The past few weeks have seen an escalation of terror attacks that led me to wonder, “What’s the best response?”

The purpose of responding is to achieve a greater goal – to win the fight.

Why are we fighting,though? If we know what victory looks like – what we want to achieve – we can choose strategies and tactics to get us there.

The answer is simple: we want to live in our state, the Jewish State, Israel. And we want to develop our lives and our state to bring the Redemption.


The best response to terror is to build our future – individually, collectively, physically and spiritually.
Our enemies want the opposite. They seek to destroy us physically and spiritually, individually and collectively.

Therefore the answer to terror is, as the Torah puts it, to choose life. We need to build – physically and spiritually, as individuals and as a state.

Here are a few ways to build:

Build physically.

  • Build homes in Judea and Samaria, in Gush Dan and everywhere else in the country. This construction is a proper response to terror because it advances us to the goal of building our state, and setting down roots in our land. It’s not, as another Arutz 7 author wrote, about punishing the Arabs or taking away “their” land (i.e. our land which they falsely claim).
  • Start a company
  • Start a school that teaches entrepreneurship’s latest techniques – lean startup methods especially – and is accessible to all – poor, middle class and wealthy
  • Bring organizational structure (read The E-Myth Revisited), accountability and scalability to Israeli companies and especially non-profits that so desperately need it,
  • Match some friends who might be right for each other

Build spiritually:

  • Learn Torah and help spread it by donating to Torah learning
  • Volunteer with one of the tens of thousands of non-profits in Israel, such as Simcha LaYeled (singing and playing music to kids in hospitals), Leket (picking fruit for the poor), One Family (support for Terror Victims), the Michael Levine Lone Soldiers’ Center etc.
  • Do a random act of kindness with your neighbours – particularly those annoying ones you usually rant about to your significant other
  • Pray, especially for those people injured in the attacks – and ask others to pray for your loved ones

Build yourself individually:

  • Take a class and learn some new skills (martial arts classes anyone?)
  • Give yourself a night out or even a weekend holiday
  • Read a book – double points if it’s on a Zionist  and/or Torah theme
  • Don’t stay home
  • Go play sports on your own or with friends

Develop creative initiatives that help Israel collectively. Why not -

  • Start a music school for Leviim, the priestly tribe who will play music and sing in the Third Temple
  • Start a school for Kohanim to learn about serving in the Temple, the offerings, their preparation, kavanot and shechita
  • Advocate (e.g. with a petition) for tearing up the Oslo Accords, which have been completely violated by Arafat and then Abbas
  • Gain wide support for a pledge of allegiance – and expulsion of those people who refuse or break the pledge along with their families. This has been defeated in the past as racist. However, if we recognize the issue isn’t ethnicity – there are Bedouin Arabs serving in the IDF – but loyalty, then we can significantly improve our security. (And maybe expel some anti-Israel Jews and anarchists, etc.?)
  • Work on Zionist, Hebrew culture – create movies, TV shows, music and books that are both captivating and build our identity around our values

The best response to terror is to build our future – individually, collectively, physically and spiritually. That’s because we’re fighting for our existence and our future – as we always have been in Israel’s wars.

I’ll leave you with a reminder of what we say at Pesach: “In every generation they arise to destroy us – and The Holy One, Blessed Be He, saves us from their hand.”