What a difference a year makes.  And I'm not just talking about my turning my 57th year today, 2 May, 2005.   I'm talking about the momentousness of the month of May -- the intertwining of the beginnning of my life and the beginning of the modern-day entity governing in Eretz Yisrael.  I have a hard time this year speaking in terms of medinat Yisrael, in terms of governmental sovereignty when we're in the throes of an evil pseudo-Jewish (even in name-only?) dictatorship.  

I'm talking about the contemporary momentousness of May.  For it was 2 May, 2004 which was the date of the great triumph of a defeated Likud referendum on Expulsion -- the first true test of how the Jews felt about the prospect of their brethren being violently expelled from their homes and communities, their property and assets seized to be handed to the murderers so they can murder more.  And on a personal level, it was the day restoration began on a Sefer Torah subsequently placed in the little Gush Katif Yishuv Shi-rat HaYam by the sea on 4 July.  And a year later, as if deja vu, I search, seeking a Sefer Torah to place in Yishuv Adura near Chevron and Kiryat Arba in dedication to 5 members of that Yishuv who were viciously gunned down  in May, 2002 by Arab terrorists disguised as IDF soldiers.

But the day lives in infamy for the heinous, cold-blooded Arab butchery of the Hatuels; Tali and her children Hila, Hadar, Roni and Merav, as they were leaving Gush Katif to campaign on Referendum Day against Arik Sharon's bid to make Gush katif Yudenrein.  And a year later, if Arik Sharon and his leftist, socialist totalitarian Communist friends and co-conspirators Peres, Beilin, Sarid, Barak and that loser Amram Mitzna (Michael Dukakis with a beard) prepare chas V'chalilah to carry out their evil, anti-Jewish plans, we better all of us, throughout all of Israel, be prepared to use every civil non-violent disobediance asset at our disposal (And we'd better think of them all!!) to do our physical and spiritual hishtadlut come what may that, with Hashem's help,  this whole expulsion thing is, in end, nothing but a real bad dream.

As we read Shir Hashirim, the Song of the Sea, on the last day of Pesach, Rabbi Artscroll's commentary and illustration bring meaning to the Song's seemingly perplexing text.

During the 19th Century period of Czarist persecution of the the Jews, it was common for the leading Rabbanim to travel to St. Petersburg to plead the case of the Jews before the Czar's various Ministers.  During one of these visits, a Russian official asked one of the Rabbanim how it's possible for many of the tales of Aggadatah in theTalmud to have happened.

The Rabbi answered that the Czar and his advisors often planned evil decrees ordering expulsion of Jews.  Had G'd not thwarted these evil plans, the decree would have been written and placed before the Czar who would have dipped his quill into an inkwell and signed a measure which would have made final the greatest Jewish catastrophe in centuries.

A poet might then have written that "...a drop of ink drowned 3 million people."  We would have understood the meaning, but 100 years later, people might read it and consider it nonsense. (Artscroll Pesach Machzor, Shir Hashirim, pages 566-567.)

In history, we similarly find figures of speech which, unless we know history, would sound nonsensical.  The beginning of the American Revolution is characterized as the "shot heard round the world"  (as, for that matter, was a piece of baseball history, and I quote; http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/chronology/1951OCTOBER.stm "Wednesday, October 3rd: The Giants' Bobby Thomson hits the most famous home run in history, off Ralph Branca. His 'shot heard round the world' with two runners on and trailing 4–2 in the bottom of the 9th defeats Brooklyn 5–4 and sends the jubilant Giants into the World Series."

So how will future writers and historians characterize our time; May through August, 2005?  Will they say that an evil, corrupt Prime Minister copped a plea bargain casting his Jewish brethren from their homes, or  that an electric button (in Knesset) expelled Jews from their homes?  Or, maybe they'll write that some tires brought Israel to a grinding halt and they prayed thanks to Hashem in their Shuls throughout Gush Katif  in Homesh, Sanur, etc. and throughout all of Israel on Rosh Hashanah 5766.

Brothers and sisters, the choice is ours.  We all know the score.  The allegory makes a world of sense.  It's up to us.

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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of the Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.