April 14th was a day of a historic victory for the state of Israel. To me, it was like the first day of the Six-Day War. That day,  Monday, June 5th, 1967, Israel attacked the Egyptian air forces and destroyed all their planes before they could take off. Within a few hours, Israel had won the war and demonstrated its offensive power to its enemies.

Yesterday, for the first time in history, Iran attacked Israel. Iran threatened Israel many times before but had never carried out those threats. Iran has its proxies: Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, or the Houthis from Yemen. An Israeli commentator of Iranian origin once explained Iran’s tactic in its relentless (and inexplicable) struggle against Israel: What is the most critical piece of a chess game? The king. And the king is the one who moves the least. Iran is the king. Iran always attacked Israel through its disposable pawns. But Israel forced the king to move. And you don’t need to know much about chess to understand that when the king moves, the king is in trouble… It was a masterful check by Israel that forced Iran to act on its own.

And Iran failed.

While there were no fatalities, Iran attacked with everything it had.’ It fired 60 tons of explosives in hundreds of drones, 36 cruise missiles, and more than 120 ballistic missiles. Israel intercepted 99% of everything Iran sent. This same attack power, which Russia uses, for example, in Ukraine—with drones provided by Iran—has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. A similar attack, although much less intense because it consisted of only 30 drones, occurred on September 14, 2019. That day, Iran attacked Saudi Arabia and destroyed 50% of its oil wells in the Aramco region. The results of that attack? ‘The biggest daily disruption of oil supply in history.’

See here (https://www.csis.org/analysis/attack-saudi-oil-infrastructure-we-may-have-dodged-bullet-least-now

The Israeli Air Force destroyed all the drones in the air, and most were intercepted outside Israeli territory by Israeli and American planes.

Israel also intercepted Iran’s most powerful weapon: the ballistic missiles. Unlike the drones, which take from 6 to 8 hours to reach Israel, these advanced missiles sent through the stratosphere can get from Iran to Israel in 10 minutes! General Abibi said today on the HAPATRIOTIM  ((https://youtu.be/_fA5aoz-Asc?si=ATklE2qI3KlMeQCN, see from minute 10:30 to 11:30) that these missiles were shot down directly by Israel ‘because no other country in the world can do so.’

Israel used its CHETZ system and demonstrated to its enemies—and the entire world—its military superiority. It was an impressive, overwhelming victory and a display of Israel’s power to her enemies and to her allies.

Today a friend told me a little bit concerned ‘that Israel paid a very high price for the Iranian attack’, since activating all these defense systems costs Israel billions of dollars. I’m not an economics expert, but my common sense tells me that Israel yesterday “invested billions in activating its defense systems and is now in a privileged position to make 100 times the profit from that. Why?  Because no country can afford not to have this fantastic defense system. All countries in the world, especially in Europe, will run to equip themselves with the Israeli defense systems that demonstrated its phenomenal effectiveness in a real war! 

It has been an incredible day for Israel on all fronts!

One last thought: allies apart, despite the amazing defense systems that Israel has, as we know, things can always go wrong in war… There are unpredictable elements, such as accidents, human errors, or countless failed missiles. On April 14th our main ally, BORE OLAM, showed us again that He is on our side.  In the past, I wrote that we should ‘update’ our visualization of the ‘anane kabod, ‘the clouds of glory’ that protected the people of Israel when we left Egypt. We must not understand—as they do in kindergarten—that those were like the ‘white clouds’ in the sky. We should visualize these ‘clouds’ (except for the seventh, which acted like a GPS) like virtual clouds or firewalls,  an invisible dome of Divine protection, which we remember every year through the festival of Sukkot and, in fact, every night when we bless HaShem for protecting us with His Sukat Rachamim Veshalom, “the invisible protection dome of compassion and peace”  with which HaShem surrounds us.

The survival of Am Israel depends on the intelligence, courage, and determination of the Jewish people and the invisible but omnipresent assistance of Bore Olam.

May God protect us from our enemies as He protected us when we left Egypt and grant Medinat Israel victory on all fronts. AMEN!

WHY TWO AGENCIES?

An international agency created by the United Nations is responsible for assisting all refugees in the world: the UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It was established in 1950, after the Second World War, to assist millions of refugees from all corners of the world fleeing war or persecution in their countries of origin. To date, this agency has assisted more than 108 million people. Currently, there are more than 30 million refugees in the world, with Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, and Sudan being some of the countries with the highest numbers.

This agency’s primary mission is resettling these refugees in other countries worldwide. For example, Europe, the United States, and Canada have absorbed tens of millions of refugees from Africa, the Middle East, and South America in recent decades.

The mission of UNHCR culminates once these refugees are resettled in another country and acquire citizenship. Their refugee status ends there, as they no longer depend on UNHCR for assistance because the country that has absorbed them assumes responsibility.

There is only one exception to this simple rule of international refugees: the Palestinians.

THE GAME OF THE FIVE DIFFERENCES

Several key elements must be understood to grasp this difference.

Firstly, the Palestinians are the only refugees in the world who have an independent agency: it’s called UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees.

UNRWA assists more than 5 million Palestinian refugees and has a budget of $220 per refugee, employing about 30,000 workers, meaning one social worker per 180 refugees.

How many refugees does UNHCR assist? The international refugee aid organization assists more than 30 million refugees from 134 countries worldwide.

How many workers does this organization employ?

16,000 workers. That is one social worker for every 4,213 refugees. The allocated budget is $121 per refugee, almost half of what Palestinian refugees receive.

RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT

Why do Palestinians have their independent agency? Why so many employees in UNRWA? Why are Palestinians the only refugees who enjoy these extra privileges?

Before answering this question, we must refer to another issue, perhaps the most important one.

The problem of Palestinian refugees arose in 1948 when around 700,000 Palestinians left their places of residence in Israel. The majority did so because the Arab countries, which decided to declare war on Israel when the Jewish state declared its independence, invited Palestinians living there to leave their homes temporarily until “they drove the Jews into the sea”. Now, how many “real” Palestinian refugees exist today? What is the approximate number of refugees who lived at that time, left their place of residence, and would be entitled to maintain their status? In 2018, an article in The Washington Post suggested that only 30 or 40 thousand refugees had survived from 1948.

But then, how is it that UNRWA assists 5 million Palestinian refugees?

The incredible, scandalous, and little-known reason is that the United Nations grants Palestinian refugees, and only Palestinian refugees, the right for their refugee status to be hereditary, meaning that the status of refugee passes to the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc., of those Palestinians who left their land in 1948!

Thanks to these incredible exceptions, there are more than 5 million Palestinian refugees, the majority of whom have never lived a single day there.

And as if that weren’t enough, the United Nations established another additional rule for these privileged human beings: Palestinian refugees, and only them, can maintain refugee status even when they obtain citizenship of another country and enjoy the legal and social benefits of those countries.

So UNRWA, unlike UNHCR, does not dedicate itself to resettling Palestinian refugees in other countries to free them from refugee status. UNRWA’s mission is to maintain and maximize the number of Palestinian refugees in the world “claiming the right to live in Palestine,” that is, Israel. UNRWA does not provide a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees; it perpetuates and multiplies it

WHY?

Unfortunately, the world does not care about Palestinian refugees, and that is why we do not see any country offering at this moment to absorb the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Gaza. Not even their Egyptian Muslim brothers, who see from 50 meters away everything these refugees suffer in Rafah.

The Palestinians are “used against Israel” because they have the perfect enemy: the Jews. If Tibetan refugees conflicted with Israel, Tibetans would be the “celebrity” refugees of the world.

ARE WE ALONE?

What hurts the most is that the rest of the world knows all this very well. It knows very well that the privileges of these VIP refugees are a formula designed to promote the demographic destruction of Israel, pressing for “5 million made-up refugees” to claim to settle in Israel and thus try to prevent the viability and continuity of a Jewish state.

In my opinion, the case of Palestinian refugees is unmistakable evidence of global antisemitism represented by the United Nations.

Natan Sharansky said that modern antisemitism is defined by the 3 “D”s:

1. Demonization of Israel,
2. Delegitimization of Israel, and
3. The double standard against Israel is making laws and rules for Israel that do not apply to any other country on the planet.

Rabbi Yosef Bitton

Wars take their toll. One day we rejoice in our victories, and the next day we mourn the irreparable loss of precious Jewish souls. We wake up hearing the names of those young soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for all of us, and our hearts break. These emotional ups and downs are inevitable in any armed conflict. They are part of a package that, I trust, will ultimately yield a positive outcome, giving even more meaning to the sacrifice of these wonderful young IDF soldiers.

Wars also bring about profound changes in society. They either atomize or strengthen it. They reset its values and priorities. Israeli society is no exception, and there are many changes happening, most of which I believe are very positive. These changes will become evident in the coming years and decades when those currently fighting against an Amalekite enemy become the spokespeople and political leaders of Israel.

One change I’ve noticed is that Israeli society is becoming more respectful of religion and observant Jews. This is not a minor change. It’s part of a process of unity of our people.

THE DELICATE BALANCE

Israelis, and even secular Jews in the diaspora, seem to be more open to embracing Jewish tradition. This increased respect for the Torah doesn’t happen in a vacuum. I feel that the old anti-religious prejudice is dissipating more and more. The war has shown that the more observant Jews, the Hasidim, the Haredim, have a complete dedication to Israeli society, and in many areas, their contribution is essential: civil assistance of all kinds, financial aid, medical help, and more, including the thousands of cases of Haredi soldiers recently joining the army. The most fundamental change in this aspect is cultural. In the past, some Haredi sectors used to criticize the army and soldiers for not being religious enough. This, it seems to me, is disappearing. In times of crisis, eyes open. And no one can ignore that the army is protecting our lives and our religious observance in Eretz Israel. Suddenly, the front lines became sanctified. Even in the most orthodox sectors, there is a sentiment that the soldiers, even the less religious ones, are considered Kedoshim (holy) because they give their lives for Kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of God’s name, by protecting Am Israel.

This change is not widely discussed and may not be immediately noticeable because it’s not abrupt, but it’s there and growing. This change is also causing a significant part of Israeli society that used to demonize religious Jews in the past to change its view. Gradually, both religious and secular Israelis are moving closer to each other. They are gravitating toward the center. Suddenly, the focus is no longer on what separates us but on the most basic thing that unites us: survival in the land of Israel.

EXISTENTIAL EMUNA

Speaking of survival, the war has produced a new kind of Emuna, Jewish faith, a connection with God. In an interview a few days ago, former IDF commander Rafi Eitan commented profoundly on Channel 14 (www.now14.co.il) regarding a video that moved me to tears. In this video, a soldier surprises his family by returning home. The young mother sees him, obviously becomes emotional, and hugs him. Her son had been fighting in Gaza, and she hadn’t seen him for over 100 days. While hugging him, the mother prays aloud. She thanks Bore Olam (the Creator) for her son’s safety, reciting the Mizmor LeToda, the psalm of gratitude to God, by heart. The panelists on Channel 14 note that neither the mother nor the son appear to be religious. Eitan says, We are witnessing a new type of national connection with God: Emuna Kiyumit (אמונה קיומית), which I would translate as existential Emuna.

What did Rafi Eitan mean? He referred to the connection with God that becomes apparent, emerges, or intensifies when one experiences a traumatic existential event, a matter of life or death, such as illness or war. When one realizes the fragility of life, an approach to God begins, and an incomparable intimate relationship develops.

I think of the hundreds of thousands of mothers of Jewish soldiers in Gaza who spend the long nights of the war, literally without sleep. They constantly fear that someone will knock on the door in the middle of the night to deliver the worst news of their lives. These Jewish mothers, even the less observant ones, spend the nights with God. They overcome panic by praying and reciting Tehilim. And since they know Hebrew, they understand what King David wrote, strengthening their connection with God, praying, and filling themselves with hope, visualizing the reunion with their beloved children. They speak to God from the depths of their suffering. And they repeat in their hearts a thousand times the words of gratitude they promise to dedicate to the Creator when that sacred embrace finally arrives.

TELL ME HOW YOU SHOW YOURSELF, AND I’LL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE

The religious uniform has taken a backseat in this war. There is a new phenomenon in Israel: even those who do not wear a kippah or do not dress modestly are also observant. They also practice their Emuna. I see this often on Channel 14 (which I still recommend watching). Most of the panelists do not wear kippahs, but they express a love for Judaism, the Torah, HaShem, and an admiration for the dedication of more observant Jews, which is wonderful. As one of my teachers used to say, what matters is not appearing more religious than you are, but being more religious than you appear.

The terrible war in Israel and irrational antisemitism elsewhere in the world is helping us understand that what makes our enemies hate us is also what unites us and what has made us Jewish for 3500 years.

Watch this video where you can see the mother reuniting with her son (min. 0.33) and then being interviewed. Her words are very spiritual, intelligent, and emotional. ירבו כמותם בישראל (May there be more like them in Israel).

Video Link

When I entered the synagogue on the morning of October 7th, I slowly learned what had happened in Israel on that fateful day of Simchat Tora. While the guys from security were explaining to me with tears in their eyes what was happening, I asked them a crucial question: “Where did the attack come from?” And they told me: From Gaza. I asked them: “Have you heard if there is any other open front? Is Israel also being attacked from the north or Judea and Samaria?” They told me “no”.

Previously, I had heard an interview with retired Israeli general Isaac Brick. His terrifying prediction about a possible multi-front war against Israel suddenly crossed my mind. I thought about this worst-case scenario and was terrified of what could happen in the coming days. As time went by, I realized that that terrible massacre of October 7th could have been much worse. And when I think about what happened in light of what could have happened, I believe we witnessed “a miracle”, somehow similar to Hanukka.

ANTIOCHUS’ IMPATIENCE

In the year 200 BCE, the Jewish people were on the brink of extinction. The Greek Empire had triumphed militarily and effectively spread its religion and culture throughout its territory, including the land of Israel. They did so not by force but through persuasion. The Greek strategy worked perfectly by opening the doors of their civilization to all. The wave of assimilation also affected the Jews. Those outside of Israel had already adopted Hellenism and were practicing a religion that was increasingly more Greek and less Jewish. In Israel, Jews living in the cities also willingly submitted to the imposing Greek culture and became Hellenized. There were a few loyal Jews in the fields and rural areas who resisted assimilation. But, according to historians, it was only a matter of time, one or two more generations, for these Jews to “normalize” assimilation and lose their Jewish identity by inertia, even without realizing it.

But then something happened that no one had planned for. In the year 170 BCE, ANTIOCHUS LOST HIS PATIENCE WITH THE JEWS FAITHFUL TO THE TORA. He abandoned his advisors’ plan (to leave the Jews alone so they could continue assimilating on their own) and imposed a ban on Jewish practice, sentencing all those who followed Tora to death. It was a terrible time of persecution, death, hopelessness, terror, and darkness. But in the end, with the help of Bore Olam and the extraordinary courage and ingenuity of Jewish soldiers, we fought and won. And today, over 2,000 years later, we celebrate this triumph.

The million-dollar question is: why didn’t Antiochus wait if he knew that assimilation would have occurred naturally in one or two generations?

No one knows precisely why. But everyone admits that Antiochus’s impatience caused an opposite effect. Antiochus unintentionally woke us up. He forced us to organize ourselves. He forced us to fight. And what’s more, he managed to bring many assimilated Jews back to embrace the Judaism they had left behind.

RABBI MELAMED’S HYPOTHESIS

A rabbi living in Israel, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, wrote an idea that deeply moved me a few years ago in his book Penine Halakha. He said the following: The assimilation of Jews into Hellenic culture was inevitable. The disappearance of Judaism through natural means was only a matter of time. But Antiochus wanted to accelerate this process. And it backfired on him: his decrees had the opposite effect. He reversed assimilation and, ironically, “saved us from self-destruction.” Antiochus’s impatience, Rabbi Melamed said, was the result of divine intervention. God hardened his heart, as He did in Egypt with Pharaoh, and thus, the Greek monarch – against all logic and advice – made a decision that, in the short term, was devastating for our people but, in the long run, saved us from something infinitely worse.

GREECE AND GAZA

Last October 7th, we Jews suffered a devastating terrorist attack of “Shoah” proportions. The number of Jews who died and the way they died has no other qualification. The Hamas murderers were worse than the Nazis, as seen by the sadism of filming themselves and the way they “enjoyed” torture, mutilation, and the shedding of Jewish blood.

But there is a part of the story of this attack that, for now, is less appreciated. No one ignores that Hamas is one of the executing arms of Iran, the new Amaleq. Iran is an octopus whose head is in Tehran, but its tentacles expand throughout the Middle East to achieve its primary objective: to destroy Israel.

According to retired Israeli general Isaac Brick (See here ), Iran has been preparing for 20 years a master plan to destroy Israel. Iran’s plan is a surprise simultaneous massive attack from five different fronts: from Lebanon in the north, through Hezbollah, which has more than 200,000 rockets in its possession. A bit further east, in Syria, with its pro-Iranian militias, which are stationed, awaiting the order to attack the Jewish State. Between Israel and Jordan is the third front: about two and a half million Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria, very close to the Jewish settlements with half a million Israelis. These Arabs are armed and mostly radicalized. The fourth front, from the south of Israel, is Hamas, which only has to cross the border, and we already know what it is capable of doing. The fifth front, and according to Brick, the most devastating, would be that of the Arabs who already live inside Israel, in Yafo, Haifa, Lod, Jerusalem, etc. , about two million Arabs, with about 400,000 weapons, and many of them (most?) radicalized who would voluntarily join a massive attack on Israel.

In that interview he gave on the Hidabberut channel on July 10th, 2023, that is: 3 MONTHS BEFORE OCTOBER 7th, Brick explains at length and agonizingly that this could be an apocalyptic scenario for Israel. The Jewish State is not militarily prepared to face some 3,000 rockets a day (sic.) coming from the north, attacking the entire Israeli territory, something that Israel has never experienced in the past. Israel is not prepared to face a massive invasion of hundreds of thousands of Arabs armed to the teeth and with the bloodlust that Hamas demonstrated. A surprise attack of this nature could mean a genocide, a second Shoah, in the land of Israel itself.

In this video, Brick explains Iran’s plan in detail (unfortunately, it is only in Hebrew and has no subtitles)

Was Brick right? Was he too alarmist?

The events of October 7th – the surprise attack by Hamas that was NOT detected or repelled by the Israeli army for about ten hours – proved Brick right. Israel WAS not prepared even for a single-front surprise attack! (The reason for this lack of preparation is a topic that would go beyond the limits of this article).

Now, Why did Hamas attack Israel alone, and why did its murderous leaders not wait for Iran to coordinate its attack with Hezbollah, the Iranian militias, and the Arabs of Israel?

THE ANGER OF IRAN

I want to make it clear that this lack of coordination between Hamas and Iran, this daring of Hamas to do things “solo”, perhaps hoping that its allies would join in later, made Iran very angry, and for that reason, explains professor Mordechai Kedar, Hezbollah and the pro-Iranian militias are attacking Israel “softly”, limiting themselves to a demonstration of solidarity with Hamas, but without getting fully involved in the war. Iran, says Kedar, is furious with Hamas, because Hamas “ruined its master plan”: the multi-front surprise attack that Israel’s enemies have been planning for so many years!

The million-dollar question is why Hamas didn’t wait in order to attack, knowing that they were ruining Iran’s plan.

Nobody knows precisely why.

There are many opinions. Some say that Hamas assassins could not resist the temptation to attack a concert attended by 4,000 – 5,000 young Israelis who were sitting ducks. Others say that Hamas saw that Israel was divided, that many Israelis had threatened to abandon the army in a time of war, etc.

But, in reality, none of these reasons can account for why Hamas chose to act independently rather than waiting for Iran’s initiative.

PHARAOH, ANTIOCHUS, AND SINWAR

If we look at this question from Rabbi Melamed’s perspective, HAMAS’ IMPATIENCE was providential and miraculous. The great tragedy that occurred on October 7th could have been infinitely worse. It’s hard to see it this way now, in the present. But remember that when the Maccabees fought against the Greeks in 165 BCE, they did not know they were writing a story with a happy ending. They saw thousands of their Jewish brothers murdered and tortured by the enemy just for being Jews, as in the case of Hanah and her seven children. Jews thought that the future that awaited them was dark, sad, and irreversibly lost. It took decades to understand that this suffering had led to triumph and celebration.

Going back to October 7th, having been attacked from a single front, the Israeli army—after a week or two of preparation and training, which it would not have had in the case of a simultaneous multi-front attack—was able to reorganize. The Jews of Israel woke up, recovered, became more robust, and united again. Maybe more than ever. The army of Israel, the Maccabees of the 21st century, is now ready to confront and defeat, with God’s help, our enemies on other fronts as well.

Hamas’s lone attack, in a way, prevented an apocalyptic scenario indescribably worse for the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

THIS POTENTIAL SHOAH, God forbid, WAS AVOIDED BY THE MIRACULOUS IMPATIENCE OF HAMAS.

We may need a few years to understand this better.

May God protect Medinat Israel.

May the Creator grant our heroic soldiers final victory.

May God grant our political leaders the wisdom, temperance, and courage to make the best possible decisions.

Rabbi Yosef Bitton

SEE THIS

EGYPT

One of the best-known themes in the story of the Exodus from Egypt is that of the ten plagues with which the Creator struck Egypt. They were devastating plagues, to the point that some Egyptologists, such as David Rohl, suggest that the invasion of the Hyksos, who took over Egypt for more than 150 years, was a direct consequence of this devastation that left the mighty Egyptians weakened, both militarily as well as economically.

But how could Egypt allow that to happen? How can we explain that Pharaoh systematically refused to free the Jewish slaves and thus caused his own destruction? As we all know, Moses, in the name of the God of the Hebrews, says over and over again to Pharaoh: “If you do not let the Israelites leave, you will suffer the consequences. But if you free my people. There will be no more plagues. The ‘ceasefire’ is 100% in your hands.”

Pharaoh’s refusal to free the Israelites seems inexplicable. First of all, he shows that he doesn’t care about his civilians or those citizens he supposedly should protect. There is a dramatic scene that illustrates this situation. The text is in Shemot (Exodus 10:7-8). When Pharaoh’s servants reproach their boss: “How long will you continue to bring about our downfall (“lanu” refers to the Egyptian citizens). Let these people—the Jews—out before we realize that Egypt is completely destroyed.”

I repeat: Pharaoh only had to do one thing to prevent the destruction of Egypt: free the Israelites. If he let him go, the plagues would come to an end.

The million-dollar question is why Pharaoh acted in that irrational way, causing the destruction and ruin of Egypt.

The pharaohs only cared about their honor, reputation and especially staying in power. And this entire power apparatus would collapse if it showed weakness. Pharaoh only relented in the last plague when the issue affected him personally: when he lost his firstborn and felt that his own life was in danger.

From the biblical point of view, Pharaoh’s stubbornness was the product of divine intervention. Maimonides explains that there was a combination of both factors: the Pharaoh’s initial stubbornness, the result of his arrogance, had put him at a dead end; he had crossed the red line of his own will, and once there, the Creator, no longer allowed him to turn back.

God had told Moshe explicitly that he was going to harden Pharaoh’s heart to give Egypt its well-deserved punishment for having done so much harm to our people, and it would demonstrate who the true God is.

GAZA

The international press reports that more than 20,000 people have already died in Gaza. The cities are destroyed. The humanitarian situation is catastrophic: hunger, diseases, and devastation. The entire world demands a ceasefire. And the Israeli army is ready to suspend its offensive. Yes, really! All the Pharaoh of Gaza has to do is surrender and free the Israelis. Let them come out of his captivity. As Anthony Blinken said this week (see below), the solution to this conflict is 100% in Hamas’s hands. So why doesn’t the leader of the Palestinians free the Israelis held captive by him? Why does he continue to bring about the destruction of his cities and the ruin of the citizens he is supposed to protect?

The leaders of Gaza seem to act with the same arrogance as the Egyptian monarch and act towards his people with the same disregard for their lives that the Pharaoh had.

This insistence on preferring the destruction of Gaza and the loss of lives to “turn back and free the captive Israelis” has put them at a dead end. They have crossed the red line, and once there, the Mighty Hand (יד חזקה ) of HaShem’s army gives them a well-deserved punishment for the terrible massacre they have caused to our people.

Some political commentators are also surprised by the self-destructive irrationality of the Houthis in Yemen: why did they begin these maritime aggressions by provoking the United States and a coalition of European countries? Will the same happen with the pharaohs of Hezbollah, who, despite having so much to lose by provoking Israel – as has been demonstrated up to this point – do not stop their attacks? Could the Pharaohs of Yemen, Lebanon, and Tehran follow the same path as those of Gaza? Or could the invisible Mighty Hand of Heaven be hardening the hearts of the new Pharaohs to bring an epic victory to the State of Israel and reshape the Middle East, as Netanyahu anticipated?

As we watch these events unfolding day by day, I confess that to me, this confrontation between Israel and its bad neighbors looks more and more like “a biblical story.” 

May God protect Medinat Israel.

May the Creator grant our heroic soldiers final victory.

May God grant our political leaders the wisdom, temperance, and courage to make the best possible decisions.

Rabbi Yosef Bitton

Israel is facing a military operation that is essentially a rescue mission. Hamas has invaded Israel, violated, tortured, wounded, and massacred thousands of Israeli civilians, and currently holds over 100 Israelis hostage in Gaza.

One of Israel’s military objectives is the liberation of the kidnapped Israeli civilians and soldiers who have been taken as prisoners of war.

Israel has assured Hamas that if they release the hostages, there will be a ceasefire. Unofficially, one day of ceasefire for every ten hostages released.

Incredibly, it is HAMAS that does not want to release the kidnapped individuals! It is Hamas that has no interest in a ceasefire. However, it is Israel that is cynically pressured in all international forums to declare a ceasefire WITHOUT OBTAINING THE FREEDOM OF THE ISRAELI HOSTAGES.

Pressure should be placed where it belongs: on HAMAS.

One of the deepest spiritual experiences I have in Israel has to do ironically with food. More specifically, eating a meal with bread, something I usually don’t do during the week. This extraordinary spiritual experience comes at a price. In my case, it means gaining about 6 or 7 extra lbs in less than three weeks. But I believe it’s worth it…

Before eating, we Jews recite a blessing, or in Hebrew, “berakha”. This first blessing expresses recognition to God before enjoying the benefits of what He created. If we don’t recite this blessing before eating, we will consume what He created without asking for His permission. Then, after eating, we recite another blessing, this time to “give thanks”. The ultimate blessing of gratitude is the Birkat HaMazon, the only blessing, and prayer explicitly registered in the Tora, recited after eating a meal with bread.

Reciting the Birkat HaMazon in Israel holds great significance. Why?

Birkat HaMazon consists of three biblical blessings (plus one rabbinic). The first one refers to how the Creator takes care of and sustains His creations and provides us with food. Then comes the central blessing, which specifically focuses on thanking God “for the land of Israel and the food it produces” (על הארץ ועל המזון). Israel is described as a “generous” fertile land,  the land that we Jews long for, and a land of extraordinary abundance (ארץ טובה חמדה ורחבה).

The third blessing focuses on Jerusalem, and the endless pleas and prayers to see His Holy City rebuilt. It concludes with a millennial (and for centuries, impossible) longing, “May God rebuild Jerusalem soon in our days,” that we may witness it.

Of course, one can go to a restaurant in Jerusalem, like Cafe Rimón or Noya Restaurant, and enjoy literally “the best food in the world”, then take a prayer book, recite the ritual blessing, and be done with it. But in doing only that, one misses the incredible “meaning” of eating in abundance in the land of Israel.

The difference between perceiving events in Israel as natural or supernatural lies in the mental ability to contextualize or the mental laziness of “normalizing”. If one does not contextualize, everything is taken for granted, the present is experienced as something normal, and the realization of living a miracle is missed. The rabbis denounced this spiritual myopia—which unfortunately does not affect only a few Jews—with the following words: “en ba’al hanes makir benisó,” “whoever lives a miracle resists seeing it as such.”

Contextualizing is what Tefila (Jewish prayer) aims to inspire in us. In the case of the Birkat HaMazon, it is this prayer that awakens in my heart the idea that what I have just eaten is a gift from the Creator. The ultimate intention of the Birkat HaMazon is to de-normalize the privilege of having food on the table. The Tora warns us about the danger of forgetting who provides the bread we have just eaten. Birkat HaMazon is the antidote against the danger of “forgetting God”.

There is something more.

When I am in Israel, the Birkat HaMazon transports me to an additional dimension. I think of the extraordinary (and perhaps undeserved) privilege I have as a Jew living in this generation. I think, for example, of the poverty that the land of Israel endured for so many centuries, how this land never yielded its fruits; it was a land of swamps, arid, dry, without water, and yellow from neglect. With thousands of miles of desolation and solitude, as Mark Twain described it in 1890. But exactly as the prophet Ezekiel prophesied 2,500 years ago, “once the children of this land returned to it,” Israel gradually became a paradise, a true Garden of Eden that bears fruit, and an extraordinary super-abundance which is evident in Israeli supermarkets, restaurants, and the eccentric flavors, colors, and aromas in the Mahane Yehuda Market on Friday afternoons.

“Contextualizing” is understanding that the reality of present-day Israel was unimaginable and infinitely better than what even the boldest of prophets could have foreseen. As our sages said, “The human eye is incapable of envisioning what only God can accomplish” (עין לא ראתה, א‘ זולתך).

I also think of the millions of Yehudim who recited this same text of Birkat HaMazon over the past 2,000 years. What did they think when mentioning the abundance of this land? How did they imagine it? I think of the unbearable poverty of Jerusalem described by Rabbi Obadiah of Bertinoro in his letters or the abuse and humiliation that the few Jews who lived here at that time had to endure. What did they think when they prayed—and dreamed—of a rebuilt Jerusalem? Could they have envisioned the Mamilla neighborhood, the tram that traverses the city, or the train that connects Jerusalem to the airport?

Albert Einstein said, “There are two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.” 

The first way is the result of “normalizing” our blessings. 

The second is the essence of Jewish spirituality and the secret to falling in love with Israel.

JERUSALEM, BEFORE SUNSET 

For the past week, I have been in Bak’a, a beautiful neighborhood in Jerusalem. Last Shabbat, my wife and I decided to go to the Kotel, the Western Wall. It’s a long walk, a little over 45 minutes. Jerusalem can be very hot in the summer, but at that time, around 6:15 PM, it’s not as hot anymore. Moreover, as the sun sets, you can feel the cool breeze that immortalized the famous song “Yerushalayim shel Zahab,” the freshness of “the air of the mountains of Yehuda, with the scent of pure wine mixed with the fragrance of the pines, brought by the evening wind” of this magical city. I arrived at the Kotel and found a Minyan that had just started Mincha. I joined them, and once we finished, I took a white plastic chair and approached the Wall a little closer.  There was no space. So I waited a few minutes, and as soon as a small corner became available, I hurried toward the stones. I touched them. I closed my eyes and surrendered to that intense moment of connection with our people, where the long Jewish history passes through the mind, from King David and his son King Solomon, who built the Bet Hamiqdash with these stones, to our heroic soldiers of Israel who recently regained back this Wall.  But these stones mainly represent the Shekhina, the Divine Presence, which never left this Wall. And thus, inspired by the conviction of being as literally as possible “in front of God’s presence,” I began my prayer. Needless to say, prayers are very intimate. But today, I want to share the non-private part of my experience, which may be useful to someone else.

A STORY OF A GLASS

Until a few years ago, when I visited the Kotel, the first thing I used to do was ask God for my parents, z”l, for my wife, my children, for my grandchildren, my health, etc. Being in front of the Kotel is to encounter the Creator, “firsthand”. And instinctively, the first impulse, which drives the thousands of people who pray here every day, is to ask God for help, after all,  He is able “to grant everything you need.” But some years ago —I believe it was after I understood that I survived cancer–  I changed my plans. Sometimes, the difficulties we go through help us become more aware of the famous “half glass.” Like most of us, I realized my glass is much more full than empty…   I became aware that instead of asking God for a million things I need, I should dedicate this first reunion to thanking Him for everything He has given me and continues to give me. This is also considered “praying.” In fact, and although I suspect that most notes placed in the Western Wall do not contain just the words “Thank You,” praising God and expressing gratitude is the true essence of Jewish prayer. Remember that the word “Jew” in Hebrew is “Yehudi,” derived from “Yehuda,” which comes from the word “todá” = thanks. That is to say, in Hebrew, “Jew” literally means “grateful,” the individual who remembers God primarily to give thanks!

It’s simply realizing “who owes whom.” And that’s when I started thinking about Aladdin’s Lamp Syndrome.

HASHEM AND THE GENIE 

The most famous scene in the story of Aladdin is when the thief of Baghdad rubs the mysterious lamp and suddenly finds himself “firsthand” with a genie coming out from inside the lamp. In the beginning,  Aladdin is afraid of this supernatural being that seems so powerful. But to his surprise —and fortune—the genie not only has no intention of harming Aladdin, but he offers to fulfill three of his wishes, “and he can grant you anything you want”! Now Aladdin has to decide “what” to ask the genie not to waste any of his wishes. I started thinking about this story, and it seemed to me that sometimes, without realizing it, we act before God, just as Aladdin acts with the genie. Especially when we come to the Kotel and meet God firsthand in our minds and heart, selfishly, we might focus just on our wishes. I realized that in The One Thousand Nights story,  Aladdin rescued the genie from his horrible captivity, where he was trapped for centuries. The genie owes his freedom to Alaaddin.  But unlike the genie, HaShem, our Creator, doesn’t owe us anything, absolutely nothing (when He listens to our Tefila, He does it out of love or Hesed, not out of duty or obligation). As we say mention in our prayers so many times every day, He liberated us from centuries of living in captivity and fast-forwarding 3500 years of history; it was He who helped us regain our State of Israel in 1948 and who delivered Jerusalem to us in 1967. It is we who owe Him!

WHO OWES WHOM? 

That’s why I decided that when I return to Kotel, at least the first time around, I should forget about my particular needs and concentrate on everything I have that I’m grateful for. I recite then Nishmat Kol Hay.   By the way, Jewish prayer fulfills its mission when we allow it to inspire us. And the prayer Nishmat Kol Hay is precisely formulated for this purpose:  to open our eyes and help us become aware of everything we constantly receive from the Creator and usually take for granted. This Tefila has no expression of requests or pleas to God. It exclusively focuses on one theme: the infinite gratitude we owe to our Creator and our appreciation for everything He has done and continues to do for us constantly. When I finished Nishmat Kol Hai and while still possessed by its poetic influence, I began my prayer. First, I thanked HaShem for being alive and reaching this present “now and here” (Shehecheyanu). Then, I thanked HaShem for my wife and revisited the names of our children, their spouses, and our beloved grandchildren. And as I whispered their names, visualizing their faces, I said, “Thank God,” or in the improved Hebrew version: “BARUKH HASHEM.”

A part of the beautiful Tefila: Nishmat Kol Hay: 

“… and even if our mouth were as full as the sea with songs, and our tongue was filled with music like the multitude of its waves, and our lips multiplied in praises like the expanse of the heavens, and our eyes shone with devotion like the sun and the moon, and our hands extended toward You like eagles opening their wings in the sky, and our feet were swift [to move toward You] like the deer, still, we could not thank You enough, HaShem our God and the God of our ancestors, and it would not be sufficient to properly acknowledge You for the thousands upon thousands and tens of thousands of miracles, favors, and wonders that You did for our ancestors and for us… You rescued us from Egypt, HaShem our God, and You liberated us from the house of captivity. In times of hunger, You fed us, and in abundance, You sustained us. You saved us from the sword of our enemies, You protected us from plagues, and You healed us from serious illnesses… Therefore, every organ that You bestowed upon us in our body and the soul that You breathed into us, and the tongue that You placed in our mouth, will thank You, bless You, praise You, glorify You, exalt You, honor You, and proclaim praises to Your Name: our King, our Creator…”

 Leiluy Nishmat Ziva Tzvia Bat Evyatar z”l