-d, we are, in some way, praying for the benefit of all humanity. I don't think there is any question that the death of innocent civilians (who are suffering the brunt of the current conflict, whether it be the American civilians who died on September 11th, the Israeli casualities of the many suicide bombings, the innocent Palestinians and Lebanese civilians, etc., etc.) is a blow to this universalist philosophy. I know, from being here for the last 2 months, that Israelis are tired of being killed by fanatical Muslims, but---probably worse---are tired of being forced to kill them. As former Prime Minister Golda Meir said, "We may be able to forgive you for killing our sons, but we will never be able to forgive you for making us kill yours."

Here's hoping that---somehow---we will find a way to some form of peace.

Michael