At the end of September following the release of the American hikers who were being held by Iran, reports came out that one of the hikers was Jewish. While the whole world knew that Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were taken prisoner in Iran and accused of espionage, what most people didn't know was that Josh Fattal's father is Jewish and that he identifies as a Jew.
Fattal's father, Jacob, emigrated from Iraq to Israel in 1951, and after serving in the Israeli army moved to the United States. Jacob Fattal's siblings still live in Israel. The media did a great job of keeping Fattal's Jewish connection a secret during the two years of his imprisonment in Iran. Only after his release from prison and return to American soil has Fattal's Jewish story been told. The Jewish Exponent revealed that Josh Fattal became a Bar Mitzvah at Philadelphia's Rodeph Shalom's suburban campus and that he has traveled to Israel several times where he still has relatives.
I was thinking about the reaction to Josh Fattal's release from prison and safe return home to the U.S. as I read a report this morning about an Israeli Knesset member's outrage that Gilad Shalit traveled to a beach on his first Shabbat of freedom rather than to synagogue.
YnetNews.com reports that "Shas Minister Meshulam Nahari slammed the formerly captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit for going to the beach with his father on the first Shabbat after his return instead of going to the synagogue for prayer. Nahari claimed that Shalit and his father should have utilized the first Saturday after he was freed from Hamas captivity to say the [Gomel] benediction of deliverance -- a Jewish prayer of thanks traditionally said by those who survived an adversity or were released from prison."
Apparently this ultra-religious member of Israeli Parliament is taking his orders from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the Shas political party who has charged him with the task of bringing Shalit closer to Judaism. While it would have been great had Josh Fattal gone to a synagogue on the first Shabbat following his release from Iranian captivity, it was his prerogative not to. And so too with Gilad Shalit.
This is the problem with Israel's political system. Nahari is a member of the Israeli government and is speaking out against a citizen's decision to go to the beach with his father rather than to synagogue. Yes, I think it would have been great had Gilad given thanks to God with the traditional Gomel blessing in a synagogue close to his home in Mitzpe Hila, but he is a free man in a democratic nation and can be thankful anyway he chooses. No rabbi, and certainly no politician, here in America slammed Josh Fattal for not going to a synagogue or temple to praise God for his freedom on the first Shabbat after arriving home.
Perhaps the most important message of both Josh Fattal's freedom from Iran and Gilad Shalit's freedom from Hamas is that they returned to their respective free and democratic home countries where they each had the freedom of choice to decide how they would spend their first Saturday of freedom. Synagogue or not, they were grateful to be home.
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In an apparently early phase, external influence on individual decision-making appears to be strong. However, the Bible appears to suggest that the goal of such influence appears to not be dependence upon either mandate or human guidance, but upon intimate relationship with and leadership by God.
In an apparently subsequent phase, the individual decision-maker appears to be reasonably expected to base decisions upon said intimate relationship with and leadership by God, including decisions pertaining to what to do next on Sabbath. The Bible appears to be reasonably interpreted as suggesting that such intimate relationship with and leadership by God was and is God’s intent.
I welcome your thoughts.
I say let him.
I imagine that his critic is drawn from the fundamentalist community and has refused both education and to serve his country.
Youcef Nadarkhani, now 34, was arrested in 2009 for questioning the compulsory Islamic education of his children and for seeking to register a home-based church. He was sentenced to death in 2010.
A truly glorious day for leftists.
Yes.