Faster than a speeding Billet

In 1992 I approached Elisha Peleg, the sanitation Commissioner of Jerusalem, to help clean a Palestinian garbage dump on an obscure part of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives. He enthusiastically consented and gave my colleagues and me, one thousand garbage bags, a steam shovel, a sanitation truck, and a platoon of soldiers to protect us. He said that it was a unique opportunity to realize a Zionist dream with trash. Indeed, it was just that. We mobilized some 120 American students studying in Israeli Yeshivot that year and uncovered some 300 neglected Jewish graves hundreds of years old.

Last week, I discovered another unusual way to express my pride in Zion. I joined with more than 10,000 runners from 40 countries who ran, either, 42, 21, 10, or 4 kilometers — all parts of the first Jerusalem marathon. I ran 10K and felt a special connection to the verse in Psalm 122:                                 

“Omdot hayu ragleinu b’shearayich, Yerushalayim,” “Our legs stood within your gates, O Jerusalem,” “Yerushalayim habenuyah k’ir shechubra la yachdav;” “The built-up city of Jerusalem is like a city that is united;”

The run included West Jerusalem, the Old City, and Mount Scopus--all neighborhoods of the united indivisible capital of the Jewish State. Many of us felt that we were running through almost 5000 years of history and making a strong statement to the world about the importance of Jerusalem to the Jewish people. Even though the tradition of a marathon comes from Mount Olympus, on this day Mount Zion and our Holy City were the real winners. This was especially poignant coming just two days after a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem killed a woman and seriously hurt almost ten people.

The weather was cool and cloudy, perfect for the difficult hilly run that makes up the topography of Jerusalem. Delicious free Mai Aden water from the Golan Heights was distributed all along the route. The runners included members of the Young Israel of Woodmere, a number of children of our members and other Five Towns people who made aliya and live in Israel with their families. It was inspiring to see so many of them.

I ran for Jerusalem and for another cause as well. After the Carmel fires, I surveyed the fire fighting capacity of Israel. Regretfully, Israel’s equipment is ancient and its capacity to fight a major fire is very limited. Unfortunately, today, Israel is threatened by missiles from many of its powerful hostile regional neighbors. If G-d forbid there is another war, each missile fired at Israel can potentially start a major fire.

Israel needs new, sophisticated fire fighting equipment. A new fully equipped fire truck costs a half million dollars. If I raise $250,000 through the JNF USA, the government will match the funds and Israel will have a new, state of the art, fully equipped fire truck. I am still way short of my goal. But when you run to do a mitzvah, sometimes help miraculously comes with an assist from Above.

If anyone wishes to help from below, please contact me at hbillet@gmail.com