The daily accounts of this latest battle in the war of the Arabs against the Jews numb us to the truly miraculous events occuring every day. We are well reminded of the following facts:
The enemies of the Jews have, as of this writing, fired at least 350 missiles, rockets and other projectiles at Israel since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge on July 8. To the extent that they can said to have been “aimed” at all, every single one of these was aimed at civilians, in clear and intentional violation of International law. Of these hundreds of missiles, a few, entirely by chance, have hit something other than dirt or rocks.
At the same time, the Jews, have intercepted 87 rockets with their Iron Dome system (“kippat barzel” in hebrew, using the same term we use for the head covering worn by a male Jew).
Now savor this: our cousins have been unable to point their weapons well enough to intentionallly hit anything in an entire city as big as Tel Aviv.
We have over and over again hit a bullet with a bullet — the mocking phrase used decades ago by the opponents of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative to “prove” how ridiculous it was to plan to knock down one missile with another.
The Jews are doing it every single day, effectively disarming our enemies without putting a single one of our soldiers, or even a single one of our enemy’s soldiers or civilians, in harm’s way.
People used to hoot at a lousy baseball player by saying he couldn’t hit the side of a barn with the side of a barn. Our murderous cousins shout about burning Tel Aviv, but they can’t land a weapon there on purpose. At the same time we are hitting their missiles in mid-air with computer-guided projectiles invented and built by brilliant young people who serve in the Jews’ army between rounds of rigorous scientific education and yeshiva study.
When a Jew ends his study of a tractate of Talmud he recites a “hadran” that explains the difference between us and the rest of the world: we struggle and they struggle; we pursue things and they pursue things. But their struggles are very different from ours, and the objects of their pursuit are a world away from the things we seek. Our efforts lead to success and the eternal life granted to those who seek knowledge of eternal things; their efforts are evanescent because the things they want are empty.
We seek life. They seek death. We’re getting what we want and God willing, they’ll get what they want.