Symbolism in Recent Articles

A recent AP story is full of symbolism:

BIG RAPIDS, Mich. – A woman identified as an anti-war protester hit U.S. Sen. Carl Levin in the face with an apple pie during the Armed Services Committee chairman's meeting with constituents in northern Michigan, authorities said Monday.

The senator took a question near the end of the Monday morning meeting in Big Rapids from a man who said he was a student, Levin's office said in a news release. The man read a long statement, then a woman came up and hit Levin with a pie.

Big Rapids police arrested Ahlam M. Mohsen, 22, of Coldwater on a felony charge of stalking, as well as misdemeanor counts of assault and disorderly conduct. She has no listed telephone number in Coldwater.

Mohsen told the Big Rapids Pioneer she hoped "to send a message that liberals and Democrats are just as implicated in the violence (of war) as the Republicans."

Mohsen was one of three protesters arrested in January 2009 after a sit-in at Levin's office in Lansing, according to Michigan State University's campus newspaper. She told the newspaper then that the group wanted the United States to begin cutting military and other support to Israel and call for an investigation of Israeli war crimes.

The earlier arrest, plus the escalation to a physical assault, formed the basis for the stalking charge, Officer Erik Small told The Associated Press. He said Mohsen was being held without bond and was expected to be arraigned Tuesday.

Police said the man who read the statement before Mohsen hit Levin with the pie and a woman who videotaped the attack also could face charges. Police do not have the videotape, Little said.

Levin appeared to take the pie toss in stride.

"They didn't hurt me, but they hurt their cause even more than their own extreme words had already done," he said in a statement.

The constituent meeting was sponsored by the Mecosta County Democratic Party. The city of about 10,000 is 50 miles north of Grand Rapids and 150 miles northwest of Detroit.

So, we have a woman from the nation of Yishmael using the symbol of America - apple pie - to hit a Jew. Yishmael loves symbols - the World Trade Center was not chosen as their target for no reason. The apple pie may have been chosen deliberately too. It is to show that America can be forced to listen to Yishmael against Yisrael.

The woman comes from Coldwater - perhaps, to symbolize that we are being punished because we have gone cold in our Torah learning, Torah being represented by water.

It happened in Big Rapids, MI, perhaps, to show that big things are occurring in the world at a rapid pace.

Here's another symbolic event (also from AP):

AMSTERDAM (AP) — A shoot growing from the splintered trunk of a chestnut that cheered Anne Frank during her time in hiding could give the tree a new lease of life after a storm toppled it, a spokeswoman for a group that campaigned to save the tree said Tuesday.

A storm that buffeted Amsterdam on Monday snapped the towering chestnut and sent it crashing to the ground in a garden behind Anne's secret wartime hideaway.

Helga Fassbinder of the Support Anne Frank Tree foundation said the remains of the trunk will be left in the ground so that a shoot growing out of healthy wood on one side can grow.

She said using an existing shoot on the trunk should provide a swift replacement for the chestnut.

The obvious idea that this symbol represents is that of the Jewish people - when we fall during terrible tragedies - including the Holocaust, when this tree cheered up Anne Frank - we nevertheless rise up again.

An even better idea of what it represents is that of the Davidic Dynasty. Yishaya 11:1

וְיָצָא חֹטֶר, מִגֵּזַע יִשָׁי; וְנֵצֶר, מִשָּׁרָשָׁיו יִפְרֶה

And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a twig shall grow forth out of his roots.

במהרה בימינו אמן