Dear Friends,
In the wilderness.
The Hebrew name of the Book of Numbers, which we begin reading this week, is Bamidbar, which means “In the wilderness.”
We spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness to get to the civilization of the Land of Israel.
Yet, this week, it all reverted to wilderness.
Over 1200 rockets have been launched at Israel this week, and hundreds of Israeli strikes were launched at Gaza. Some 70 have died in Gaza with many hundreds wounded, and 7 have been killed in Israel with over 200 wounded.
What began as demonstrations over some Arab Israelis being forced from their homes – which has happened many times before – escalated first into heated demonstrations in Jerusalem, and then into a few rockets across the bow, and finally into the most violent attacks since the second Intifada, years ago.
Israel has turned into wilderness.
And, it is not only due to the barbaric attacks which have left mostly civilians dead – one Israeli soldier has died, and Israel claims to have killed 15 Hamas fighters – but the wilderness also extends all the way to Israel’s Knesset and Ramallah’s Parliament. The Palestinian Authority has developed no worthy leaders in the last twenty years, and in the same period, Israel has withered under the largely unchallenged rule of Benjamin Netanyahu. Thus, meaningful dialogue, attempts to control the unchecked terrorists in Gaza, and efforts to alleviate the suffering which allows Palestinians to surrender hope have all decayed into wilderness.
In America, we speak of wilderness as the pristine majesty of Yellowstone or Glacier National Parks, where eagles soar against towering mountain peaks.
In Israel, in Hebrew and in Torah, midbar, wilderness is the inhospitable land where only jackals and cactus live, and where God’s people were consigned to wander until they were fit to live in a sacred land.
As this week’s explosion of missile warfare continues to take lives and turn Tel Aviv’s bustling streets into empty passageways to bomb shelters, and as we are only days from our festival of Shavuot and our celebration of receiving the Torah, we can only pray that international pressure and devotion to the lives of innocent civilians and children will prevail over the fury of rocket fire.
We pray that the Promised Land might soon be a place of peace and hope, and milk and honey, where different peoples might walk the same sidewalks, and hope might blossom in the wilderness.
With Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
In the wilderness.
The Hebrew name of the Book of Numbers, which we begin reading this week, is Bamidbar, which means “In the wilderness.”
We spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness to get to the civilization of the Land of Israel.
Yet, this week, it all reverted to wilderness.
Over 1200 rockets have been launched at Israel this week, and hundreds of Israeli strikes were launched at Gaza. Some 70 have died in Gaza with many hundreds wounded, and 7 have been killed in Israel with over 200 wounded.
What began as demonstrations over some Arab Israelis being forced from their homes – which has happened many times before – escalated first into heated demonstrations in Jerusalem, and then into a few rockets across the bow, and finally into the most violent attacks since the second Intifada, years ago.
Israel has turned into wilderness.
And, it is not only due to the barbaric attacks which have left mostly civilians dead – one Israeli soldier has died, and Israel claims to have killed 15 Hamas fighters – but the wilderness also extends all the way to Israel’s Knesset and Ramallah’s Parliament. The Palestinian Authority has developed no worthy leaders in the last twenty years, and in the same period, Israel has withered under the largely unchallenged rule of Benjamin Netanyahu. Thus, meaningful dialogue, attempts to control the unchecked terrorists in Gaza, and efforts to alleviate the suffering which allows Palestinians to surrender hope have all decayed into wilderness.
In America, we speak of wilderness as the pristine majesty of Yellowstone or Glacier National Parks, where eagles soar against towering mountain peaks.
In Israel, in Hebrew and in Torah, midbar, wilderness is the inhospitable land where only jackals and cactus live, and where God’s people were consigned to wander until they were fit to live in a sacred land.
As this week’s explosion of missile warfare continues to take lives and turn Tel Aviv’s bustling streets into empty passageways to bomb shelters, and as we are only days from our festival of Shavuot and our celebration of receiving the Torah, we can only pray that international pressure and devotion to the lives of innocent civilians and children will prevail over the fury of rocket fire.
We pray that the Promised Land might soon be a place of peace and hope, and milk and honey, where different peoples might walk the same sidewalks, and hope might blossom in the wilderness.
With Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
