Religious Zionism

SeeDBL's original draft of Hebrew Poetry for TC Library Blog inspired by bird visit at LCW. Also consider DBL's essay on Shmuel Yosef Agnon written for Course with Prof Gershon Shaked at HUJ Madei HaRuach, where DBL shows that Ma'aseh HaEz by Agnon was Agnon's Midrash on Bialik's poem on the City of slaughter. Bialik takes the Muskeljudentum approach of Max Nordau when commissioned to write his poem on the Kishnef pogrom where Bialik is critical of the Jewish victims for not fighting back "but hiding like mice" as atrocities were committed before their eyes yet nature in the circulation of the seasons and rising and setting of the sun goes on as an "offense" and onerous to anyone more consciousness. Bialik put the modern state of Israel on its course of a strong defense system with Nuclear Capability in Dimona and elsewhere., Agnon's wisdom however tempers this muscle strength, the characteristic of Esauv, ish sadeh, with sekel and smarts. Agnon in ma'aseh ha-ez tells the story of a poor family in Eastern Europe like most of our ancestors who depend on a goat for food (cheese and milk) and clothing. Even the 12 year old bar mitzvah boy's talis is knit from the goats hair. the pogrom thugs come but the father of the house sacrifices the goat the family depends on for sustenance and dips the ketunet pasim (Agnon loshon is rich in Bibical, mishnaic, Talmudic, and post Rishonim Hebrew texts) in the blood of the slaughtered goat, evoking further Had GadYa the yiddish folk song sung at the Pesah Seder. See how the master of the Hebrew Language tempers Bialik's outrage and call to arms and strength to fight back with ingenuity, grit, sekel, and indeed outsmarting the enemy. The Ma'aseh ha-ez is more than the pogrom thugs misassume the violence already hit the house because the talis dipped in the blood of the goat is hung on the porch, it is Agnon's midrash on Bialik's Zionist secularism- as the Al haNisim prayer of the Macabees in a different age and time attests, not by might and power but by the spirit of G-d Zionism will triumph (see devar Torah by DBL on the spiritual message of Chanukah).