This week, we met with a new member of Congress. She is graciously reaching out to clergy members to check in on the Jewish community. We shared our fears as to how Hamas is striking terror across the world. Vowing to wipe Israel and the Jewish people off the global map. She listened to our horror and witnessed our grief.
One of her questions was surprising. She looked at us and asked, “How do you predict this war will end?” We are rabbis. Not political analysts.
However, our experience as Jews has taught us much. After hearing testimony from Holocaust survivors, listening to first-hand accounts of Persian Jews fleeing Iran during the Iranian revolution and understanding the history of Israel and the Jewish people, a few predictions were easy to offer.
- The Jewish people will prevail.
- Israel will endure.
Will it be a long road of recovery? No doubt.
Will it take years to physically rebuild ravaged kibbutzim, destroyed homes and burned infrastructure? Certainly.
Will Israel be forever changed and is this a demarcation in Jewish history? Tragically, yes.
But the spark of hope within the Israeli and Jewish spirit is not so easily dimmed. When Haman sought to massacre the Jewish people, there was Esther, igniting courage and inspiring strength. Through the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem and the expulsions from England and Spain, while our enemies wished for our disappearance, we remained rooted in tradition and peoplehood. And even after experiencing the murder of 6 million Jewish souls in the Holocaust, we continue to stand as a vibrant, diverse, Jewish community.
My prediction: Someone else’s calling and planning for Jewish demise does not determine our fate. It never has. It never will.
Am Yisrael Chai. That says it all.
We will endure. A bright spark of light that forever shines through the darkness of time.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Nicole Guzik is senior rabbi at Sinai Temple. She can be reached at her Facebook page at Rabbi Nicole Guzik or on Instagram @rabbiguzik. For more writings, visit Rabbi Guzik’s blog section from Sinai Temple’s website.
