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Oct 13, 2024
the popsicle provocation
Not every provocation needs to become a war.
Call me a freier, but not every provocation needs to become a war.
There was a video going around of someone (I think he is a Professor at Weizmann Institute) walking around the women's section of the Yom Kippur services at Gan Meir (where the courts said the separate outdoor services could be held in Tel Aviv - but didnt they say they were going to forgo the services and only daven in shul and not outdoors to avoid provocations?) in Tel Aviv munching on a popsicle. Participants in the service reacted with a range of saying things like "Labriut" (enjoy, to good health) to calling out angry things to him.
Not every stupid provocation needs to be responded to, and that was a stupid provocation.
Personally, my feelings dont get insulted when I see people eating on Yom Kippur, not that I see it often. My kids used to eat when they were younger, and I saw it and it did not make me hungry or angry. I had someone in my house who had to eat for medical reasons this year, and in some years past, and it did not upset me or anger me or insult my sensitivities. I even give out candy in shul to the kids on Yom Kippur and I have seen plenty of them pop the candy right into their mouths in shul.
If one must to assuage their sentivities, one can even think to himself or herself that the fellow with the popsicle was not well and had to eat for his health. Perhaps he was having heat stroke and needed the popsicle to cool down his core temperature.
Yes, what he did was not cool. Yes, what he did was provocative. Yes, what he did was childish. Even as bad as what he did, the popsicle probably had a hechsher, and from the amount of daylight I saw in the clip it might have been bein hashmashos - during the twilight hours when it is only a question of being day or night, so even far as provocations go, I can think of much worse things he could have done to create a more significant provocation.
Let it go. not every provocation needs to be responded to.
I am happy the Yom Kippur services in Gan Meir were almost uneventful. I honestly did not even know they ended up having services there until I saw the video clip - the court said they could then the organizers said they wouldnt. I hadnt heard anything of it until this. Each provocation is bad and is an attempt to increase the anger and hatred and fighting. Responding to the provocations are just as bad and just as much increase the anger and hatred and fighting. Had someone gotten hurt, had their been physical fighting or verbal abuse, maybe then it would be a different story, but someone eating a popsicle - no need to go into a tizzy.
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According to the news coverage, the group that bought the lawsuit did indeed opt to have their services at another place and publicized the address for those who wanted to participate to avoid the apparently multiple threats of other Yahoos to disrupt and deciding to have services available rather than trouble. Didn't see news coverage that anyone came to interfered there. However, another, unspecified group organized services in Gan Meir according to the conditions laid down by BaGa"tz and this person decided it was necessary to bully and harass the women who chose to use the Ezrat Nashim area (there was supposedly an option for people who wanted to participate but not use either the Men's or Women's section).
ReplyDeleteI love the folks who hate Orthodoxy but then act in the intolerant and provocative way they accuse us of doing.
ReplyDelete