I keep thinking about Parshat Vaeira as I read the headlines. Vaeira is the moment when God tells Moses: “You’re not crazy. The suffering is real. And change is coming-faster than you think!"
It is also the parsha where Pharaoh is warned repeatedly, ignores every signal, and discovers that history can accelerate very quickly once it gets going.
That lesson feels uncomfortably relevant today.
Because here is the paradox of Jewish life in the West right now: antisemitism is exploding-at the very same time that the global economy looks stronger than ever. What makes this moment genuinely dangerous is that this is not how antisemitism usually behaves. Historically, antisemitism accelerates during economic slumps, not booms. Jews are scapegoated when societies are desperate, not when markets are euphoric. Hatred tends to spike when unemployment rises, currencies collapse, and political systems panic.
Which means that what we are witnessing now is historically abnormal.
In the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic incidents surged more than 360 per cent in the wake of October 7. Jews - less than two percent of the population - are now the victims of the majority of religion-based hate crimes. Similar record-breaking numbers are being reported across the UK, France, Canada, and Australia. This is no longer fringe hostility; it is culturally mainstream.
Now look at the other side of the ledger. Global stock markets are at or near all-time highs. The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and FTSE indices have all repeatedly broken records. Trillions of dollars of paper wealth have been created. Artificial intelligence has become the new gold rush. By conventional measures, the system looks healthy.
So let’s pause and ask an uncomfortable question: If antisemitism looks like this during prosperity, what will happen when the inevitable downturn arrives?
Because downturns always arrive. Economies move in cycles. Expansions end. Asset bubbles burst or deflate. Debt catches up. Geopolitical shocks happen and markets accelerate small changes into major trends. No serious economist believes that the current moment represents a permanent plateau. Expecting a slowdown or correction is not a matter of ideology-it is mathematics.
Alongside these economic realities, our history tells us something chillingly consistent: when economies break, antisemitism spikes.
Weimar Germany did not radicalize at the height of prosperity. Antisemitism existed beforehand, but it metastasized when hyperinflation, unemployment, and humiliation shattered the German social order. Economic collapse didn’t cause Jew-hatred; it weaponized it. The same pattern has played out across continents and centuries. Which means that today’s situation is not a peak-it is a baseline.
This is where Parshat Vaeira stops being a metaphor and starts sounding a warning. Pharaoh does not dismiss Moses because the signs are unclear. He dismisses him because Egypt is still functioning. The Nile still flows. The system still works. The assumption is simple and seductive: we have time.
That assumption is always wrong. Once change begins, it accelerates. Norms collapse quickly. What was “unthinkable" on Monday becomes the new baseline by Friday. History rarely gives advance notice, and never grants extensions.
This is why the Jewish instinct to “wait and see" has never aged well. Which brings us to the Torah’s least fashionable but most prescient claim:
Israel is our home. Not as a slogan but as a structural response to a recurring historical reality.
The Tanach does not present exile as a sustainable long-term condition. “I will take you to be My people, and I will bring you into the land" (Shemot 6:7) is not poetry, it is foresight. It is God’s answer to a world that periodically tolerates Jews and then turns on them with shocking speed.
Parshat Vaeira teaches that redemption begins not when everything collapses, but when people stop mistaking temporary stability for permanent safety.
Today the markets are high and yet the hatred is rising. History is whispering, louder every year, that when things change, they change fast. The only real question we should be asking ourselves is whether we will recognize the warning signs while there is still time to act?
Rabbi Leo Dee is an educator living in Efrat. His second book “‘The Seven Facets of Healing’ is dedicated in memory of his wife Lucy who, together with his daughters Maia and Rina, was murdered by terrorists in April 2023. It is available from Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Facets-Healing-Leo-Dee/dp/9659329105 and in Israel from https://bookpod.co.il/product/the-seven-facets-of-healing/