I’ve been reviewing the week in my mind. It’s been long. So many peaks and valleys within such a short amount of time that the mind can hardly adjust.
Yet there are some things that the mind doesn’t need to adjust to. They are so foundational and essential to our beings that one doesn’t need to adjust. It’s simply who we are at the core, from birth, handed down generationally — gifted to us through the Torah that Moses received from the Almighty on High.
Some of us call it ethics or morals. The Divine code that guides us in our conduct, our ethos. The Jewish way.
It was as clear as day to me this past week —when the news started reporting the rocket strike on a hospital in Gaza— that this wasn’t the work of the IDF. It simply runs against the very core of a Jew. Regard for life and living is the highest priority in Judaism. In the words of this week’s Parsha — “for in the image of G-d, he made man”. Living is G-dly. The raison d’etre of every Jew.
Yet the news stations didn’t react quite as emphatically as my flowery paragraph above. And perhaps many of us didn’t feel so sure of this either. Indeed, the world jumped on the news reported by the very perpetrators of this heinous act. Summits were cancelled and condemnations issued all based on falsehood. Nothing new.
At times like this we need to be strong. We need to be confident. Secure with who we are and what we represent. We need to remind ourselves that our very miraculous existence is precisely because we are guided, inspired and dedicated to the word of the living G-d. Period.
Want to see this truism in real time? Just take one look at the soldiers dancing as they bide their time waiting for instruction. Take one look at the army-of-citizens in Israel all working overtime with compassion and dedication to each other to fill in and provide assistance wherever needed.
At the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding and I stand taller and prouder than ever before!
AM YISRAEL CHAI!
With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom!