Thank You, Prime Minister Netanyahu!
For fourty years we dreamt that it was untouchable. But this Chanukah Eve it was not only touched, it was viciously assaulted. Our generation of Jews quickly learned, we must not take anything for granted.
Natalie Sopinsky, a native of Delaware, made Aliyah a decade ago. She and her family of 5 live in Suissa, outside of Hebron. At a recent presentation to our community, she admitted that for the first time since arriving in Israel, she awoke on December 24th frightened.
She had begun to process the UN Security council resolution which had passed hours earlier in New York. Vehemently anti-Israel and anti-Semitic as all of their others, this one was vastly different. The US had allowed it to pass. She and 500,000 Jews like her, had been declared illegal occupiers and violators of international law.
The UN has long been the world’s leading center for anti-Israel, anti-Semitic hypocrisy. Its relationship with truth is as close as black is to white, rendering itself irrelevant. The shock and pain Natalie, and every Jew around the world, was feeling that day was due only to our own USA having allowed this hate-filled resolution to pass.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has told the story, publicly and privately. In 1984 New York when he began his tenure as Israel’s Ambassador to The UN, he went to meet the Rebbe on Simchas Torah, a scene of unbridled Judaic pride like no other. He insists that the missive and blessings he received that night powers his herculian defense of Israel to the world, through today.
He still is visibly moved when repeating The Rebbe’s words. “You are entering a house filled with darkness and lies. Know that you have been chosen by G-d to light there the candle of truth. Hold it high and proud. Never allow it to be extinguished. Only through a position of power and strength will Israel be respected in the world. Do not waver. Tell them exactly as it is, the truth and nothing else.”
The bible, believed by billions to be G-d’s word, begins “G-d created the heavens and the earth.” Rashi declares on this opening verse, “There will come a time when the nations of the world will tell you that you are thieves, you have stolen our land. You shall answer them; G-d created the world. It is His. It is within His sole authority to give it to whomever He chooses. He has chosen to give it to the Jewish people, forever.”
G-d’s very first words to humanity speak unambiguously to today. Despite immensely challenging settings, Prime Minister Netanyahu has remained faithful to his Simchas Torah 1984 mission. He has stood up to The President of The United States and told him these truths. He has stood up to the European Quartet and delivered these truths. Indeed, he has stood in The United Nations and declared these truths to the entire world.
For this alone, The Prime Minister eminently deserves every Jew’s gratitude and appreciation.
The world’s hate has now been fully unmasked. This was a vicious direct hit on all of Jewish history. It includes Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall, two inextricable realities embedded into every Jewish soul. Now violated, every Jew must scream in anguished pain and spring into action.
The Prime Minister of Israel’s sacred message of truth to the world must become our own. Ours is not the high stakes battle with Presidents and Prime Ministers. Our battle begins within, our primary enemy is the “Galut mentality,” it must end. We must begin living and expressing – without restrain or reservation – some Divine truths.
The perception that the good Jew is the one weak and feeble must be trashed. The notion that any Jew is less deserving of dignity and respect because Jews are merely lucky beneficiaries of the world’s tolerance is as hurtful as it is false. The perspective that Jewish survival is contingent on the continued mercy of the world has been debunked time and again.
Our minds have been so profoundly affected by these and other delusional “realities” that our innermost truths have been arrested and historical facts, borne of Divine truths, remain buried.
Their applause was an unprecedented break of protocol. The cheering and celebrating of the passage of this libelous atrocity was a scene eerily reminiscint of a time 70 years ago, that we had all hoped would never happen again.
Let us wake up and know that its stage has not only been set, the play has begun again, and Natalie of Suissia is justifiably frightened.
What does Israel have to show for her decades of compromise and the giving away of large swaths of her ancestral homeland?
Not peace, rather pieces. Jews slaughtered by the thousands without a shed of a tear by the world community. The consequences of this UN sponsored terror incitement was self-evident this past Sunday in Jerusalem where dozens of innocent Jews were brutally mowed down and four innocent young Jewish soldiers were murdered in cold blood as as they waited to board a bus.
The world has declared a Jew’s home in the Old City of Jerusalem to be the home of an illegal occupier. It has charged the Jew, for whom the Kotel and Temple Mount is life’s epi-center and Judaism’s eternal capital, with “a flagrant violation of international law.” Why shouldn’t these monstrous terrorists feel justified in killing these “criminals?!”
The US State Department has joined the shameful narrative of moral equivalency between the murderous terrorist organizations and Israel. Israel, as free a democracy as The United States, has been branded an oppressive tyranny governed, as Secretary Kerry announced, by “the most extreme elements.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu declared to the world “the camel’s back has been broken, enough is enough!”
Sunday was Asarah B’Teves the fast which marks the Babylonian army’s siege on Jerusalem. It was more a psychological onslaught than a military one, but it ultimately caused Jerusalem’s destruction.
Ever since, and for 2000 consecutive years, Jews have prayed, yearned and fought to reclaim their tiny sliver of homeland.
Yet, the siege has really never ended. Today the international powers of The UN, with The United States of America as a partner, have set siege on Jerusalem.
But today is also infinitely different. In a miracle of biblical proportions, Israel’s unprecedented might as a world superpower is to be reckoned with, and all of her enemies know it. With all of its military supremacy it is missing one last weapon. With it, its position as the world’s foremost force of just might can be secured.
Israel needs the Jew who stands fearless and proud, immovable from his or her historical truths, no matter who it might be that attempts to contort her Divine realities. Jewry must begin to carry its candle of truth wherever and to whomever it is needed. The prevailing insanity needs to be broken.
A people who have contributed wondrously more, per capita, than any other needs to be freed from all that wish to harm her. For the sake of Jerusalem and indeed for the continued good of civilization, may we each do our part in achieving this, with G-d speed.