faith

Vayechi: Birds on a Wire

Posted by

If you have ever meandered around in the town center of Katzrin at night perhaps to eat a bite at a Shawarma or Falafel shop, you may have seen dozens of swallows perched near the ceiling in one of the dark hallways.

Katzrin, a small town located in the Golan Heights of Israel is a favored tourist spot, still shown on Google Maps as outside of the green line that Google is willing to accept as Israel.
But Israelis know it belongs to them and not to Syria, since Israel reclaimed this land in the bloody Six-Day War of 1967.

But I am not writing about that war. We are in another war called “Al Aqsa Flood” by Hamas and “Swords of Iron” by Israel—a war that started with a most horrible massacre. But let us step back even farther and look at what is happening behind the blood stained curtain. This is not all about the current war, though it certainly plays into it. It is about brothers and sisters coming together just as Jacob’s 12 sons came together after his death, put away differences and became one people. But let’s get back to the story!

On October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorists and many radical Palestinian Muslims, though technically classified as civilians broke through Gaza’s border fence and entered the Nova music festival and surrounding villages, killing and raping at random, burning and beheading babies and adults alike. At the same time many of them entered by air in para-gliders, which appeared as giant blood sucking mosquitoes as they filled the dawn sky.

That fated Shabbat, found many religious Israelis attending synagogues, completely disconnected from the news. In several towns, there were soldiers who passed by and alerted some synagogues as to what was happening, and the congregants increased their fervor in prayer with deepened emotion and passionate pleas to the Almighty who alone can save Israel from her enemies.

As I said, this is not about the horrors of war, though that may be the pressure that brought about what has happened since. The swallows in the picture represent the togetherness, the solidarity of togetherness that many Israelis and Jews are feeling around the world.

Soldiers in the field come in from a day of battle, arm in arm, the secular with the religious and feel a camaraderie that few have felt in the recent past. We are one people. And that is what is important here. Not that God is not important. Not that one’s observance is not important—but there is an overriding value that has been missing and is now coming into view. That of brotherly unity and the service of one’s fellow man and especially the right to claim the land of our ancestors. The importance of winning this war against evil is partly to reestablish the Jewish right to exist. And the war is being fought for the good of humanity. This is not just about the Jewish people. It is about good versus evil, hatred versus love, a good God versus an evil god. We fight on for the honor of the name of our God and the place of righteousness in the world. We fight for meaning in our own existence. And YHVH, the Eternal, the Most High, the Creator of the World is supporting this war and when all seems lost, He will come alongside and do things that other wars have not seen. But first we must learn unity. Though it seems to have little to do with God, it virtually has everything to do with Him. We must heal the breach before He can come to us. Love your fellow as yourself. And when we do so, a body will be formed, just as we see written by the prophet Ezekiel:

Eze 37:7 “So I prophesied as I was commanded. There was a sound when I prophesied – I heard a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 As I watched, I saw tendons on them, then muscles appeared, and skin covered over them from above, but there was no breath in them. 9 He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, – prophesy, son of man – and say to the breath: ‘This is what the sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these corpses so that they may live.'” 10 So I prophesied as I was commanded, and the breath came into them; they lived and stood on their feet, an extremely great army.”

At this time in the war we see other elements trying to disrupt the unity. We see left-wing factions presenting their pressure to undo our current government. Can we allow this? Would this not be our undoing at this time? Doesn’t the enemy know about weakening us? and perhaps these ones are and were involved in inciting the ones who called for division in our land! This is a time to stand together and not back down. And for the sake of the soldiers, for the elderly, for the young people, for the children and for those who volunteer to support our soldiers, we must not give in to these demons who divide the nation and who were involved in weakening us in the very beginning, pre-October 7. Military people in charge were asleep at the switch. Why? Many ask this question, but when we look at the political scenario during the last year we see division in our people.

So what do the swallows represent? There they are, night after night, clinging to shredded electric wires draped along the ceiling in a dark hallway of the town shops, protected from the chaos of wind and storm. They are almost touching each other. They are there every night and they stand for something. No, the halls are not nicely painted or decorated. The ceiling is peeling, the wires are bare in places, loose ends hang in different places. It is not about luxury, fame or status, and they don’t care! It is about being together—sharing safety in each other’s company; standing together against the elements as one of a common creation. Can we learn something here? Can we see the foreshadowing in the Parsha that we read week after week?

If you ever come to Katzrin, please hang out with us in the evening in the town center! Check out the lighted fountains and venture down the dark hallways behind the shops to see the swallows. They seem to be a symbol of what we must stand for. And we are indeed getting there—are we not?

Ariella

If you like this article, please share on your social media platforms, like and subscribe to http://www.takeholdthetzitzit.com. Comments are appreciated too!

Mass Uncertainty and a Candle of Hope!

Posted by

3

A year and a half of uncertainty and lies has brought the world into a condition where the most intelligent see reality as, at best, a gray area. Mass psychosis is rampant among those who believe in personal freedom and basic human rights. On the other hand, those who have drunk the Kool-aid are confident that they are doing everything right and saving themselves and the world. Those who have resisted the fated shot are now the enemy. Nothing is working for those who are not vaccinated. Their sense of truth says that no compromise can be made with those who impose experimental medicine on individuals and use threats and bribes to accomplish compliance. And we are seeing this in every country on the map. We see behind this conspiracy a global power grab.

Even many simple folk, though they may not see the big picture, are not happy with government telling them that now they have no choice over their own health. And this group is fast becoming the object of universal excoriation. All the major media sources are zeroing in on the promotion of this totalitarian regime and the threats of more and more loss of freedoms and all “because of the unvaxinated.” Friends and family are now divided so that people don’t know whom they can trust. Public broadcasts from the health ministry speaks of those who refuse the shot as unwanted irredeemable lice in the hair of society. It becomes dangerous in many cases if they do not play along with the humiliating charade of masking and double masking. Video clips of violence are filmed and sent out. These, by the way, may be sent by well-meaning non-vaxxers who do not realize they are aiding and abetting the fear problem.

The temptation to act with pretense is immense: pretend to be something you are not in order slide by! And the urge to isolate after so many months of lock-downs has become an ingrained habit—one that leads to more and more psychosis.

Has anyone set aside his fear to scrutinize the war itself?– for it IS a war, a psychological war to subvert and imprison the souls of mankind. A war that encourages voluntary enlistment by the populace to hand over their rights to the control of the enemies of freedom. Threats, bribery, manipulation, confusion…all these are tools used to intimidate and control the masses. And they are succeeding, unfortunately, more than anyone knows.

But what is this war and how do we escape the weapons of their all invasive warfare? Must we become hermits and pretend to be what we are not? Should we go out one by one and face an unseen and unknown reality? And what are our weapons? How does anyone organize anything? When every device used by modern humanity is available to the all-seeing eye of Globalists, how can anyone do anything secretly?

Consider that whatever effort stems from a reaction to their methods is not a tool that will succeed in the war for truth and freedom.

What offensive weapons do we have? Indeed anything in our human arsenal has been tried and failed. Shall we allow the enemy to decide which tools we are to use? Protests, marches, exemptions from lawyers…? Where the rubber hits the road, logically speaking, is if the enemy is big enough and reason and laws of the constitutions of countries are not of value against the system that has arisen, either there must be more power on the side of those destined to slavery than there is on the side of the Globalist billionaires, or there must be Divine intervention. Do we think Trump is coming back to fix it? Really? After what happened on January 6? Do we think that the coup d’état that came into being and illegally rigged the 2019 US election, called for the impeachment of the 45th president of the USA and took over the government of America is going to listen to logic and reason? I beg to differ. Who stand in the courts that count?–Are there enough of them to make a difference? Are most of the good guys banished?

But, despite the shadowed outlook from a political and freedom standpoint—an outlook that holds almost zero hope, there is and must be hope available to us through Divine intervention. But! Will God deliver His people at this time? How can we conjure up spiritual assets when our God seems to be on vacation? What is required for us to be counted as His people? Is it our chosen blood-line that assures us of our destiny? The Torah says that blessings require obedience to the covenant, but which covenant? If we are somehow replacing God with the teachings of man, have we cloaked the Word of God in such a way as to not understand the clear path to deliverance?

Once we know that we are in close connection to Hashem and that we, as faulty as our past may have been, are now seeking Him with all our hearts, souls and minds, we must take hold of His strength with sheer will-power. Some of the tools include: Faith, optimism, truth, prayer, singing, trust, conversing with others of positive mind, helping the poor, the sick, the orphan and the widow…

Can we believe regardless of consequences? and can we, like Abraham, trust the voice that calls us to perform a sacrifice to stop the knife before we use it to destroy our destiny? Isn’t this all a test of our Emunah (faith) somehow? And what about Daniel who refused to stop praying at the open window when it was against the law under Darius the Mede, punishable by a night in the lion’s den? Are any of us that brave?

What about the 3 Hebrews that refused to bow to the image built by Nebuchadnezzar on the plains of Babylon and ended up in the furnace of fire. Who stands in their shoes today? It is high time we put our faith into practice.

If we do not hear Hashem’s voice, then our prayers need to be more direct. What if we secluded ourselves for an hour or more each day just to pray and listen, to understand what God is trying to say to us? Surely God understands our native language. Why pray in a language that He does not need and that does not speak from the depths of our hearts? Do we think He is limited to Hebrew in the case of Jews or Latin in the case of Catholics? There is no transformative magic power in the use of languages that do not touch our hearts!

Oh Israel, arise and conquer! We must not bow to the image that is everywhere. Stand together, hope in God and pray for one another. We must persevere until the enemy is vanquished!