When the worst happens, don’t despair

We have lost many of our citizens in terror attacks in the past but this one is particularly painful. Although we’re hearing now that our three boys were murdered soon after their kidnapping we were left with over two weeks of hope. For 18 days the people of Israel hoped and prayed and stood in vigil in the belief that we would find Eyal, Gil-ad and Naftali alive.

In the face of this national tragedy I say we should take heart.

We should take heart in the fact that these murderers had lost before they had even started. The hope of a nation to live in our own land, to stop wandering the world and to become a nation state is a victory that no mere murderer can take from us.

Take heart from the army, navy and air force that we have created to watch over us and to avenge us.

Take heart from the fact that we raised an ancient language from the dead and speak it in our ancestral lands.

Take heart from the full cafes and restaurants and nightclubs filled with confident Jewish youths who don’t know what it is to grow up as a minority.

Take heart from the fact that we have a country with a flag bearing the Star of David. From the fact that we have a country in which our children go to school and learn the history of the Jewish people.

Take heart from the fact that we have built a flourishing Jewish country where our religious holidays are national holidays. Take heart from the fact that while our enemies know only how to destroy we know only how to create.

The love that we feel for our fellow citizens, the sadness that fills us during this time of tragedy is precisely the same strength that sustains us throughout all the hardships we face.

Take heart from the fact that though our enemies can kill us they can never destroy us. At this time of national pain take heart from the fact that while each and every one of us will die, Israel will live forever.

 עם ישראל חי