Voices Rising Like a Lion
Israelis have a message they are roaring
This “edition” is much longer than usual because, well… that probably doesn’t need explaining. What is going these days in Israel is just really, really big, and that is the message of the voices I bring you today.
I remember that for months after October 7, I kept repeating these words: "Just as You, God, surpised us with such horror, please surprise us with such good."
And last night I wrote this to the women of my community: “After October 7th, the feeling I had, and I think many had, was "How could this happen?” And today the feeling is "Is this really happening??”
We have been surprised with incredible good in these past days. My intent with what I am sharing today is to bring you the sense of awe, gratitude, and faith that is simply permeating everything here. Yes, there is fear of the misile attacks, exhaustion from being woken by warnings to run to shelter in the middle of the night, and deep, deep sorrow for the loss of life.
But the overwhelming message I am seeing from all kinds of people across the political and religious spectrum of Israelis is that this is monumental, and we know it, and alongside the safety that Israel is now bringing to the Western world, Israel is also bringing a message.
What I have tried to bring to you here are different voices expressing this message in different ways.
Levona Sandovsky, therapist and teacher, and my neighbor
At the beginning of the war, a recording of a talk by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu was being circulated on social media.
Personally, the recording shook me, certainly amid the existential shock of the beginning of the war.
In it, the rabbi said that his son, Knesset Minister Amichai Eliyahu, received an invitation from a minister in the Italian government to a conversation about an issue of grave concern for him – the very, very low birth rate in Italy, as well as generally in all Western countries.
The Italian minister described that they were at a loss for words in the face of their population's reluctance to marry and have children and these figures that could, in a few decades, be a death sentence for the Italian people. And he wanted to ask Minister Eliyahu, as a representative of the State of Israel - what is your secret? Why is it different only in your country, from all Western countries?
Then he continued to say - ‘Look, 2000 years ago we destroyed your Temple. We scattered you among the nations, we took your golden menorah and the rest of the utensils. These statues are engraved here in our country, and I don't know - maybe it's related…
‘Maybe we need to give you back something that you still carry and remember, and maybe it's that life force, and a desire to bring life that we have already lost…’
Last Friday, when we were all amazed by the strength of our country, by the ability to shout - ‘We will exist here! And if you threaten us - in such an existential way - something internal, like a sleeping lion, will wake up and shake off and remember its kingship and nobility.
A people that rises like a lioness.
And then after a few hours, the image from the writings of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook made the rounds on social media, which speaks of the destruction of the reactor in Iraq. The destruction that, like now, took place on Shabbat Eve of the weekly Torah portion Behalotcha.
And then everything came together - the Italian minister, and the request for life and the commandment in the Torah portion to raise up the candles, to light the light of the menorah.
In the face of the destruction of the reactor, the essence of which is death and destruction, we have light to shine.
Our people are entrusted to tell to the entire world: The existence of man in the world is a thing. A huge thing.
That man has freedom and will.
That man has the ability to join God, to bring life, to continue the magnificent creation called this world.
And when we dare to make this movement - millions of people in the entire world will be redeemed. They will receive meaning and reason.
Thank God that we are privileged to be witnesses and partners in such great processes. Processes of redemption that for centuries Jews in all corners of the world have prayed for. They prayed us.
And especially in deep prayer that we will know how to continue what is happening here... that we will transform the instinct for survival into the desire to live and illuminate the depth of the soul that is in us and in our world.
Assaf A Voll
I do not know anything about who Assaf A Voll is. He does seem to be an Israeli from Israel’s educated/upper class- someone who could have chosen to relocate to a place without sirens waking us in the night, without fear of being hit by a missile… but, in his own words:
I am reading the reactions to the war in English and German, it's terrible. So many want us to be wiped off the map. Lots of Muslims, but also more than a few "and their helpers". Quite a few Jews consumed by the urge to self-destruct, desperate masochists who hold a death wish.
This is not a post to bring down but to lift us up. This hatred is not in vain. We bring them this section because we are everything they are not. The challenges facing Western countries are enormous and they fail at them again and again and again. Millions of citizens without an identity, without progeny, without a purpose, without a future. In front of them is a tiny country, whose survival no one understands. Not only is it surviving, its stock market is rising, its currency is strengthening, its birth rate is skyrocketing, it is a powerhouse in technology, science, agriculture and what not. It treats its great enemy, a mighty empire, as if it were its own. I'm telling you firsthand, and you know I'm a skeptic - they are full of admiration. Hate and love are expressions of the same phenomenon - something here is beyond their understanding.
When Austrians or others ask, and realize that I didn't come here to settle but rather to return to Israel, their reaction is almost always a kind of envy. Surprising, right? I was surprised too. Tell me, what kind of idiot can live in a picturesque village in Tyrol, or in Vienna- which is truly amazing-, and would prefer to return to a country that is frequently at war, in internal conflict, and worst of all, to replace the peaceful and fast line at "Lidl" with the horror of the Rami Levy jungle on Friday.*
But they are in a kind of depression. They lament that the health system is deteriorating, prices that are rising. War is hovering over Europe again, immigrants are a ticking internal bomb. They have dogs instead of children, and most importantly - they have no purpose. Nationalism in Europe is often considered an obscene thing, real fascism, and in addition the European Union, which is an attempt to create "Pan-Europeanism", crushed the uniqueness of each people and neutered national pride and spirit. And without spirit, nothing moves.
I'm not saying that it's the best in Israel, no. There are many shortcomings in Israel. In terms of my character, I am also much more suited to the European quiet, the respect of personal space, the politeness and for consideration of others. No, parking on sidewalks and karaoke at night is not really me. More so, I have the citizenship, I have the language, I have an occupation - it's just a matter of deciding whether to be here or there. And yet I have a return date and a plane ticket.
Why?
Because Israel is the future and Europe is a star whose only its light is somehow still seen, but in fact it no longer exists.
Because I have two sons in the army.
I have family and I know: I am not Austrian, nor German, nor anything else that is not Jewish-Israeli. Israel writes history, everyone sees it. Israel is not led, it leads. There is nothing like the Jewish people and the State of Israel, nothing. It is not a feeling or a wish, it is what you see and hear all day in every country I visit in Europe: Everywhere I go, the screens at the bottom show Israel, the newspapers show Israel, on the German news sites Israel. Israel Israel Israel. @%$ 8 million people with the whole world revolving around them when all they want is to be left alone.
A little before the war I arrived in Europe, one way or another I am leaving. It was a tremendous experience. I have never seen the Jewish people and the State of Israel like this from the outside. I have never experienced the anti-Semitic hatred and also the love (yes, there is love) and the foreign recognition of the strength of our crazy people. It is important to me that we know what I did not know either until I left the country: we do not need the world, the world needs us. It is true. And besides, while it is true that there is nothing like dessert in Vienna, nothing competes with (the Israeli waiter approaching your table with a) "Bro’! How can I spoil you?"
In this clip we see an Israel “secular” broadcaster take a moment from the news to place a kipa on his head and say of Psalm of thanksgiving. This, by the way, is not a normal thing for Israeli news broadcasts.
Racheli Moshkovitz, poet
Racheli is referring to the reality that since Israel first attacked Iran and Iran began sending missiles, Israelis are rushing to safe rooms in all hours of the day, and especially all hours of the night.
On Seder night we sing and pray:
"A day is approaching that is neither day nor night
Highest One, make known that day is Yours and also night.
Appoint watchmen [to guard] Your city all day long and all night,
Light up like the light of day, the darkness of night"
I have often wondered what this time of redemption will look like, what a time that is neither day nor night will look like.These past days it has seemed to me that this is how it looks—
At night we are awake, night is not night, and during the day we try to sleep but time is all mixed up. Waking time is deceptive, the night and the day mix in opposite shifts.
So if this mixture of times is a sign of blessing and redemption, we are very ready. Please illuminate for us the darkness of night as daylight.
Rabbi Tamir Granot
Rabbi Tamir is a leading national religious rabbi and father of Amitai Tzvi who was killed by a Hezbollah missile on Oct. 15, 2023
In this long piece, Rabbi Tamir makes the connection between the Holocaust and the meaning of what Israel is doing now.
“A People rise like a lioness" - Breaking the Borders of Auschwitz
Exactly 80 years after the end of World War II, the Israel Defense Forces embarked on Operation: "Am Kolavi", the purpose of which was to finally liberate the people of Israel and the State of Israel from the borders of Auschwitz.
Our ancestors emerged from Auschwitz, one from a city and two from a family, persecuted and beaten, after 2,000 years of national consciousness according to which "Israel among the nations is like a sheep among 70 wolves." The sheep gained independence in the land two years later and gained achievements and power, but remained a sheep. We emerged from Auschwitz, but the State of Israel was established within the 'borders of Auschwitz'. Now the time has come to free ourselves from them as well and emerge into complete freedom.
The borders of Auschwitz are both physical and metaphorical. In the first stage, the State of Israel was established within the narrow borders of the partition proposal and the achievements of the War of Liberation. The Arab countries surrounding it on all sides threatened to destroy it from the very first moment. Thus, these borders became the borders of Auschwitz, and within its land the people of Israel remained like sheep among wolves, under existential threat.
Paradoxically, precisely by being a sheep within the borders of Auschwitz, the State of Israel gained recognition and support from Europe and America. The European conscience, which is struck by the sin of the Holocaust, was willing to recognize the legitimacy of the existence of the persecuted Jew after he was almost exterminated, in his new national version, only if his status as persecuted and helpless was preserved. To accept the people of Israel as a slave - Europe is in no way a machine, it is too much for it. Poland's Auschwitz was converted into the borders of Auschwitz before 1967.
Then came the second stage, when after Operation Mokdeh of the Six-Day War, the State of Israel breached the borders of Auschwitz, expanded them, and with the Yom Kippur War and the peace agreements with Egypt, it also removed the metaphorical borders of Auschwitz of the constant existential threat, and the sheep was mistaken in thinking that there were no more wolves around it. However, at the very moment when the threat of invasion by neighboring armies such as Egypt, Jordan, and Syria was removed (the Camp David Accords of 1979), the Islamist ayatollah regime arose in Iran, and from the first moment it 'made the destruction of the State of Israel its top priority' as a national and religious vision. The sheep, which thought it had gotten rid of the wolves, found itself facing a predatory tiger, who organized branches for himself, the famous 'proxies,' and once again returned to the borders of Auschwitz.
We are now at a historic moment when we have the opportunity to complete the process of the resurrection of the people of Israel in their land, and to transform from a sheep into a lion, into a lion: "Behold, the people of the wolf will rise up, and the lion will exalt itself."
A Midrash of the Sages tells us that when Hadrian, the Roman emperor, turned to Rabbi Yehoshua the great Tanna and praised the people of Israel for managing to be saved from their enemies: "Great is the sheep that stands among seventy wolves," Rabbi Yehoshua replied: "Great is the shepherd who saves and guards it and breaks them before him" - the God of Israel is the great one, not the sheep, Rabbi Yehoshua explained to him.
In Auschwitz we learned that if the sheep does not know how to rise up like a lion, it will be devoured. The faithful shepherd sent the people of Israel in this generation to be a lion, not a sheep. The establishment of the State of Israel is a transition from helplessness to a powerless majority, from a consciousness of national submission and religious dependence to a consciousness of freedom and rebellion, while the people remember their God: "For it is He who gives you strength to do good."
And finally, we must also understand the significance of this historic hour for the country through the perspective of its leader - Benjamin Netanyahu, the man who has won greater love than anyone before him, from parts of the people, and greater hatred than anyone before him, from other parts.
First there was Benjamin Ze'ev Herzl, then Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and now Benjamin Netanyahu. Since becoming leader, Bibi sees himself as the embodiment of Benjamin Ze'ev and Ze'ev: "Benjamin Ze'ev will devour," a wolf and not a sheep.
Herzl conceived the idea of the people of Israel emerging from a state of sheep through a national revival that would give them pride, security and peace, because there would be no more reason for anti-Semitism, because the people of Israel would undergo a normalization of its historical life and live as a respected nation among the nations.
Jabotinsky added the 'iron wall' as a necessary condition for achieving this goal. Only if an iron state is a national and security iron wall that all its enemies know cannot be defeated and certainly cannot be destroyed, will it exist forever. As long as the possibility of its destruction seems realistic to its enemies, said Jabotinsky, no matter what the diplomacy, the state will be in danger.
Benjamin Netanyahu, from the moment he came to power about 30 years ago, has seen the struggle against the Iranian oppressor as the first and foremost national task, and as the mission of his life. In all his speeches on Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem, he linked the Israeli oath: "Never again" - to the removal of the threat of terrorism, primarily the removal of the Iranian threat, with the nuclear threat also added over the years. He risked his position as prime minister when he openly opposed US President Obama, who, from a submissive Western diplomacy with characteristics of progressive morality, was willing to be tempted by Iranian lies and give up on a real and moral struggle against the monster they created.
But Netanyahu also drank the poisoned potion of seductive silence, after many leaders before him were drugged with the drug of imaginary peace. We all paid the price on 07/10/23, with his full responsibility, together with the responsibility of the IDF and the Shin Bet. Since then, many amazing things have happened, the bowl has turned, and now Netanyahu has made the difficult, decisive and courageous decision - to complete the mission of his life.
It must be admitted that the timing he chose for this fateful decision is the best it could have been. Just a few months ago, when Hezbollah, Iranian Syria, the Houthis and Hamas were still on their feet, such a decision to attack Iran, even if justified then, would have seriously endangered our existence - and we would certainly have paid a terrible price for it. In a few months, it may already be too late. Under the greatest weakness the Iranian monster has ever known, combined with international recognition of the ongoing fraud of its nuclear project, and under Trump's presidency, despite the great dangers that lie ahead, this is the most appropriate time, and thanks to the wonderful security forces and his leadership, it was also the best opening ever for any military campaign: Operation Focus, the elimination of the nuclear reactor in Iraq and the elimination of Hezbollah together - dwarfed by the amazing opening blow of 'Am Kalavi'.
As I wrote just a few days ago, Netanyahu has made very big and very small decisions in his life. Some remember only the big ones, and some only the small ones. His decision to attack Iran now is the decision of his life, and the mission of his life. At this hour, there is no longer a private Netanyahu, and there is no longer a distinction between him and the nation and the state. His success is the success of all of us, his life's mission is the redemption of all of us from the borders of Auschwitz.
Benjamin Ze'ev Herzl conceived of the liberation of the nation and the establishment of the state as a necessary condition for removing the threat of annihilation and its political resurrection.
Ze'ev Jabotinsky added the 'iron wall' as a founding idea of the resurrection of the state and its security.
Benjamin Netanyahu understood that in order to preserve the iron wall, he must be an iron fist that strikes hard at the monster, until it collapses.
At this hour, we are all an iron wall and an iron fist! We must be full of courage and patience, so that the process can be completed, and united around the IDF and the leadership headed by Netanyahu, even though it is very, very difficult for many, because our determination and unity are now the source of our strength and the strongest reason for our success.
Our Father, our King, have mercy on us and on our children and infants. Our Father, our King, send your light and truth to our leaders, our ministers and advisors, to the leaders of our armies, strengthen the hands of the defenders of our Holy Land, put our enemies under them and crown them with a crown of salvation and a diadem of victory. And give us wisdom and courage to be of one heart, as one man, one people.
May God give strength to his people, may God bless his people with peace.
And finally, to remind us that there is still a war in Gaza, and to share with you the overwhleming apprecation Israelis have for their soldiers, here is a post from a reserve soldier after he came out of Gaza to where he’d left his car.
I left Gaza after a few weeks.I barely recognized my car.
But this little letter on the windshield warmed my heart.
Thank you, dear anonymous person ♥️
