MIND FLEX Hebron Tour with Stev Garr

[Music] hi guys my name is steve garr a huge shout out to project inspire guys thank you for making bringing us together the staff the educators the leadership of project expire are dedicated bringing jews from all over the world together to bring them to the land of israel to show them the special the holiness the the the beauty that exists over here so you guys do amazing work and i want to say thank you for giving me this incredible opportunity it's a privilege that i get to show you guys one of the most amazing places in israel my name is steve gar again i live here in the guccion which is just north of us where we're standing right now i made aliyah from south africa i serve on an elite counter-terrorism unit on the first response to a terrorist attack that happens in the area i'll also help run a special needs yeshiva this allows young men and women come to learn in israel for their year away they come to learn um but they have special needs down syndrome autism and we give them that opportunity the third thing i do which i'm absolutely passionate about is i love showing people around the israel showing them our history showing what it's all about so i'm honored that project inspire has chosen me i want to give a big shout out to david sussman who's his team production is putting this production together so david thanks for making this happen um it's awesome working with such a professional guys what we're doing over here is going to explore the holy city of hebron there are four holy cities in israel jerusalem being number one number two is the city behind us this is the city of the patriarchs in hebrew chevron the root of the word chevron is chaver which means friendship but you know that it's much deeper the word khabir where does that come from from the word in hebrew that says what is it's a connection when you connect to someone that's how you build a friendship do you know that right behind me in this gorgeous valley in there is the ancient point where we believe there's a direct connection between heaven and earth gaza is incredible our sages teach us in the oral tradition that heaven actually touches earth at that very spot if you look in the center of those walls it looks a little bit like a castle that is the tomb of the matriarchs and the patriarchs we believe that's a direct line between that spot on earth to the garden of eden to ghanaian unbelievable to be able to explore this area to see the history both modern history and ancient history that happened over here the trials the tribulations what we have are the massacres but i want to take you through this tour and how we're going to explore different neighborhoods over here different stories personal stories of people who have lived here in ancient and both in modern times this is an exciting tour and i'm so excited that you guys have out got this opportunity to be with me to really connect on a deep level to this place because that's what it is about iran is about is about connection the connection between the jewish people in the land of israel the connection between us and the almighty the connection between each other and i think this is an unbelievable opportunity that we get to connect to such a special place so project inspire thank you for making this happen join me on this awesome tour of this city of the matriarchs and the patriots abraham lost his wife at the age of 127 sarah passed away abraham looking for a burial spot came to this what was a field guys forget the rocks the stones the brick structures this was a field belonging to ephron ephron seeing that a leader a world leader abraham had lost his wife said you can take this cave to bury your wife for free abraham said no i will not take it for a gift and then everyone said if you want to pay for it he told him 400 silver queens which was way above the market price abraham the first jew did not haggle what was the reason why wouldn't he take it as a gift why wouldn't he take it or try and get the price down if it was too expensive abraham knew that this place would be disputed he didn't want a gift he wanted to pay the full value so that one day this would never come into any dispute that this belongs to his family it's where our forefathers are buried it's where our matriarchs and patriarchs are the final resting place he said i'm paying the full price and i'm not going to bring you down i'm not going to negotiate because we want you to know that this is our land this was 3700 years ago guys 1700 years after sarah b is buried over here comes a jewish king king herod at the time of the romans and this is uh over 2000 years ago he comes over here and he says we need to beautify this place what he does is he puts up these stones these are the classic herodian stone we can see his signature mark how he does the border of each stone probably one of the greatest architects of the ancient world king herod we know masada we know the second temple we all over israel he built he's probably the greatest architect in israel in the ancient times so this is the herodian stones and it's beautiful to see the size and how it's kept we're looking at a structure that is 2000 years old that's real ancient history over here so this is a little bit about the structure this is about the architecture that you see but i'd like to tell you how the jews came back here in 1967. guys we're standing in the spot outside the maratha the cave of the couples which for many years was known as the seventh step the seventh step was a place just outside where jews were allowed to go they were not allowed to pray inside and this all changed in 1967 we have the chief rabbi rav goran who drives his vehicle by himself wanting to be one of the first soldiers to enter to blow the shofar as the israeli army enter hebron he drives in and he finds he's alone he sees the arabs are starting to surrender and this is where rav gurin comes he finds his way to go to the door the entrance just behind us at the maratha but it's locked he uses his uzi to try and shoot it open doesn't work he pulls it with his car and eventually makes it in to be the first jew in 700 years to pray inside the spot what a feeling and that's the chief rabbi of the israeli army rav [ __ ] goren the highest ranking religious officer who came over here in 1967. you know when ministers came to visit afterwards they knew about how a jew was disgraced by that seventh step where i'm standing over here and a jew wasn't allowed to walk in to the place of their forefathers and their foremothers proudly with their head held up high and this was all changed you know one of our ministers his name's gandhi he when he came to visit he brought with him a sledgehammer and he said before i go in to pray to the the almighty i'm going to destroy that which disgraced the jew a jew now is in hebron a jew now is have come back to their original heritage to their birthplace so he came over here with a sledgehammer smashing that seventh step and this is the place where i pray actually because i'm a kohen a priest and priests are not allowed to go inside a burial site so for me this is the closest i can actually go but the jewish people now are able to go inside and not be afraid to really connect to their heritage to their birthright and be able to pray in one of the best places on earth and connect to the almighty guys we're standing in the ancient cemetery here in hebron this is ancient jewish cemetery that we can see dates back to the 1300s 1290 was where we can actually find a written source for the cemetery the the graves over here go back many many years famous rabbis the racist these are really incredible giants and brilliant rabbis that are that lived in hebron and had the merit to be buried over here unfortunately in 1929 this cemetery was taken over by the arabs and was destroyed in the massacre the last time it was used was to bury the jews that were killed in that massacre so you can actually see their graves over here and then it wasn't used and it's then we have a young family the nakshon family sarah nakshan a powerful woman who has her brings her three children brings seven families and they come and uh come back here in 1968 after the six day war it's over here that they are able to have more children and in 1975 they have avram yadidya you know their idea was to take this young boy and to circumcise him inside the maratha this was the burial spot for the matriarchs and patriarchs it was not allowed to do circumcision there because that burial site is shared with muslims and jews according to islam wine is forbidden so to show not not not to to offend we do not bring wine into into we do not bring one into the burial spot and that meant we cannot do circumcision there but sarah said i am determined i want my son to have his brit mila we give circumcision eight days after a young boy is born and she did it you know her husband packed a bag because he knew is probably going to be arrested for doing such a criminal act and what happened was is that she was able to have and circumcise her son in the marathon you should know that they gave him the special name avraham yadiya which means abraham our beloved after the abraham our patriarch unfortunately it's a sad story at six months old abraham you did yeah died of sid sudden infant death syndrome it was then that sarah understood there was a calling what she wanted to do she said i want to bury my son although forbidden against israeli law to bury and to use this synagogue this cemetery she said i want to bring my son back over here. she drove but the soldiers didn't let her through she said i'll go on foot wrapped in a prayer shawl she carried the infant six months old up from the tel romer and she encountered a a soldier an officer who broke down when he saw a grieving mother said it's too far jumped in my car they drove and he actually helped bury and dig the grave for the six month old infant aramia didya because it was because that sarah had this presence of mind that she said i want to come back over here i want to reignite there must be a reason that god gave me this precious kid who's irreplaceable if you don't mind i'd love to read you a little excerpt that comes from the the speech that sarah nakshan gave at her young little baby's funeral that happened right over here in the cemetery i sarah am holding my dead baby avraham in my arms and just as avraham our father came to hebron to bury his sarah so too i sarah have come here to bury my abraham at this moment i know why god gave me this irreplaceable gift for only six months he wanted me to reopen the ancient jewish cemetery of hebron we're going to see the grave and i want you to know it's because of her courage because of her determination that this ancient cemetery is now used by jews to this okay guys follow me as we go to our next spot as you can see just in the distance over there i'm pointing at an israeli flag that is called the telrometer that's the highest jewish little neighborhood here in hebron we're going to have a beautiful view up there and discuss a little bit of this area follow me as we go to the tel romer as we're standing on telerometa one of the highest positions in hebron this is the highest jewish community in terms of altitude looking down very safe what we have is a bunch of caravans wasn't easy setting up these caravans every inch of land over here was uh was very difficult to uh to to acquire in fact unfortunately if i can take you to 1998 1998 there was a terrorist attack that happened over here a famous rabbi rabba [ __ ] rahnan the grandson of the first chief rabbi avezo avraham akon cook he was his grandson and a tremendous torah scholar and he was living up here in a caravan with his wife a terrorist broke into his caravan stare brother annan thank god the rabbits and his wife was able to escape through the window it was then that the arab satellite the caravan with a molotov cocktail and ravranan was killed he was a very famous man as i said a grandson of the chief rabbi of the first chief rabbi of israel and many dignitaries came to the shiva the seven day morning period where we console the mourners and the prime minister at that time was bibi netanyahu he came in and he saw the warning word and said money can't really help but your husband gave such a tremendous um contribution to the nation of israel he's learning torah he's coming to live over here i want to give you this check and he handed her an envelope the rebels opened the envelope and in front of the prime minister this widow tore up the check she said we don't need money you see we fought for every inch of land over here every inch of land wasn't easy putting up these caravans do you know that the government at some stage gave a hour grace period said build whatever you want what do you build in 24 hours so they scrambled and said what we will bring is as more caravans as we can to place on top of other caravans and next to it in 24 hours they brought as many caravans as possible the clock ended one caravan was on a crane in the middle air this opened up a supreme court case where the supreme court the judges had to decide whether the caravan hanging in the air was allowed to be placed over here or because it hadn't been placed yet were removed from this area the supreme court voted and that caravan was allowed to be placed down they said as long as it was in the air it was on its way down even though the 24 hours had expired do you see how everything over here is a struggle because it's very controversial land we are completely surrounded by palestinians by arabs who do not want jews to return to this place in the memory of rav the special rabbi his widow has created an incredible yeshiva over here a learning house where young men are studying to be ordained rabbis in this very area but what's so incredible is what's underneath this incredible yeshiva this residence this telrometer come and follow me i want to show you an ancient archeological ruin now guys when we're talking about ancient times you know old in different countries i'm from south africa you've probably picked up the accent by now but guys you know we're talking about ancient times we're going back to the early bronze age this is four and a half thousand years ago guys according to the jewish tradition we are at five seven eight one five thousand seven hundred and eighty one that year this goes back to the original time period we're going back to the matriarchs and patriarchs as i've said and i'll continue to say it's not just that the matriarchs and patriarchs were buried here here in hebron but this is where they lived it's very possible that over here down in these ruins over here this was the neighborhood where abraham himself lived this is where sarah who gave birth to her son yitzhak we are standing in a place where the great matriarchs and the great patriarchs lived it's incredible to stand in a spot so holy so connected to our tradition to be in a place so close to the second holiest place in the jewish for the jewish people we are in hebron the city of the matriarchs and the patriarchs guys where we're standing in front of over here is a yeshiva this is a place where young men get to study the scriptures on the deepest deepest level it will be a five year program that these students will do it's called hezder this five year program allows a young man once he finishes school at the age of 18 years old he'll come and learn in a place like this now this is a place where they combine learning and serving in the military two years they will learn scriptures they will learn the jewish oral tradition the the explanation to the bible to understand this age-old tradition that goes back many thousands of years and this is where they would learn it it's all written in aramaic with many commentaries that go for throughout the ages and this is what young men are doing you know we believe as part of the hezder program religious zionistic jews will believe that what they're doing over here is protecting their nation in two ways there's one way of protecting our nation physically with a weapon and they do that after two years of studying over here they will go and protect their nation serve on an infantry unit serve on an elite become commanders tanks then after they serve in the military they'll come back and for another maybe year year and a half they will study again all in all a five-year program not only protecting our country physically boots on the ground but also protecting our nation and our country spiritually by connecting to the bible connecting to our roots connecting to our oral law connecting to what makes us jewish we're very lucky to have found a soldier over here we would love to show you the difference between the israeli-made weapon the tavor and the american-made gun the m4 the one that i'm holding over here so my a lot of you know the m16 it's a classic basic rifle and this weapon assault rifle over here is the israeli-made one so what's the difference between them we're going to go through i just want to say thank you to this guivati soldier and we cannot show his face because obviously we want to keep him safe but this soldier over here is one of the best units the in fact the second best unit in the israeli army giveth the best units obviously golani that's the unit i'm from you ask any israeli soldier to tell you his unit is the best unit now just kidding guys we've got here a sharpshooter using a tavor the israeli-made gun what's the difference so guys most weapons that when you have a weapon what happens is that you have the magazine the magazine is not something we read it holds the bullets and that goes in front of the trigger and you got the handle and then when you put the magazine inside just above that you have the chamber so that chamber is where your barrel begins now you know what makes a weapon accurate is the length of the barrel the longer the barrel the more accurate your weapon you've got a short barrel that's not accurate over long distances the problem is when you've got a soldier you want him to have a weapon that's close to his body easy to maneuver go around corners look under places you want a weapon that is compact you can never ever make a soldier happy because it's either compact but not accurate or very accurate and not compact israel designed the gun this is the tavor so just having a look at the tavora over here you've got the back of the weapon if you look and we're going to ask the soldier just to show you there is where we put in the magazine now normally the magazine goes in front of the trigger this magazine is all the way at the back so what they've done is is move the whole shooting mechanism to the back of the weapon which means the barrel starts here so this soldier has a safety mechanism in here and there's a mukporek and this is the beginning of the barrel what i want to show you is the size of his weapon compared to mine if you have a look at the size my weapon is a lot longer in fact his tavor is about two-thirds the size of this gun but let's see we have compact let's see who's got a longer barrel so i'm going to put my barrel over on his barrel and let's see which has a longer barrel and if you have a look you can see sticking out half an inch longer is the tavor what we have an israeli design gun which is more compact and more accurate than a regular weapon using the bullpup design this weapon is phenomenal it's completely ambidextrous which means if he's a right hand and he's shooting the shells are coming out of this window but you know it's so amazing if you turn that around all i do for a lefty is take out that box put it over there and the shells eject away from the soldier not into him that's not possible to do on an m16 it's a pain for a lefty to shoot with this guys it's completely versatile this gun he's got a special trijicon sight this is a reflex sight very accurate and that's on the top of the weapon at the bottom he's got legs he could put a flashlight a laser completely modular and that is something that's pretty incredible he's put also a handle over here to make that gun really firm it's close to his body and for ejecting if he's a right-hander he ejects it over here left-hander we've put another place for us to eject um switching off your safety you never take your hand off so when i take off my safety it's using my thumb lefty and righty can use this a completely unpredictable weapon one last thing to tell you and this is phenomenal this shoots a 5.56 millimeter around the nato round you know what's so cool if you want to change this you can take out this barrel chain the shooting mechanism and you can put a nine millimeter shooting mechanism with the barrel so you can change it and modify the gun to suit the different needs so this is israeli gun from haru tavor there was a great battle over there the battle with devorah the prophetess we had an incredible soldier she wasn't big and tough but she beat those philistines the polish team how did she beat them not because of muscle but because of using our brain the greatest weapon israeli soldier has and our friend from ashkelon will tell you this the greatest weapon we have is our brain we made a clever weapon over here and that's what makes a soldier good is that when we sharpen this weapon because that's the most important thing i want to thank you for helping us showing uh and letting everyone see the difference between an israeli-made gun the tavor and an american one hi guys we are now standing outside the bay tadasa hospital it didn't have that name originally originally in 1893 this hospital was made by the famous baghdadi jewish family they brought in the money to make this hospital this was a hospital that served for jews and arabs alike they were jewish and arab doctors nurses there were patients that were served the jewish and arab communities we shared hospitals together this was life over here 1909 the money to keep this hospital running came from the women hadassah organization all the way in the united states guys thank you for that because i want you to know this hadassah hospital is the original we have hadassah hospitals in in israel famous big hospitals that are really at the cutting edge in the when it comes to medical advances through the whole world so this was the original one kadasa coming from 1909. this is 100 years ago guys the hadassah hospital the original one we're standing right here and it's got quite a special story so we're going to go down the stairs into that hospital into the the original hospital it's been converted into a museum so we get an understanding of what happened and what's the history over here in cleveland guys we're in the bait hadassah hospital over here converted into a museum this museum has different chambers each chamber focusing on a different period in in the history of hebron i want to focus on a very difficult history the history of the 1929 riots you can see the difficult pictures behind us as we said we had a wonderful relationship with between the jewish and arab community pre-1929 what we have is british-controlled israel the british are in control over here and under british rule jews and arabs get on fantastically in fact in this hospital we have jews and arabs being patients being doctors medical staff nurses there were arab doctors who looked after jewish patients and vice versa there was a great relationship this all changed in the 1929 riots brutally turning on each other these were communities that got on gave each other livelihoods we're friends looked after each other's children what we see over here or not is not friendship unfortunately this hospital which i really believe was a symbol of coexistence of tolerance of looking out for one another to see how two main religions muslim and jew judaism can really coexist together that all ended in 1929 the beautiful avrahama venus synagogue was completely destroyed when we're looking at the blood pouring down the steps this is jewish blood jews were mutilated there were 435 jews that were able to evacuate but the devastation to see a beautiful holy torah scroll torn and ripped to see it being burnt to see the children that became orphans it's just horrific to go through all these pictures 67 jews were killed but many many were maimed amputated their limbs it was horrible to see how cruel one nation can be to another so this left chevron in devastation it meant that we had to be evacuated 435 jews it wasn't only jews they were here in hebron but the the uprising against the jewish people in 1929 happened all over israel all in all 133 jews were massacred in those uprising and this was all under the noses of the british the british were in control over here they had the guns and they were responsible for keeping the communities here safe so unfortunately that didn't happen 133 jews killed here in hebron we got hit the hardest 67 jews were slaughtered this beautiful place where we're standing over here was burned down to the ground and rather than being a place of healing a place where people could come and doctors could take care of them rather than a place of healing it became a place of death and very sad that this symbol of peace and coexistence was completely destroyed in 1929 but this is one of the most beautiful synagogues that was destroyed in the 1929 riots and it was created the synagogue 480 years ago in 1540 by rav marquel ashkenazi a jew who came here he founded the synagogue we know that there's incredible stories that happened the synagogue being used for 480 years 400 years in 1619 there's an incredible story written by rav naftali bachrach he tells us he's the emme kamelech the valley of the king how an incredible guest came here 400 years ago to the synagogue pretty incredible but you know in 1929 when the riots broke out they vandalized the arabs vandalized this beautiful synagogue they tore the the the books they burnt the synagogue down the hazan was able to run out and save one of the sephirah torah from 1929 until 1967 the synagogue lay desolate but not just desolate because it was a jewish symbol a beautiful synagogue burnt to ashes the arabs over here decided to make this a place where they kept animals goat it was a goat pen they used care they kept goats inside very soon after that when it became too disgusting they made this the public toilet a holy synagogue the public toilets of traveron of this area at layered waste after becoming public toilets a garbage dump people used to throw garbage and you actually can see there's a dome on the top we'll see when we're inside there was so much garbage in this place they actually threw the garbage through the broken windows on the top of this dome so when the jews were able to come back here we not only restored this the the the actual synagogue it's not a museum piece this is used on a daily basis we pray three times a day inside this very synagogue using that torah scroll that was saved in the 1929 rights by the cantor of the synagogue follow me inside and we'll hear an extraordinary story about a fascinating guest who is inside this very synagogue follow me guys [Music] i want to tell you a story that happened right over here in this synagogue was a couple of years after it was built we're talking about 400 years ago we have a very special rabbi kamelech and in fact behind me is written the entire story in one of his books he was a cabalist and he wrote that it was yom kippur the holiest day of the jewish year here in the second holiest city for the jewish people and what happened right over here is that nine men were waiting for the tenth to start their minion to start the quorum where they were going to pray but or less all the jews for some reason that you decided that they were going to pray in jerusalem so kami yom kippur in the city of avot the city of our forefathers our four mothers the matriarchs and patriarchs there wasn't going to be a minion what would they do they stood and stood and the sun was setting kul nidrei is the prayer where we open and they're holding the sifri torah that the torah scrolls are in their hands and they say what are we going to do no minion how can we not have a minion on the holiest day all of a sudden the door opens and comes through a door a man with a big gray beard they they've never seen him before what a miracle they finally have the tenth men and they pray the whole of yom kippur coming the end of yom kippur they drew lots who was going to have this guest who helped them make the minyan come and break the fast to eat after the yom kippur had finished it fell on the khazan a very holy man was able to take the guest and he said to the guest after locking up the synagogue they walked out through the alleyways on the way home this guest was standing behind him and as they turned the corner the hazan turned around and wasn't able to see he the man disappeared he was frantic he didn't know what was he kidnapped the man didn't talk a lot he just didn't know you know he just came to make a minion and then vanished he had to break the fast he had been fasting for 25 hours after searching he found he couldn't find the man anyway he went home broke the fast frantic and and afraid that something terrible had happened he went sat down on his couch his wife said don't worry it's going to be okay he fell into a deep sleep and in that sleep that old man appeared to him that man with a big gray beard came up to him and said stop worrying stop looking for me he said i don't understand who are you he said my name is avraham avinu abraham the patriarch holiest day of the year there wasn't going to be a minion he said i got permission from the ministering angels to be sent down over here to complete the minion i was only allowed to come for the entire yom kippur and i came down and made the minyan and it's incredible to stand in a place where we can actually feel the presence of the great patriarchs and matriarchs that are the bound foundation the basis of the jewish religion thank you guys for joining me here follow me and let's go outside as we've mentioned before there are four jewish neighborhoods here inside hebron now chevron is predominantly an arab city we're talking about four jewish towns little little neighborhoods not even a town neighborhood within a massive city when i say a massive city we're talking about somewhere between 100 to 150 000 arabs in this area now i must be honest i love coming to visit over here i love being in the city of the matriarchs of the patriarchs i love coming to pray at one of the most important places on earth for a jew to pray here at the maratha but you know what the only reason i'm able to come here is because of the incredible sacrifice that these jews living here 24 7. i don't know if i could do it you know i've got a beautiful family thank god five children a gorgeous wife i must be honest i don't know if i could live right here in this neighborhood completely surrounded by possible enemies but these families that are here do and they make that sacrifice so that jews like myself friends tour groups can come over here and enjoy being in the second holiest city of israel but it's incredibly challenging because it was 2001 march where a young baby 10 months old was in her stroller her dad yitzhak isaac isaac pass was standing holding the stroller when a sniper all the way from across the valley all the way on that hilltop over there aimed his weapon he had a telescopic sight he put the crosshairs on the young infant and squeezed the trigger when we investigated this horrible terrorist attack we found that this was a well-trained sniper he knew exactly what he was doing he aimed at the stroller at the head of the stroller of shalhevet pass this young infant baby girl 10 months old was killed instantly you know the bullet went straight through her skull into the leg of her father isaac isaac was critically wounded after shooting the baby the sniper turned the weapon on to the father the mother was here immediately after hearing the gunshots she ran for her little baby but found a bullet hole straight through the skull of her baby by a little child it's a very very sad very extremely sad story that took place right over here a tremendous painful story but you know i get a little bit of comfort when i see the type of people who live here who are willing to sacrifice being over here maybe being surrounded by so many enemies their sacrifice has not gone for nothing it allows us to be here and to really understand and to connect to our jewish roots to understand what the city is all about to connect to the holiness of the patriarchs and the matriarchs you know we have here a memorial this is a memorial for shall have it you know shall have it actually means a flame and we can see over here the stroller that shall have it was when the sniper from the hilltop shutter we can see the baby inside and the flames going upwards this is the name of shall have it shall have it in hebrew means a fire a flame a flame always rises no matter how much it actually defies gravity it goes up these people over here defy being sad being depressed they get up like lions they are a nation that get up like lions and that's what we have over here the response to terrorism the response to pain the response to a baby being massacred is that we rise up you know with these flames actually go up to a window that i'm pointing at that window over there is actually where there's a very holy man a scribe a sophist um he's sitting in that very window inside that office and there he is writing a torah scroll we have jewish law that when you write a torah scroll you have to be pure when you write the holy name of god himself when you write god's name you have to purify yourself and that's why sometimes when i'm standing here i see this holy rabbi the scribe come down the stairs right past the spot going into the ritual cleansing bath this is a mikveh [Music] tradition is how we purify ourselves going into the mikveh he washes himself purifies himself just before he goes back to his office to write god's name in between purifying himself he's not allowed to take phone calls he's not allowed to talk he's not allowed to do anything he has to have full intent of the holiness of writing god's name you know what's so beautiful for me is that he comes past the spot every single time he writes this the holy name of god the very spot where a young baby was killed and he won't be deterred and the families will not leave here they stay here and you know what we call a torah scroll we call it in hebrew eight's it's a book of life that strengthens us that gives us power this book of life is not focused on death but rather how these people respond to pain and suffering they get up they rise up like a flame they rise up like lions do you know that shall have it pass his mother just lost her baby her husband was in icu intensive care unit in jerusalem we did not know if he would make it but she had the presence of mind to go to the israeli army and say i will not bury my little baby i will not bury my baby until you can assure me that this area these four jewish neighborhoods inside the heart of hebron are safe for the jewish people she had that strength to say i'm not bearing now in jewish law to bury a baby especially for a religious family a religious woman is one of the greatest acts to take the baby and to send her back to her creator but she said i will not do such a thing unless we can protect other babies unless we can protect other jews in that very spot where a palestinian sniper put the crosshairs on an infant there in the israeli army base and at that army base they are watching over abu sunena which is the arab neighborhood looking over this neighborhood the abraham avenue neighborhood so it's over here that this young mother was able to make sure that the jews living over here the jews coming to visit over here are safe from snipers you know at that army base if you look carefully i want you to see that on the corner of that army base you see a symbol of jewish strength and that is the symbol of the menorah the candelabrum that we light for eight days on chanukah one of our festivals and you know that when you look at that hanukkah how the jews were able to survive even against fighting a superpower that we picked ourselves up and now we were able to win the war the hashmonaem were able to breed the hasmonean empire were able to beat the greatest military force of that time the greek empire we were able to push them back and we won that war you know on that army base we are able to show strength that we can live here peacefully to connect to our roots and to pray to the almighty this is the very spot where we remember the jewish response to pain and suffering we're going to get up like lions just like the hasmoneans got up in the history against the greek empire just like a young mother after losing her baby while our husband is in critical condition is able to get up and say enough jewish blood is not healthcare it's not meaningless it should not be spilt in vain let's keep us safe from further terrorist attacks it's been an honour showing you around taking you and seeing chevron seeing the beauty and this mysticism the holiness the spirituality that exists here in hebron the connection between the jew and the land of israel between the jewish people and the holy spots the synagogues the ancient mikvahs the spiritual ritual baths the hills the actual stones where the greats our great-great-grandfathers the forefathers the four mothers this is where they walked it's been an honour showing you around i hope you guys were able to feel a connection to this incredible place and i really hope that you'll be able to come and see it physically not just through a video thank you guys thank you for joining me and i want you to stay safe and healthy [Music] you