Posted on 01/06/2004 8:14:59 PM PST by Salem
| Hilltop Stand Apr 08, '03 / 6 Nisan 5763 |
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| I stood on the top of a hill, as I let the cold Nevada wind blow through my hair and bite at my cheeks. The last time I had stood on the top of a hill, I had been in Samaria. And, as I looked around to survey the scene, I noticed that the land here looks very much like the land of Samaria – rocky hilltops with stubby scrub-brush overlooking fertile bottom-land. A river was snaking through green fields below me, and tractors and greenhouses dotted the valley. Far off in the distance, I could see small villages and the murky image of a large town in the distance. The view, however, was where the similarity ended for me. The feeling just wasn’t the same. Standing on a hilltop in Nevada is nothing like standing on a hilltop in Samaria. In Samaria, I felt a sense of exhilaration, a quickening of my heart, and a deep attachment to the land that came only from knowing that the I place stood is a place sacred to me. In Samaria, I had felt the strength of thousands of years of Jewish warriors at my side, and I felt the essence of their fight to maintain the land Hashem had given to us. Standing on a hilltop in Samaria, I could feel, in some small part, like I was one of those warriors, if only for a short time. I had been on that hilltop in Samaria to help build a playground for Jewish children with the help of the settlers there. We worked three full days. “Every shovel-full is a mitzvah!” we had yelled to each other to keep our spirits up as we toiled on that hilltop, digging out rocks and slipping in mud in the rain, with our hand tools, our blisters, and our high spirits. When ZOA/Betar had finished that project, we felt a bit like we had fought a battle, reclaiming a small part of Israel with our hands and our hearts. Many of us were scared up there. A hilltop is a dangerous place, an exposed place, a windy place, a rocky and almost inhabitable place. And we were there for a few days – no time at all compared to those settlers who live every day on the hilltops. So why do they live there? The settlers of that hilltop and all the hilltops around are not up there for the view, and they are certainly not there for the rocky infertile soil – they are there for the strategic importance of the hill. It was on that hill in Samaria, with the cold wind of Israel on my face, that I learned the most valuable lesson I could learn about the fight to keep Eretz Israel: every hilltop is important. From that particular hilltop, the tallest in the area, I could see for miles and miles around. I could see how vulnerable the villages and towns of Israel could become if a terrorist were to gain access to that hill. From that hill, terrorist’s rockets could be fired, terrorist strategy could be planned, and the country of Israel could be easily attacked, G-d forbid. The settlers know that if they don’t have the hilltop, then the Arabs will. The settlers are on hilltops because they love Israel, because they love the people of Israel, because they feel that Israel is so important that they must protect the land at every moment – even with their homes, their families, and their lives. Why was Livnat Ozeri, widow of terror victim Nati Ozeri, and her five children still on the top of Hill 26, in Kiryat Arba, even after her husband had been killed by terrorists? Because she was protecting the hilltop. She wasn’t there because she couldn’t leave, she was there because she wouldn’t leave. She and her family were protecting that hilltop for the benefit of the people of Israel. Her husband died protecting that hilltop for the same reason. Livnat Ozeri is a warrior, her children are warriors, and the hilltop youth around her are warriors – the protectors of Israel. Without those hilltop settlers, the IDF wouldn’t have a reason to be there, the hilltops would be abandoned to the Arabs, and the country of Israel would be in grave danger from the threat of attack. Like Yael, who killed the evil General Sisera with the tent-spike of her home, Livnat Ozeri protected Israel with the tent-spike of her home. She, like Yael, should be “praised above all women of the tent,” not run from the hill by her own people, the same people she has sacrificed so much to protect. Livnat Ozeri and so many other Jewish settlers of Judea, Samaria and Gaza risk their lives every day to protect the hilltops of Israel from those who would harm us, from those who would destroy us. Every one of them deserve to be praised every day, every hour, and every moment that they refuse to move. Every moment they stand for Israel. After standing on a hill in Samaria, I can never feel the same about standing on a hill anywhere else. When I feel the cold wind on my face, I remember those who face that wind every day, blowing across the land from the valleys full of those who don’t know what it is to make a stand. When I see the small towns and villages below me, I can’t help but remember how vulnerable Israel looked from the hilltops of Samaria. And, when I stand here on a hilltop strewn with rocks, so far from the hills of Samaria, I long to stand there, beside them. ************ |
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Thanks, Michelle, wherever you are. G-d bless and protect and watch over the "settlers" on the hills of Samaria.
| Rank | Location | Receipts | Donors/Avg | Freepers/Avg | Monthlies | |||
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| 44 | Delaware | 50.00 |
1 |
50.00 |
23 |
2.17 |
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Reminded me to post this one, which I've probably posted before, but I'll blame on the search engine.
Yep, that's a good 'un. I have that linked at my "America At War" site. 
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