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Part of the hebrew prayer for the dead, "El Maleh Rachamim."
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| By israelinsider staff September 19, 2004 |
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The Israel Defense Forces has decided to rename the operation to implement the government's plan to expel Jewish residents of Gaza and northern Samaria after rabbis objected that the name is part of the prayer which accompanies the burial of Israeli soldiers and other memorial services. Rabbis said that the coincidence might "tempt the evil eye."
Zohar Ha'rakia, translatable as "Heavenly Brightness," was the computer-generated name which the IDF originally assigned to refer to its implementation of the government's "disengagement" plan, in which 21 Israeli communities are to be leveled and their residents relocated.
The phrase is in the mournful El Maleh Rahamim (meaning, "Merciful God") hymn recited by Ashkenazi Jews when praying for the souls of the deceased. Rabbis who learned that the phrase had been assigned to the "disengagement" operations appealed for it to be changed because, they warned, such a name would invite evil spirits, and herald bad news, Israel's leading daily Yediot Aharonot reported.
The prayer contains the line "Grant perfect rest on the wings of Your Divine Presence in the lofty abode of the holy, pure and valiant who shine as the brightness of the heaven to the soul...."
Yediot Aharonot quoted Rabbi Daniel Shilo from the Kedumim settlement in Samaria as remarking that "it is amazing how cynical and ironic it is that the name chosen for the plan to uproot thousands of Jews from their homes is a phrase said over graves of the dead. Even if the name was chosen randomly by a computer, it is still chilling."
The army offered as a replacement the phrase Avnei derech, which loosely translates as "milestones."
Our military correspondent adds: Before the replacement name was offered, the IDF had reportedly considered compelling each soldier expected to be involved in the operation to wear a red string around his or her wrist.
Sources in the entourage of Esther aka Madonna, now making a pilgrimage to various gravesites, peace events, and fashionable nightspots in the Holy Land, tell us that the pop diva turned kabbalist devotee, along with fellow Zohar aficionados Britney Spears and Demi Moore, had all offered to donate their own red strings "for the sake of peace and unity of all mankind."
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