Sorry to break character everyone, but Im gonna have to stop reading the news for a while. I just cant do it anymore. People being mutilated in Iraq and Syria. Girls getting violated and executed in Africa. Ebola spreading. Planes crashing/being shot down. The worlds horribly skewed view of the war in Israel/Gaza. Hadar Goldins kidnapping. Its just getting too hard. The world feels like its been flipped upside-down. Seeing the wave of anti-Semitic attitudes in France, England, Boston, Chicago (hurts most of all), where people are pretending like they are standing up for human rights, but theyre really just jumping on the bandwagon of whats trendy. In terms of Israel, I wish that the media would stop keeping score of the casualties like its a damn basketball game.The world is influenced by this scoreboard and cant see that Israel is fighting a terrorist organization that hides behind civilians, making it all the harder to find. But the war in Gaza is only part of it. Its fighting a war on the internet and in the media against ignorance and misinformation. A Gemara in Sanhedrin (97a) talks about what its going to be like right before Moshaich comes, and to me, its describing exactly whats going on right now: Reb Nechemia taught: The generation in which Ben Dovid will come, insolence will increase, respect will be missing ... and all the governments will turn to false beliefs; criticism will be of no avail. Rebbe Yehuda said: The wisdom of the scribes will be corrupted; men fearing sin will be hated...truth will be lacking ... He who turns away from evil will be regarded by the public as being foolish. Seems pretty clear to me that this is happening. Truth is certainly lacking, governments have believed the lies told, and those that are trying to call out evil are mocked and ridiculed. There is nothing that Israel can do right now that the world will find acceptable. Hamas knows this. They knew that if they kept sending rockets, Israel would strike back, and civilians would die, especially given the locations of these rockets and tunnels. And that subsequently, world opinion (which already doesnt need that much convincing) will judge Israel as warmongers and bloodthirsty savages, when Israel hates that it kills innocents. But every precious soldier that Israel loses in this fight against terror is agonizing. It hurts, adding dozens of names to next years list of heroes that well remember on Yom HaZikaron. The most painful of all is seeing their ages. Of the 63 soldiers killed, 48 of them are below 23. Its just too hard. The one silver lining out of this whole awful situation is that I cant remember a time when Jews were so united. Usually, during the 3 weeks and 9 days, the biggest inter-religious feuds bubble to the surface and our intolerance of each other becomes so evident. These 9 days have been different though. We may have reached a turning point. When were focused on whats really wrong in the world, the differences between us dont seem to matter anymore. Weve come together like never before, first in praying for the 3 kidnapped boys, and now in our constant focus on this war. Hatred. Thats what this war is about. Hamas hates Israel, and thats the end of the story. Theres no real way for peace to happen while youre engrossed in hate. The baseless hatred that weve been trying to eradicate from ourselves for centuries is right there for everyone to see in Hamas. Now that we see what hate is truly capable of, lets make sure that we eliminate it from ourselves. Just something to think about as Tisha BAv nears. May G-d help the IDF find Hadar Goldin and bring him back safely, and let this Tisha BAv be the last one without Moshiach.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 17:48:42 +0000
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