The Waters of Zion; The Tears of The Jews

A little red dye No. 3 with your water?

bs'd

I was at a neighbor's place the other day, having arrived directly from returning my flock to the barn.

“You look thirsty,” he remarked. “Would you like a glass of water?”

“Love one.”

He proceeded to the fridge, took out a pitcher and poured me a glass of something with a distinctly greenish hue.

“That's not water,” I said, taking the glass reluctantly.

“Yes it is.”

“No, no, my friend,” I joked, looking closer at its contents. “I know water. I've been drinking it for the better part of a century. Tasteless, colorless, odorless, is what they taught us. This is something else.”

“It's still water,” he said. “Believe me. It’s ‘religious zionist’ water.”

“It’s what?” I thought I was hearing things. “‘Religious zionist’ water?”

“Listen, it's not mamlachti water,” he said, putting the pitcher back in the fridge. “Their stuff is deep blue — completely unnatural. How anyone could drink it is beyond me. They're extremists, whack-jobs completely.”

“Ahhh…”

I was beginning to catch on.

“And labor zionists…?” I asked. “Their water has a particular color?”

“Of course!” he assured me: “deep red.”

I nodded.

“And Beitar, Jabotinskyites —”

“— Yellow,” he confirmed.

“So, do the chareidi leumi drink colored water?” I asked.

“Yes, of a bluish-black variety. I don't mind it, really,” he added. “There are even days when I have a real thirst for it".”

“Uh-hunh…”

I wasn’t sure there was much point continuing; we'd actually scheduled to talk about something completely different that day.

But curiosity got the better of me.

"Is there anyone who just drinks old-fashioned water, straight, without any mixings — like you find, say, in Portugal or Australia?

“Whaddaya mean? You're not a zionist?”

“Hunh?”

“You’re not a zionist? — you're opposed to the state?”

I preferred not to get into it. It seemed so far from anything concrete.

“No, no,” I said. “I'm just thirsty. And I’d prefer a glass of something pure, if possible — you know, unadulterated — just the water I’ve been used to drinking since I started walking without falling down. You’re familiar with it…?”

“I’ve seen it, yes,” he countered. “But we don’t do that here. In Israel, if you want to demonstrate your ownership over the land, your water has to be colored. Anywhere else in the world a Jew can drink that galuti stuff.”

He seemed pleased with his answer. He added: “Here, you pick your color.”

I was a little unsettled, a little bemused, but figured it was still worth approaching from a more basic, health direction.

“I always thought water just quenched our thirst, kept us alive and our bodies functioning. What’s the color add?”

“Like I said,” he continued, “here, our sovereignty can only be expressed with a color. How one wants to govern, and who is eligible to be governed, and what our obligations are as governees, are all expressed by the color of water one chooses.”

“But I know I'm sovereign here. This is Eretz Yisrael and the water that falls here — that we collect and drink — is ours. Whose else could it be? Isn’t that basic Torah?”

“You still have to choose,” he said. “And I recommend the ‘religious zionist’ water.” He pointed at my cup. “Go ahead, drink it. I think you'll see it's the closest one can get to the water referred to in the Torah. In fact, the Torah expressly states that ours is the proper water for a Jew to drink here in Eretz Yisrael.”

“You mean, they drank colored water in Torah times?”

“No, of course not. But today, we're modern. Jews who return to the land are, by definition, those who prefer colored water, and we religious zionists believe the Torah mandates this lovely green tint over all the others. But we still have a lot of convincing to do, as you'll see when you request a drink in other Israeli homes.”

I figured at that point it was time to offer a slightly more substantive challenge.

“But shouldn't we just be drinking the water our forefathers drank in Torah times? Nothing was lacking then. Shouldn’t that be the standard for a believing Jew?”

My neighbor thought a moment and looked at me with a squint. “There are some extreme types,” he said, “whose refusal to drink colored water shows the rest of us their true identity. They think they're ‘purists’. They think Torah is enough. They think colorless water is enough. They even have the gall to demand that the rest of us stop coloring our water! But we know better. This land is ours! No one else's. If you oppose us being here, oppose everything we’ve built and are trying to defend, then don't drink. But remember: we have nowhere else to go.”

I put the glass down.

Who knows what goes into a glass of water to deliver up all these colors?

And for what?

For 3500 years our people drank straight H2O, and now there's a need to add something to it?

Something’s gained from the addition?

Being a Torah observant Jew is no longer enough?

One has to be a ‘light green’ Torah observant Jew?

Or ‘deep blue’?

Or a ‘blackish-blue’?

What the chazir happened?

Somehow, my commitment to the Land of Israel is lacking without dye in my water? Somehow, I'm more galuti for wanting what Hashem gave us, without any additives?

I don't think so.

On the contrary…

To invest oneself in the dye one adds to one's drinking water only diminshes that water and turns it into something it's not — nor was ever meant to be.

So, too, calling oneself a ‘zionist’ of this, that, or any other stripe means that Judaism as it was lived for the 35 centuries before Herzl was somehow insufficient, and that zionism came into being to remedy that lack.

Sorry, gang.

It makes no sense for a Torah Jew to buy into that.

Take a look at your water.

It tells the tale.

Judaism wants for nothing. The system is G-d given, whole and sufficient unto itself. It mandates with perfect clarity everything we’re meant to do here in Eretz Yisrael.

It's as pure and perfect as a cool, clear glass of water.

And adding — anything — only sullies it.

Dean Maughvet