Can our leaders still dream of and plan another irresponsible crime called “convergence” which will, God forbid, bring the Arab rockets from disengaged areas of Judea and Samaria to our coastal plain – to Tel Aviv, Petach Tikva, Netanya and Ben Gurion Airport – in addition to uprooting 80,000 Jewish men, women and children, synagogues, schools and yeshivot? The very thought of another disengagement is beyond human logic and Jewish morals.

I pray and hope that our leaders have learned their lesson, a very painful one suffered by families bereaved by the loss of their loved ones as we’ve proceeded along this irrational path. How tragic that it took the blind hatred of the Iranian president, implemented by his prodigy Nasrallah in Lebanon, and rockets exploding in the Galilee and Haifa, to awaken the natural national instinct and pride of the Jewish leadership in Israel.

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I hope I am not being overly optimistic when I expect our government and armed forces to have the determination and resolve needed to subdue the enemy and obliterate their stockpiles of weapons of destruction. We cannot allow ourselves to be enticed into curtailing this mission by yielding to a ceasefire and negotiations – as we have naively done in the past – which will only allow our enemies to rearm and rebuild their forces of destruction.

We are now in the period called the Three Weeks of mourning for the destroyed Temples which in Hebrew is called bain hamayzarim – between the straits. I have a feeling that we are on the verge of getting out of the narrow straits we have created by deluding ourselves with distorted concepts like disengagement and convergence. If I am correct, we must open our eyes to the divine guidance arousing the Jewish People and its leadership to a revival of Zionist faith, which will bring security and renewed pioneering activity in the Land of Israel.

In place of disengagement, an intense movement of reengagement – reengagement with the Land of Israel, reengagement with the Jewish People, reengagement with the God of Israel, reengagement with the destiny of Zionism.

Instead of uprooting thousands of Jews from our land, we must deepen the roots of Jewish faith and Zionist fervor in the soil of our holy land of Israel.

Hopefully this will bring us to the ultimate ideal of “Lamentations” which we read on Tisha b’Av: Bring us back to you, O Lord, and we shall return. Renew our days as of old.

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Rabbi Eliezer Waldman is rosh yeshivaof Yeshivat Nir Kiryat Arba.