Anti-semitism is high and rising. Once, they had to pretend that it wasn't Jews but Israel's evil policies that they objected to and are entitles to criticize. This fiction is evaporating quickly, on Universities, all over Europe, and now in the U.S. as well. Most of it is swept under the rug. Events that target the two main targets, visibly orthodox Jews and Jewish students on campuses are rarely reported to US police. And despite this hate crimes against Jews is about ten times greater than other hate time target groups - religious groups, LGBT, Hispanic, African american) Things in Israel are not going well. Newsoaoers do not publish articles about Jews killed in the street - especially in Jerusalen and the territories.
Do you find it difficult to maintain a positive attitude while all of thos goes on? I do. Where do I find the courage to hope and trust in such dark times. The future of Jews doesn't look good. . Is it possible for a people who have been around for about 3500 years to disappear? I think so.
.
Before Israel was established, one of its founding fathers, Ze’ev
Jabotinsky warned that the real danger would come not from a billion
Arabs but from the inside Such chutzpah! We can handle a billion Arabs
but not ourselves? Yet, there's a lot of truth in those words.
I am not a Jew who believes that mitzvot and prayer alone will do the job. The future is in our hands and if we do it right, God may just meet us halfway. Along with Anti-semitism, assimilation runs through our long history. From the time of the Hellenists until today, we embraced the foreign cultures of countries in which we lived, the new ideas &n ideals. Every new cultural encounter was a test.. How much do we embrace? When do you say (as Tevya did ) THERE IS NO OTHER HAND. Hindsight shows us which actions were destructive, but while we are adjusting to other cultures, the trees overwhelm the forest.
This is not the first time we face this threat from the inside. Consider the days of the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Scarifi, and Nazarenes and the civil wars we had. . In the middle ages, a would be Messiah named Sabbatai Zevi did the same, After him Hasidism almost split the Jewish people.
Now we face this hate between Jew and Jew again. Are we up to it as a nation? Am I? Can we fight and conquer our own internal demons and come together as one, when we need to? We can try, work , teach, learn, refuse to surrender to hate. There are no success guarantees.. If, however, we give in to a bitterness, hate and fury that weakens each of us and the entire nation of Israel, we will fail.
So this Shabbat, when I light candles and said my private prayer, I ask God help me find strength to appreciate each miraculous day - a free gift I did nothing to earn, to love Judaism and Jews, to be proud without being defiant, to act, & accept and to fulfill the reason I am on this planet..
God, give me the strength to see Judaism 1,000 years from now as an eternal radiating light.
Baruch Hu Ubaruch Shemo..
Shabbat Shalom.
I am not a Jew who believes that mitzvot and prayer alone will do the job. The future is in our hands and if we do it right, God may just meet us halfway. Along with Anti-semitism, assimilation runs through our long history. From the time of the Hellenists until today, we embraced the foreign cultures of countries in which we lived, the new ideas &n ideals. Every new cultural encounter was a test.. How much do we embrace? When do you say (as Tevya did ) THERE IS NO OTHER HAND. Hindsight shows us which actions were destructive, but while we are adjusting to other cultures, the trees overwhelm the forest.
This is not the first time we face this threat from the inside. Consider the days of the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Scarifi, and Nazarenes and the civil wars we had. . In the middle ages, a would be Messiah named Sabbatai Zevi did the same, After him Hasidism almost split the Jewish people.
Now we face this hate between Jew and Jew again. Are we up to it as a nation? Am I? Can we fight and conquer our own internal demons and come together as one, when we need to? We can try, work , teach, learn, refuse to surrender to hate. There are no success guarantees.. If, however, we give in to a bitterness, hate and fury that weakens each of us and the entire nation of Israel, we will fail.
So this Shabbat, when I light candles and said my private prayer, I ask God help me find strength to appreciate each miraculous day - a free gift I did nothing to earn, to love Judaism and Jews, to be proud without being defiant, to act, & accept and to fulfill the reason I am on this planet..
God, give me the strength to see Judaism 1,000 years from now as an eternal radiating light.
Baruch Hu Ubaruch Shemo..
Shabbat Shalom.
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