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dry bones in the desert. And he predicts that one day they will come back to life. And yet, son, for the first time in our history, the dead had no right to a grave. The enemy even eliminated their bones, threw their ashes in the rivers, or scattered them in the wind. Think of that inJerusalem when you dream of my Jerusalem. You won’t forget?”
    “No, Grandfather. I won’t forget.”
    As fate would have it, on the day I arrived trouble flared up on the southern border. An Israeli soldier was killed and three others wounded. Widespread turmoil and a wave of anger swept over the country. An infernal cycle that had become routine. Attack and counterattack. Aggression and reprisals. Kill the killers. And invariably, blood flows. And some children become orphans. And where does peace fit in? And the suffering of the stranger, known and unknown? Invariably, it is Death that comes out victorious. I visit the southern and central borders. I ask questions and listen. Rabbis and pupils, soldiers and civilians. Young vagabonds and old beggars. Political personalities and writers. How much longer will this era of uncertainty last? How can hatred be stopped? But how can terrorism be defeated if not through counterterrorism, that is, by spurning the glorious principle according to which every human life is sacred? How can we act so that the tears of joy of one don’t cause the anguished sobs of another? So that the hope of one isn’t based on the despair of another?
    An oriental rabbi, with a fiery gaze and an impassioned expression, demands that his entire generation exercise vigilance as it waits for redemption.
    An eloquent novelist pleads for the universalization ofthe Jewish ethic: improve the human condition of the Palestinians in the Territories; recognize their abiding right to self-determination.
    For a left-wing politician, there is no other solution but the creation of two independent sovereign states living side by side in security and peace.
    His right-wing opponent sees this plan as utopian. The terrorist in the enemy camp doesn’t want territorial concessions; his dream is the creation of a single state. A Palestinian state. Built on our corpses.
    A human rights activist blames me for not helping the Palestinian cause. I reply: “Let them stop the terrorist violence and there will be many of us embracing it.”
    I dedicate my story to my grandfather. I address him. It is to him that I relate my discoveries, the things that make me proud, those that frighten me, those that rend my heart.
    Suddenly I think of the great Nikolai Gogol: on returning from Jerusalem, he burned part two of his book
Dead Souls
. I can understand him: the experience of Jerusalem is too powerful, too intense. Faced with it, words inevitably lose their vigor. Purifying them by fire then becomes a possibility, as shown by Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav and Franz Kafka.
    Let me explain.
    A beautiful, aristocratic woman with a haughty bearing. Around forty. Her only son, a Tzahal lieutenant, was killed when he threw himself on a grenade to protect his comrades. She visits his grave every morning. She tells himabout the events of the day. I ask her if she thinks she will ever know happiness again, in the near or distant future. She looks at me in silence. As though she had understood not the meaning of my question but the very nature of my Jewishness.
    I feel like talking to her about my sons, but I’m afraid she will break down in tears. About Alika then? About my love for her, or my attachment to my grandfather? In spite of his past, so fraught with grief and bereavement, he remains open to joy, a joy so different from mine or the joy of most men: it seems drawn from a source known to him alone. But I am aware that this sort of comparison is displaced. Two instances of grief add up without canceling each other. One doesn’t justify the other, even if it explains it. Incapable of consoling her, I feel at loose ends, disoriented, useless. Should I kiss