In a Jewish Press column I wrote a while back, I looked at the troubling events that are overtaking us and basically answered the questions I left readers with last week: What are we to do? Which way are we to turn?
While I responded to those questions in that earlier column, I think many of us still need to absorb the truths behind the answers. Wherever I go, I keep hearing the same worries and concerns from Jews.
Last week I wrote of the many tragedies that are befalling us. These catastrophes defy logic. They are out of the ordinary.
We are a generation that has become accustomed to brutality. As I write this, a third intifada appears to be unfolding in Israel. It’s a thought I can’t even contemplate. It’s been enough. Our brethren have suffered so much already.
There is a prediction that at the end of days before the coming of the Messiah, warfare will take place in our streets. Not on the battlefield but in our streets – where our children play, where we reside. And that is exactly what we are seeing.
This type of terrorism is difficult to control. The Israeli army is quite capable of handling conventional armies. The Iron Dome can intercept deadly missiles. Checkpoints and security fences and aggressive intelligence work can severely curtail would-be suicide bombers. But what about the type of warfare in which apparently civilized individuals get into their cars, drive in a manner that suggests nothing out of the ordinary, and then suddenly and deliberately begin mowing down innocent pedestrians, even babies in their carriages?
How can pedestrians be protected from such horror, short of denying Arabs the right to drive in Israel? It won’t happen, of course, but if the Israeli government were to attempt such a measure, the world would scream and even Israelis – not just everyday citizens but the media and the judicial system as well – would shout their outrage. Even when it acts with restraint Israel is constantly condemned by the nations of the world.
As if that weren’t enough, the Russian bear has risen again and is signaling his readiness to pounce, bullying his neighbors and announcing his intention to build nuclear reactors in Iran.
It has been predicted that in the final war prior to the coming of Mashiach, a nation will arise against Eretz Yisrael from the north. Could that be Russia?
Meanwhile, a brutal terror army has moved into Israel’s neighborhood. The savagery of ISIS is reminiscent of the Nazis. The killers of ISIS murder anyone who stands in their way or even questions their purpose. They’re happy to publicize their violence and thereby strike fear throughout the world, videotaping their gruesome beheadings of Westerners unfortunate enough to have fallen into their clutches.
Their evil has become so commonplace that the initial shock of the international community is already showing signs of wearing off. If something happens often enough, it almost becomes an accepted fact of life, even if that acceptance is accompanied by revulsion. The agonizing cries of those being beheaded begin to fall on deaf ears.
Here too we have to think about that which has been foretold: the cruelty of Ishmael. Back during the 1982 war in Lebanon, I wanted to bring gifts to Israeli soldiers at the front. I packed thousands of books of Tehillim, kippot, tzitzit, and even Walkman radios to distribute to the soldiers. We came to a Christian village where the Muslims had decimated the inhabitants. We saw skulls of those who’d been beheaded lying on the ground under the hot sun. And we saw people playing soccer with those skulls. It was a sight I will never forget. Even in the Nazi concentration camps I never witnessed such barbarism.