Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on June 26, 2011 by Daniel Weinreb
1: General view of the Shrine of the Book – the white dome representing the Sons of Light, the black wall representing the Sons of Dark.
One of the interesting aspects of Israel has been, and continues to be, the ineducable element of tragedy and conflict here, meaning the Shoah and the tension of ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. The Shoah is our dark past, the Palestinians are the darkness of the present. I’m not equating the two except in the sense of tragedy. What distinguishes Israel from the US is that the US has mostly buried its tragedy (slavery) or ships its tragedies (exploitative labor practices, environmental desecration) overseas to third world countries from whom it imports mass consumer products or to whom it exports its garbage. Israel stares its tragedy in the face, or at the very least, stares at the wall which obscures it. And here, even at the Shrine of the Book, the forces of Light and Dark both appear.
You can read the first post of this series here.
