June 19, 2026 Categories: Rebbetzin's Viewpoint
What Are We To Do? (Part One)
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.
People are once again being beheaded and the animalistic killers identify themselves under the banner of ISIS and proudly proclaim their responsibility for this evil. They behead Christians and even their fellow Muslims who dare to differ with them. May Hashem protect us from them and keep us safe.
The events we are witnessing and experiencing should make us all pause and realize we are living in the period of ikvesa deMeshicha – when the “footsteps of Mashiach” become audible, a period that will be ridden with tribulations and suffering.
The internal condition of our people in the period preceding Mashiach has been foretold as well. I ask you to read the following words carefully and determine for yourself if they reflect our generation.
Chutzpah will intensify. The young will put their elders to shame and address them derogatorily. Daughters will turn against their mothers and daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law. Sons will have no shame before their fathers and they will treat them with insolence. A man’s enemies will be found in his own family.
Does this hit home? Do you want to hear more? In that generation, admonishment will be lacking. Economic conditions will be debilitating; prices will spiral and people will have difficulty making ends meet. And the face of the generation will be like the face of the dog.
That last prediction may puzzle you. But consider a man holding his dog on a leash as he takes it for a walk. Who is really pulling whom? We think we’re in charge of our lives, but we fail to realize how deeply influenced we are by forces like the media that lead us around just as a dog pulls the man holding the leash.
Understanding the deeper meaning of what we see happening all around us will give us the answers to the questions of what to do and where to turn. In clinging to Hashem and His Torah, may we merit seeing our redemption soon in our day.
(To be continued)
