Lateral thinking – not everyone can do it

As of today, Wednesday Aug 1, the Tal law officially expires and with it, in theory, goes the requirement for the more secular sections of Jewish society to exclusively shoulder the burden of defending the nation from external and internal threat.

As I understand it, the reason that specific groups have been exempted from military service is to enable them to study the Torah on a more or less permanent and even lifelong basis. Quite why so many are needed to carry out this task escapes me at the moment but, there it is and who am I to gainsay such a practice in a country that is not my own?

It is my further understanding that such studies can be viewed as tools to develop the mind and enlarge the soul; they are not dissimilar to prayers in some respects. Israel, therefore, might be regarded as a vehicle dedicated, in part, to the principle of continuous communication with God.

Well, it occurs to me that, with so much study and prayer being generated, the Deity cannot fail to be aware of the parlous condition the country has been in for much of its existence. Why is it then that the current state of affairs shows so little improvement over previous ones? The net result of all this cerebral and spiritual activity must surely have caught the attention of the Almighty by now. And yet the same old conflicts still persist, problems remain unresolved and others continue to pile up day by day.

And the future seems predisposed to produce only more of the same.

Could this then be part of some test, as is so often the case where human interaction with the Most High is concerned? Or is it simply a ‘quid pro quo’? Answers from God may still be diligently sought but He could be thinking that, after so much time has passed, shouldn’t some of us should be coming up with one or two of them ourselves?

http://yorketowers.blogspot.com

“You can’t fulfill your dreams unless you dare to risk it all”