By Ariella Casey
Is anyone in Israel NOT afraid? Times are tough in the Holy Land and if we did not believe in the Divine purpose for the Land, we might all move to the North Pole and huddle together until the bombs stop falling.
This morning we were awakened at 6:10 a.m by the Emergency Alerts call telling us to get to the shelter as there was a prediction of bombs coming our way.
We get these calls almost daily. I am getting used to them, if that is possible, but for the fact that a friend of ours was hurt yesterday by the windows that exploded inside her house, I am once again up tight. Again! Still, I ventured out to the store for a few groceries this morning. Nothing happened. Yes, I am triggered and unpredictable! I realize that people outside the Land don’t get it.
So, I try to philosophize and grasp hold of any meaning there may be out there. I try to comfort myself in the Bible.
Here is the latest miracle I want to take hold of. There were over 200 Ballistic Missiles launched towards Israel from Iran last Tuesday. We saw them from our porch. It was an amazing firework show, to say the least! These are huge, powerful two-part missiles. They should have killed thousands of Israelis. But they didn’t kill anyone but an Arab from Gaza that just happened to be in Jericho. One missile came down and landed on him as he was walking across a vacant lot. This is just too out of the ordinary to be real! Why only one person in all of Israel killed? Why was it someone who had come from Gaza? Why did it happen in Jericho? Is there anything about conquering the land that began at the very beginning in Jericho?
Well, that is where it all started when after 40 years of wandering, Israel came in to conquer the land! And by the way, this happened a couple of days before the first day of Tishri which most Jews call Rosh Hashanah, but it is called Yom Teruah in the Bible (Day of trumpets and shouting.) Hey, what happened to make the walls of Jericho fall down? Trumpets? Shouting? This is almost too much of a fit to be real! So a couple of days before the feast of trumpets, a missile misses its mark and comes down in Jericho and kills someone escaped from Gaza! What should that tell us about conquering the land that has been taken from us? For me, it is a very clear signal. Maybe others are picking up on this!
It is indeed time to defy the world and take back the land promised to us by our Creator! Another conquest of Canaan. Some say we have to wait for the Messiah, I don’t think any more waiting is necessary. We are very close to the end of the prophecies, and most of us would love to see YHVH swoop down and do it all for us. The taking back of the land since early in the 20th century has always been by brave men and women who had no other choice, rather than go back to concentration camps. Even now, the majority of the world would be happy to see Jews in ghettos or wiped off the face of the globe. Why this attitude? Is it because somehow they know that Jews are somehow destined to rule the world? They, when they connect to the Creator of the Universe, are the very essence of peace for the future of this world. Israel, as a nation, has the highest moral compass of any nation in the world.
But, all of my rationalizing aside, why do I still sit trembling as I hear more and more alerts? I want it to get over so I can go back to my life. But if I think about it, I realize that life will never be the same again. There will be no getting back to the old ways. This war is the beginning of the end and the beginning of the future, and we are in a transition period between these two realities. Can we hang on a little longer? Hashem must hear our fears and help us to take hold of faith and trust, emunah and bitachon!
I contemplate the miracle involved in that every one of those missiles is able to kill hundreds of people, but no Israelis were killed other than the lone Gazan in Jericho. There was another report of an incident in Jordan where one missile fell short of the Land of Israel and killed 200 people. Whether this is exaggerated, or not, is irrelevant when we think of the power of the Almighty God of the Universe and His watch over Israel. As the verse goes:
הִנֵּ֣ה לֹֽא־יָ֭נוּם וְלֹ֣א יִישָׁ֑ן ומֵ֗ר יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
“Hine lo yanum ve lo Yishan, Shomer Israel.“ “He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor Sleeps!” Psalm 121:4
“In peace will I both lay me down and sleep; For thou, Yehovah, alone makest me dwell in safety.” Psalm 4:8
בְּשָׁלוֹם יַחְדָּו אֶשְׁכְּבָה וְאִישָׁן כִּי־אַתָּה יְהוָה לְבָדָד לָבֶטַח תּוֹשִׁיבֵנִי׃
