What a year

It started October 7. Actually it started before that, with demonstrations showing a huge rift and divide in Israeli society.

Disunity was the order of the day. And then October 7 happened. Fortunately, Israel quickly unified. The war against Hamas began in earnest.

Not too long ago, Israel discovered that it could have been much worse. Hezbollah had tunnels leading into Israel, and indications were that they were planning to do what Hamas did — invade Israel. It could have been a terrible catastrophe, if Hezbollah had attacked and invaded at the same time as Hamas. Fortunately, it didn’t happen. Probably because the U.S. moved aircraft carriers into the region, accompanied with stern warnings against invading Israel.

Time progressed. Israel kept destroying Hamas, despite world pressure to ceasefire. Now Hamas is a pale shadow of its former self. And Israel has learned its lesson, that it is dangerous to give away land. Giving away Gaza enabled Hamas to prepare and invade on October 7. Israel now knows and sees the danger of giving away land.

Hezbollah kept shooting rockets, but avoided sending too many. Then, a few months ago, things picked up at an astonishing rate. Pagers killed or maimed thousands of Hezbollah fighters. Before two weeks had passed, Nasrallah and many commanders were dead. Hezbollah went from being a powerful threat, to a puny weakling, in such a short time. The world was amazed at the rapid transformation.

Iran twice shot a mixture of drones and missiles at Israel, but Israel, the U.S., and others shot them down. Among the others were Arab countries. It was a strange and very unusual occurrence — Arab countries helping to defend Israel.

Now Syria, in the space of about eleven days, has rid itself of Assad. Reportedly the rebel attack was supposed to be a limited one. But when the rebels saw that the Syrian regime’s forces were running away, they kept advancing. So in an amazingly short time, Syria’s regime is gone.

When we look at all these events, we can just dismiss it all as coincidences. It just happened that Hezbollah and Iranian and Russian  arms and forces in Syria were depleted and focused elsewhere, so that the rebels had a clear road ahead with nothing to stop them. It just happened that Iran’s missiles were neutralized, because the U.S. and other countries didn’t want things to escalate. It just happened that a plan to blow up pagers went successfully, and as a result Hezbollah commanders and leader were forced to meet in person (instead of using communication devices), and Israel got wind of it and then bombed the meetings. It just happened that Biden decided to move aircraft carriers into the region, something that America had never done before, because he didn’t want things to escalate. It just happened. All of it. Just coincidence. That’s one way of looking at it.

And then there is another way to look at it all. Divine providence. G-d is performing miracles, influencing the hearts of leaders, and orchestrating everything in order to protect Israel.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe explained, that the difference between ‘gola’ (exile) and ‘geula’ (redemption) is the letter ‘aleph,’ which represents ‘Aluphoi shel oilom,’ — the Master of the world. Meaning, that in the time of Redemption, everyone will see G-d’s presence in the world.

There are two ways to look at everything that has happened. The second way, that there is a G-d in the world, and He is miraculously protecting the Jewish people, makes a whole lot more sense.