BEIT HOGLA WITH ERNA KOVAS
After the Six Day War, the yishuvim were founded and flourished. Erna Kovas was part of them. But then came the Oslo Accords and she couldn’t handle the very thought that they were thinking of giving away parts of Eretz Israel, beginning with Jericho. She said she had to do something about it and according to those agreements at the time at least a Jew could go and pray in Jericho’s ancient synagogue. So that’s what she decided she was going to organize.
For the first year and a half after the Oslo agreements her groups came to the machsom - the checkpoint - demanding to go inside Jericho but they were not allowed to enter. But because of Erna’s steadfastness and refusal to give up, the IDF caved in and allowed them to come inside Jericho to go and pray. They even assisted with a garine led by Rabbi Ginsberg every day from Yitzhar to learn in the yeshiva only in the day time. That lasted for 8 years until immediately after the Arabs burnt down Kever Yosef in Shechem, they also burnt down the Shalom al Israel Synagogue in Jericho.
The people said it’s not enough. We also want to spend Shabbat in Jericho. So she told of the famous story of renting a hotel in Jericho and on a Friday they brought the food to the shul, and on Shabbat morning they walked from this hotel they rented with 30 boys to the Shalom al Israel synagogue. On the one side was the Israeli army, on the other side was the Arab so-called police. They arrived to the synagogue and had a wonderful Shabbat. The next week they wanted to have another Shabbat but they weren’t allowed and went to prison. Instead they were allowed to create a yishuv next to Machaneh HaNoam which is now called Mevo'ot Yericho. It is a yishuv basically of 21 families which was established as a result of the banding of entrance into Jericho.
For two years Erna was busy with the new yishuv but her heart was still in Jericho. She said I want to go back to Jericho. So they told her they would bring her back to this Mahane Elisha which we promise you is a 10 minute walk to the south side of the Beit haKnesset, .and you can stay in this Mahaneh Elisha. She was very happy, and was allowed to stay for 7 months until the machatz, the regional officer, changed – sometimes they’re nice, sometimes they’re not nice, depending on their political opinion. So the new guy came in after 7 months and said ‘no more’ this story is over and you’re not allowed to be here anymore.
For 2 months she just sat outside Mahaneh Elisha in a car with her children and said I’m not moving from here. Then came a new guy who said ‘come and I’ll show you another place’ and he brought her here to the location where she now lives. She came in the month of Av – the month of August – quite hot as you can imagine and he said ‘Here you are allowed to remain!’ It was completely empty, a barren desert area. She couldn’t believe it, “What? They’re actually giving me land?” She demanded a generator, a big water tank and a tent. That was 9 years ago.
Shmuel has known Erna for 20 years and he said when Erna goes into Jericho, the Arabs already know her and knows that she belongs there. She knows Jericho like her back pocket and despite the fact that she’s very skinny she’s one great & brave woman!
She told the story of how they started building here with somebody who built Givat Ronen in the Shomron. He knows how to build but they came from the civil administration and started creaming: “What are you doing? You’re not allowed to build here! You’re not standing by the civil agreements!” All the while they were screaming, the guy continued to build ignoring their screaming. They passed a lot of different stages of threats of being evicted, but in the end she said: “We are here now, Baruch Hashem! And what we’re waiting for now is for families to come and live here – to join us.”
Her goal is to create a tourist center. The stories told about this place cannot be told about any other place in Israel. This is the place where B’nei Israel entered Eretz Israel.
Her vision for this place consists of three goals: a. Families would be living here; b. a tourist center; c. alternative medicine, a place for therapy. People could come here for alternative medicine just as they come to Yam HaMelech for treatments. She feels she could organize people to come for therapy.
Erna said that everything we see on her property is with God’s help since no one else was willing to help, not the moatzah, not other people. She said they have olive trees, pomegranates, and anything else you see here God is right here watching over us cause no one else has been willing to financially help us. Everything is a very big miracle! “It has been me and Hashem!”
HAGGI
So now to the issue itself. Just after B’nei Israel entered Eretz Israel, and because this is Eretz Israel Kedushah, Holy Land, obviously, when they came here they had to have a brit milah and that was the first mitzvah. Yehoshua orders the males to have the brit and we are standing here on the site of 2 square kilometers where men were lying after they had the brit milah without complaining and actualizing, materializing the brit, the covenant from Hashem connecting us to the holiness of this Land.
There is another brit established after the brit milah, the 2nd covenant is the covenant of marriage, the People of Israel have with the Land of Israel. After the brit milah, they prepared to conquer Jericho. The way they prepared to conquer Jericho, they surrounded Jericho seven times, the same way the callah – the bride - surrounds the chatan – the groom - seven times under the chuppah to bring down the walls that are between them in order to enter into a new covenant. That is what B’nei Israel did with Jericho and that is where we see the 2nd covenant of B’nei Israel with Eretz Israel by conquering Jericho.
To teach B’nei Israe,l who had just entered the land, the importance of the Land we have another story where B’nei Israel was to take the stones from the Jordan, very heavy stones that the Kohanim walked on across the Jordan, and shlepp them all the way to Har Gerazim. On those stones they wrote the Torah. They said are we like little children? Why do we need those stones? It is again to teach B’nei Israel the importance, the connection that those stones are as important as Eretz Israel.
Even Yehoshua received from Hashem a lesson about the holiness of the Land. Just the day before the conquest of Jericho, he walked around to check it out and Hashem asks him: “Why are you walking around with your shoes on? Take off your shoes and walk barefoot.” Usually walking barefoot is a sign of humiliation, but here taking off your shoes symbolizes connecting yourself, your body, your physical being with Eretz Israel. In the same way, when we go up to the Beit HaMikdash we also have to remove our shoes, not because it is a humiliating act, but because it is an act of connecting our physical with Eretz Israel.
There is the story of Achan (Yehoshua VII) who takes something from the spoils. It was forbidden to take but he takes something that doesn’t belong to anybody, he takes something that he liked. But then Israel fell in the battle of Ai, and its said to Yehoshua by prophesy that Achan took what was forbidden. Achan is executed along with all of his family.
So what is this story? What’s so bad here? What happened? Why did he have to die for something like that? What happened? The people of Israel had to learn that Hashem is together with us – he understands, he sees, he feels, he knows what’s happening even if nobody knows it or believes it and he decides what will be done for our best. We have to give an account to His Name all the time. We stand in front of His Name all the time. This was a new thing that the People of Israel didn’t know before.
NADIA & YEHUDIT PRESENT GIFTS TO ERNA KOVAS
(Explained by Nadia Matar)
We are here at Beit Hogla, and it says that Jericho is the entrance to Eretz Israel – Jericho is also the key to Eretz Israel! It is believed, has v’shalom, if Jericho falls all of Eretz Israel will fall (biblical Eretz Israel). That’s the reason, in the Oslo Accords, the PLO demanded Jericho first.
The one person who held steadfast to Jericho – who said: “Hello! There’s no doubt that it’s very important to be in Hebron, Shilo, Jerusalem - its very important to return everywhere in Eretz Israel, but what about Jericho? – there’s only one woman who consistently shouts!
And for many years she has asked us to come, “When are Women in Green coming? Come & visit us!” And I’m ashamed to say that every time we’ve been busy with another struggle and other excuses. Not that we’re busy doing nothing! We are here today! In Beit Hogla to meet that tenacious woman, Erna Kovas.
Erna, we have brought you a present which my dear mother-in-law, Ruth Matar, designed and had made. On this banner is written ...ולמען ירושלים לא אשקות– …for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest. (Isaiah LXII:1) This particular one was hung in Shdema and we brought it to you for a present. The 2nd one is the Lion of Judah also designed by Ruth Matar and her son Jacob
HOTEL NORTHERN TIP OF YAM HAMELECH
(In the words of HAGGI BEN ARTZI)
Because of the dry, arid desert of Judea, many holy books and writings were well preserved throughout history.
On the northern tip of Yam Hamelech – the Dead Sea – is an old abandoned hotel and several desalination plants. At the time of the Six Day War, Yam Hamelech came up to the steps of the hotel. Forty years later, the tragedy of Yam Hamelech is the extent it has shrunk. It has gone down 40 meters – a meter a year – due to two factories which extract the water. The reason is due to two major projects: 1. An Israeli national project; 2. The Jordanian project.
Desalination of water is not solution for shortage of water – this will only solve about 20% of the nation’s water shortage problem. The ONLY solution for the shortage of water is for us to consider the Biblical boundaries of Eretz Israel as written in the Tenach – from the mountains of Lebanon which is not another country where billions and billions of cubit water is just wasted every year. This is the origin of water for the Jordan River which then empties into yam Hamelech. If we want to have water we must include those tributaries – rivers – within the borders of Israel
Mount Nebo - Har Nevo – can be seen from here. This is the closest to Mount Nebo from the West. Mount Nebo was the mountain on which Moshe Rabbeino stood in his last days overlooking the western side of the Jordan River into the Promised Land. It became the symbol – the place from where Moshe Rabbeino gave us his last will, his last word.
The range of mountains is known as the Moav Mountains - Harei Moav – and below is a plain called Aravot Moav in Jordan.
ABDULLAH BRIDGE OVER NAHAL YARDEN
(According to Haggi Ben Artzi)
We are here at the place where we believe almost for sure that B’nei Israel crossed over into Eretz Israel. We ask, “Why here at the southwest area of Yericho and not further up?” It was the place of the heathen Canaanites which were hostile peoples and Am Israel did not want any confrontation with them so they stayed further south.
Remember the Jordan River was much more expansive than what we see today which has been reduced in the most part to sewage. The banks were overflowing at the time B’nei Israel approached it from Jordan. On Israel’s side, the water was all the way up to where we are standing.
Hashem told Yehoshua that the Kohanim were to enter the Jordan first. When they touched the water, the waters stood upright, becoming a wall. The water stopped flowing from the north – water stood only on one side, whereas the waters of the Yam Suf stood on both sides.
Haggi doesn’t understand why Jews are not coming to this place and blessing it. Miracles turned to tragedy in 1967 when in 3 days we returned to Judea, Samaria & liberated all the biblical areas of Eretz Israel
The Arabs witnessed the miraculous return of the Jews to their homeland and of their own free-will started to flee – fleeing to Jordan, fleeing back to the Arab countries – but unfortunately out of sheer stupidity Moshe Dayan decided that he couldn’t face the sight of fearful fleeing Arabs, and he decided to blow up the Abdullah Bridge on which the Arabs were fleeing to Jordan in order to encourage the Arabs not to flee from their homes in Palestine – which proved to be a very big mistake.
An additional mistake of Moshe Dayan – the first mistake he did was when he gave away Har HaBayit (the Temple Mount) within a short few hours after we liberated Har HaBayit (at a costly price). The 2nd mistake was to blow up this bridge, the road to the Arab nations. Therefore the problem is not the Arabs – they know that this is our land – the problem has always been weak Jewish political leaders. The day will come, b’ezrat Hashem, when we will complete what was started in the Six Day War when we will return to all of Eretz Israel and the Arabs will understand that the hour has come to go back to their Arab countries of origin, or as we say: “There will only be peace when the land of Israel will be for the People of Israel, and the Arab countries will be for the Arabs.”
The Abdullah Bridge over the river was destroyed by Jews to prevent Arabs from fleeing Eretz Israel!
