1. Early Sunday morning, sirens jolted the residents of the shfela region and of central Israel, completely disrupting their routine and daily schedules. Well, this is how our brothers and sisters in the North have been living for quite some time. Is our heart truly with them? And in fact, this is how our brothers and sisters in the South have lived for decades(!), while most of us dismissed it as “drips and drabs of rocket fire with no casualties.”
2. This isn't the story of the communities bordering Gaza; today it’s about the entire world. Our enemy is willing to make the effort to launch a missile from thousands of kilometers away, from Yemen. We don’t share a border, we haven’t conquered any of their territory, and yet, absolute evil marks us as its absolute enemy, generation after generation. What does this say about us and our role?
3. There were no casualties from the missile, thank God. And within seconds, literally seconds, people started flooding social media with jokes: “Okay, I get it, I’ll wake up on time for Selichot,” someone wrote, while many parents remarked, “If it wouldn’t have been for the Yemenites, I wouldn’t have managed to get the kids out of bed on a Sunday morning.” It’s not just the black humor we’re so famous for; it reflects an underlying optimism even in our challenging reality.
4. Above all, we must take comfort and maintain our hope. In the Haftarah last Shabbat morning, all over the world the Jews read the words: "For you shall spread out to the right and to the left, and your descendants will dispossess nations" — a Divine promise that all these enemies will eventually vanish, and we will flourish. And also: "For a brief moment I abandoned you – but with great compassion I will gather you. In an outburst of anger, I hid My face from you for a moment – but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you." We've seen so many of these ancient promises come true. May we soon merit to see them all of fulfilled, speedily in our days.