1.
I already knew at the beginning of the week what topic I was going to write about at the end. Despite the agenda changing every minute, I had no doubt what the main item for this week would be.
And no, I don't mean Bennett's interview with Channel 12. It doesn't seem necessary for me to write about him. On the contrary, in a week when the entire feed is mocking him, I can go on vacation. I've even felt a little redundant the last few days.
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But then I remembered that Bennett's politics are built on long-distance lies. I have a feeling I'll have to write about him again. It'll be the week when everyone writes good things about him. Wait, wait.
2.
So what should we talk about this week? What is the main topic? Of course: the great miracles of the 'Kalavi' war. The tremendous success of the air force attack, the enormous kindnesses in the relatively small damage on the home front.
Walla? But we already dealt with this last week. That was the story of a week ago, almost two weeks ago. Move on.
So that's the thing, no. We must not move forward. We must not forget. We must not be satisfied with the festive Hallel of Rosh Chodesh Tammuz or the Kiddush on Shabbat in the synagogue. Miracles of this magnitude are not seen every day, not seen in every generation. And that requires observation. Not to miss the greatness of the hour.
And so on days like these I make a special effort to listen to security-spiritual commentators who have already proven themselves, otherwise I risk missing the point. And I don't mean now that one should make a special effort to listen to commentators like Maj. Gen. (res.) Yiftach Ron Tal or Lenoam Amir, nor to commentators like Israel Ziv, Amos Gilad, Amos Yadlin and the rest of the Amos (res.) who have been wrong for years, and especially misleading. It's simple.
I mean security-spiritual commentators, who get to the heart of our reality here, and don't just stay at the level of military maneuvers.
After all, this entire great campaign, all seven fronts, are against "a land where the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it." We live in the Holy Land, which enjoys special divine providence. In an area about which so many verses, good promises, blessings, and prophecies of comfort were written - and also, God forbid, the opposite, if we do not keep the commandments and are not worthy. So you cannot live in a place like this, in a time like this, and remain in the dry military data. That is really not seeing the full picture.
3.
This time I want to focus on one of the security-spiritual commentators, one of the most prominent of them, Rabbi David Giami. Every morning I and thousands of other Jews receive short recordings of him in a WhatsApp group called "A Man Is Born for Labor - Torah Chaim for People of Action." This is not a lesson with local guides (although such a lesson is also sent there from time to time), not a conversation recorded in the Beit Midrash, but a WhatsApp voice message in which Rabbi Giami, one of the rabbis of the Har HaMor Yeshiva, speaks in a free style, right at eye level, about the issues of the day from his perspective. And what a perspective he has!
""Our sages say that from the day the Temple was destroyed, an iron wall was broken between Israel and their Father in Heaven," was how his interpretation of the achievements of the 12-Day War began. "An iron wall, that is, there is a partition in the middle, between us and the Lord of the universe. It is impossible to pass through. It is two-sided. There is a deficiency in the service of God, and there is also a deficiency in the providence of God. We do not see the providence of God over the people of Israel. The people of Israel seem persecuted, seem poor. There is a gap, a partition in the middle, between us and the Lord of the universe. This has been the case since the day the Temple was destroyed. This is the main great disaster.
And what is happening today? Today this partition is falling. Falling from both sides. On one side it is falling because there is an awakening from below. I am your uncle. The people of Israel are seeking the Lord of the world. The people of Israel are seeking to draw closer to Him. The people of Israel are seeking mitzvot. The people of Israel are seeking prayers. The people of Israel are seeking the Western Wall. The people of Israel are seeking Shabbat, seeking kosher, seeking tefillin. That is one thing.
And from the other side - you can see with your own eyes, this wall has been breached from above. And my uncle, the Holy One, blessed be He, watches over the people of Israel, shines His face upon the people of Israel, performs such salvations for them that no one expected.
The optimists in the predictions of an attack on Iran said that there would be hundreds of deaths here. They said that Gush Dan would be half destroyed. That's what the optimists said. And now look at what is happening, look at what enlightenment, what love, what an embrace from the Lord of the Universe. Not to mention the enormous successes of our soldiers in enemy territory. Unparalleled, unrivaled miracles, like in the Six-Day War and even more.".
4.
""What is all this?" asks Rabbi Giami, and immediately answers in his energetic voice: "The barrier between us and the Lord of the World is falling. It is falling. Love is returning, the embrace is returning, the connection between us and the Lord of the World is returning. We see it with our own eyes. And that is why we say that we are living in a historic period – not only because of what we are doing, and here are the IDF's performances, and here is the destruction of evil. All of this is true, but the main point is that the barrier between us and the Lord of the World is falling.".
Wow. Do you get the message? The main headline of these days is not the joyful military events. They are simply the result of the real headline – the increasingly falling barrier between the people of Israel and their God.
"We need to pay attention to this," continues Rabbi Giami. "We need to open our eyes to this. If you come to your son, who you invest in and think about and do everything necessary for him, and then you ask him: 'Dad, does he love you?' and he says: 'I don’t know' – that is insulting. We need to pay attention to the fact that the barrier between us and the Lord of the universe is falling, this is what is happening before our eyes.
And who sees it? Everyone. The nations of the world see it too. Everyone is shocked by the magnitude of the love that the Holy One, blessed be He, loves the people of Israel. It is not for nothing that the President of the United States also wanted to take part. He wanted to be a partner in the matter. He sat on the fence and debated what to do for a few days. Okay, he may have good intentions, but the moment the people of Israel picked up the gauntlet and decided to destroy evil, something the whole world was waiting for, facing a country whose entire interest is to destroy and annihilate – the whole world was waiting, and who picked up the gauntlet? The people of Israel. And the moment the people of Israel picked up the gauntlet and the people of Israel have such an illumination from the Sovereign of the world, no one stands by, everyone's heart melts.
And the President of the United States sees this. He must follow through on this, and therefore he will also be a partner. It is his right to be a partner. We accept that he will also be a partner. Let him help. But who broke through? This connection, the victorious combination, of the Sovereign of the world and the people of Israel.
Gentlemen! The time has come to say, and to look, and to see, and to publish: The breach has been broken. The partition has come down. Let us once again be friends of the Lord of the world. For this we will dance and rejoice and say a 'Psalm of thanksgiving,' and may God show us more and more wonders in our days.".
5.
After I sat down to transcribe this voicemail from Rabbi Giami, the thought crossed my mind that maybe I actually did write about the interview with Bennett here. After all, what did everyone mock him for so creatively this week? For taking credit for an operation he didn't do. What are you pushing? It's clearly not you. This is a story that is bigger than you.
And how did they mock him? They took archive photos of historical moments into which he was supposedly thrust. At first they went for events from the last century, such as the declaration of the state or the liberation of the Western Wall, and then with the help of artificial intelligence they created images of historical moments from the Bible, in which Bennett appears, in the role of the savior.
Here he is standing next to King David, who is facing the giant Goliath and whispering a final briefing in his ear, and here he is standing next to Elijah on Mount Carmel just before fire comes down from heaven. It seems to me that this time the contempt was not for Bennett's deceit and lies, but for his pretension, his arrogance. Who are you? It's all Bennett. So sit quietly.
But aren't we infected with something of this Banetism? Do we understand how small all of us, the State of Israel, the IDF, the Air Force, the Mossad, Netanyahu, and even Trump, are compared to the hand of God that is truly in charge of matters?
6.
It's very easy to understand the absurdity in a moment, in front of Bennett's ingenious illustration, standing just before the crazy miracle of the parting of the Red Sea and giving final tips to Nachshon ben Aminadab, but what about the miraculous reality of today? In real time, do we understand the event?
I want to share with you a little exercise I've done for myself in recent days: Every morning in the verses of Dzimra, when they say the beautiful verse "He does not delight in the strength of the horse, nor does he delight in the legs of man - the Lord desires those who fear Him, those who hope in His mercy" - I don't imagine a war horse. Well, it's clear that a good prayer has more power than a horse from the ancient world.
The trick is to close your eyes and imagine a formidable American B2 bomber, descending at full power for a blitz of bombs penetrating a bunker, and then imagine some God-fearing Jew praying a good prayer, and hoping for God's grace - and understand that the latter affects the reality of the former.
How exactly does it work? It's hard for me to explain, but maybe Rabbi Giami will do it in tomorrow's security-spiritual commentary. Be with us.
• The column is published in the newspaper 'Bisheva''
