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Thoughts for

Shabbat Chazon

Sivan
Rahav-Meir

he Shabbat before Tisha B’Av attention to what is missing in the speech.” Tisha B’Av is not just a day to
is called Shabbat Chazon, the world, to absence, to space, to trouble, mourn what we have lost, but a day of
“Shabbat of Vision”. In the to distress – and to pray for the good. remembering what is expected of us.
T Torah we read Parashat After two years of Covid-19, after the
Devarim, and the haftarah begins disasters of Meron and Surfside, after
with the words ּוהָי ְע ׁשְי ןֹוז ֲח, “the vision so many painful terrorist attacks, it Sivan Rahav-Meir is a media personality
ַ
of Yishayahu”. is not difficult to connect to grief and and lecturer. She lives in Jerusalem with her
demand a corrected world. husband, Yedidya, and their five children,
Perhaps we need to shake the dust and serves as World Mizrachi’s Scholar-in-
off of this word ןֹוז ֲח, “vision”. We don’t Rav Kook once wrote: “We have begun Residence. She is a primetime anchor on
speak of it much on a daily basis as to speak of great things, among our- Channel 2 News, has a column in Israel’s
we go about our lives. Tisha B’Av is an selves and in the ears of the entire largest newspaper, Yediot Acharonot, and
annual reminder of our great national world, and we have not yet finished. has a weekly radio show on Galei Tzahal
story, a story that is far greater than We are still in the middle of our (Army Radio).
each of our individual stories. Over
the last two years, it seems that the
people who dwell in Zion have one
great desire – 61. That someone will
be able to get 61 seats in the Knesset!
But our people did not return to Eretz
Yisrael merely to form a government
of 61 seats. We came back to our land
after two thousand years of exile to be
a blessing to this region and a blessing
to the entire world.
Words like “redemption” or “holiness”
never frightened our ancestors, nei-
ther in exile nor at the beginning of the
Zionist movement. Today our lexicon
is much more modest. We frequently
talk about “rights” but not about our
obligations, about global values but
not traditional Jewish national values,
and our grand hope is simply to create
a system in which all of the tribes of
Israel will somehow get along with
each other – without a shared vision.
Our commentators explain that Shab-
bat Chazon is the Shabbat on which
A member of each one of us must expand our
the Mizrachi vision and imagine the maximum
Speakers Bureau – the redemption of our nation and
mizrachi.org/ the personal redemption of each and
speakers every one of us. This is the time to pay
ABOVE AND TOP PHOTO: HOWIE MISCHEL
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