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Advanced level – ‫רמה מתקדמת‬

The Dual Herod

When they say the name "Herod," one thinks about many opposite things:
On one hand – one thinks about a king that built up Jerusalem and renovated
the Temple, a king that turned the city and the Temple into (entities) so beautiful
and big that from the entire world people would come to see them.
On the other hand – one thinks about a king that murdered thousands of Jews,
and that murdered even his family members.
The Jewish leaders that lived in the period of Herod were also ambivalent: on
the one hand, they never loved him nor accepted him. On the other, they said
that whoever did not see the Temple in the period of Herod never saw a
beautiful building.
It is interesting – how did the Jews feel two thousand years ago when the king
that they hated fulfilled their dream and turned the Temple into the most
beautiful and largest building in the area?
The Jews also had a similar conflict with the British: on the one hand, the Jews
hated the British Mandate and wanted independent Jewish rule. On the other,
the British built many trains, brought technology to Israel and built a lot in
Jerusalem.

There is an expression in Hebrew that says that we do not want to receive from
the bee neither its honey nor its sting: that is, if someone does a lot of evil to us,
we do not want to receive favors from him either.
Do we think this now as well, when we look at the aqueduct that Herod built?
Or see from afar the Western Wall that remains from the Temple Mount that he
built up?

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