Sharansky cont'd

I talked with Natan Sharansky today; that's pretty unbelievable. He's very excited about the power of the blogosphere, about how many people can be reached regardless of physical distance. He explained how difficult it was to communicate back when he was a dissident in the FSU, how difficult it was to communicate with people in the rest of Russia, much less beyond. I don't know if he actually said it, but you knew from hearing him talk that he was wistfully thinking, "If only we had had the internet..." I had to laugh at the enormous difference in worlds (I couldn't have thought thirty years ago that I wanted to be a zioneocon blogger when I grew up... it didn't exist, even in words).

Sharansky spoke for maybe ten minutes, both about the situation with Iran and about the "archaeological catastrophe" that has occurred at the Temple Mount under Muslim jurisdiction. He has a great love of Israel of course, and of Jerusalem. Maybe tomorrow I can write (and make sense) about how both of these center on freedom.

Since leaving the government, Sharansky has become honorary chairman of the One Jerusalem Foundation. It has one objective - "maintaining a united Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the Israel." (Amen.)

It's only tonight that I've had a chance to see their website. It's very impressive and I hope you will go and explore. If you don't want to sign both the Petition for A Unified Jerusalem and the Petition for the Preservation of the Temple Mount, then you have stepped into Boker tov, Boulder! by mistake (the X at the top of your screen will take you to the nearest exit).

Two things I want to share with you before I fall asleep in my chair. To hear Sharansky is to understand that we know nothing of freedom, never having been deprived of it. It's like hearing someone who has been truly and desperately hungry, talk about food. We have a lot to learn - and Natan Sharansky has a great deal to teach us - about becoming aware of freedom. It's not a throw-away word, not a slogan, it's a very real issue.

I also want to say that I am most grateful that I had the opportunity to personally thank Mr. Sharansky and tell him how proud I was when he (and only he) resigned from the Israeli government because of his opposition to the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif. Talk about having the courage of one's convictions... this man is a moral giant. And because he is, he has a heavy burden and I imagine he pays a heavy price.

Lastly, I realize in a deeper way than I ever have, that this is not a parlor game. This is real life, short life, and the stakes couldn't be higher and we may not win. That we have to work, to fight, for what is right and true, has never been more clear to me. It couldn't be harder and it couldn't be more urgent. Along the way we will have to learn to Fear No Evil.

We'll do it together.