There’s the law of gravity, the law that water seeks its own level, the commonly accepted law that darkness is the absence of light, or that for every action there is a reaction. Ask any physicist or man in the street, and he or she will offer you a whole list of laws of nature that keep the world going, including the survival of the fittest.
The one phenomenon that puts most of the world’s laws on their head is the existence of the Jewish people. By every law of nature, we should have ceased to exist many years ago. We were despised, rejected, and murdered by nation after nation for centuries. We had no homeland or organized army. We faced total decimation. We had our Torah to cling to and that was it. Somehow, we survived the millennia. We even flourished.
Now, thank G-d, we have our own homeland and our own army. Yet our existence still defies all logic. Unlike any other people, we face brutal enemies at every one of our borders, as we deal with the surrogates of the greatest purveyor of terror in the world: the medieval country of Iran – a country that, despite its known diabolical interests, received support from countless civilized countries, including our own.
The world claims to fight terror. Yet its sympathies lie with the barbaric terrorists. The very international body that was created to ensure a peaceful world is found to be one of the greatest enablers of terror against the Jewish People. An International Court, designed to prevent the recurrence of the genocidal horrors of the Holocaust, uses that very platform to accuse Jews themselves of genocide as they defend against the genocidal designs of its enemies.
The greatest supporters of Israel come from the most unexpected sources, such as left-leaning President Joe Biden and flamboyant Democratic Senator from Pennsylvania John Fetterman. Our supposed Jewish protectors, such as Senator Schumer and Congressman Nadler, have, to the public eye, gone AWOL.
Among the most traditionally anti-Semitic countries in the world, Argentina elects as president a very out-of-the-box conservative man who is in love with Judaism and Israel. A few days before the glorious rescue by the IDF of two Argentinian/Jewish hostages, Javier Milei is seen bawling at the Kosel to have his prayers answered.
Nothing makes sense. Nothing.
When my wife and I were in Israel a week ago, we saw that pattern in real life. Despite about a quarter of its population being conscripted into the army, the country somehow functions. Restaurants are full and the streets struggle with their usual traffic load.
We saw, first-hand, the gevurah of its citizens and its soldiers. On the first day we arrived, my sister Debbie Spero took us to Tel HaShomer Hospital’s critical care unit, where we visited gravely wounded chayalim. Most of these soldiers were missing at least one limb or organ. They were of all different ages. One, a middle-aged man named Cohen, who indeed is a kohen, was all smiles sitting alongside his wife when we came. He lost his lower right leg to an explosive under his Jeep early in the war. He, like the rest of the soldiers we visited, refused to be called heroes. The ones more gravely injured than them were the true heroes. Recognizing the special qualities of this wounded kohen, I asked him to give us a brachah (priestly blessing), which he gladly did, and offered his own additions.
One soldier, a father of six children, was a double amputee from above the knees. That would be enough to put any normal person in a downward tailspin. But he was surrounded by many friends and family and was all cheers for us. His family name is Maimad, his father being Rosh HaYeshivah in the Gush. The inspiration these people exude, and the faith they exhibit, is greater than any musar shmuz in any yeshivah. It is beyond incredible.
Then there is the Ashdod blockade story. My indefatigable sister Viva asked me to join her with a group of people whose mission was to block “humanitarian aid” trucks from leaving the port of Ashdod headed towards Gaza. It makes no sense to give our enemy aid as Jewish hostages are being held, deprived of every humanitarian need.
On the way to Ashdod, we happened to pick up two high school boys with pei’os who came to join the effort. It so happens that one of the boys was in touch with one of the protest organizers, and he told us that where we were headed was already blockaded, and he directed us to a different truck exit. As the four of us very threatening people arrived, two of us in our 70s and two of us in our teens, the police padlocked the exit gates and the trucks had to retreat. No one was more dumbfounded than us. We felt like mighty warriors defeating a Goliath with pumped fists.
Crazy. But that’s Israel!
Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld is the Rabbi Emeritus of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, former President of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, and the Rabbinic Consultant for the Queens Jewish Link.
