All Hands on Deck

There is No Peace in War 

How can we dance when Jerusalem lies in ruins? How can we celebrate when there are no prophets, no High Priest, and we are still scattered like ashes across the ends of the earth? Can we enjoy a moment of solace knowing that all over the world, we are at war? 

It was a great start to a classic day. Rosh Chodesh Adar. Erev Shabbat. My wife and youngest are hiking in the Kalanit forest. It’s a special place up north that overflows with beauty.  

Kalanit are fiery red flowers that bloom all over Israel throughout the winter.  In this special forest, they aren’t just red. They are blue. They are white. They are yellow. They are every shade of purple. They are so numerous you feel like you are in Candyland. It’s a fantasy.  

This year was amazing. Right after heavy rains, the puddle in the middle of the forest was so wide and so deep and so vast it looked like a lake. In Israel, water is gold. We stood among thousands of flowers right next to a huge treasure chest.  

After about an hour, reality hit.  We heard an ambulance driving through the main path. There were a lot of senior citizens enjoying the day, so we assumed someone needed medical attention.  When the second ambulance came, we all held our breath. The third came whizzing through, and everyone stopped and did something unthinkable in a nature reserve.  We pulled out our smartphones and checked the news.  

There is a small airport nearby. It’s used for crop dusters. The convoy of ambulances meant they were coming to receive helicopters evacuating soldiers wounded from the front to a hospital a few kilometers away.  

Loads and loads of pictures of soldiers fill our social media feeds. They are all young. They are all vibrant. They are all smiling. They all have Hebrew names.  They are our brothers. They are our children. Their faces are filled with so much life.  

Watching these ambulances drive by at full speed with lights blazing and sirens blasting meant our angels were going through hell.  After all the ambulances reached the runways, the sirens stopped. Immediately, they all returned the way they came.  

Baruch Hashem! It was just an exercise.  

We Are at War 

Why did something like this have to happen on Rosh Chodesh Adar? Why did October 7 have to happen on Simchat Torah and Shabbat?  

It was one of the two most tragic days in the history of Israel. The other day, October 6, 1973, was also a day of double joy: It was Yom Kippur and Shabbat.  

Why?  

In war, there is a gun at all of our heads at every moment.  Imagine two hitmen with automatic rifles pointed at your head. The safety is off, and their fingers are on the trigger.  The third hitman opens up a bottle of the finest wine, pours you a glass, and starts to tell jokes.  Could you enjoy yourself? 

Hezbollah rockets can hit anywhere in the country. Iranian rockets are pointed at our heads. Pretty soon, there will be nuclear weapons aimed at everyone. Two million Palestinians live in Judea and Samaria, all within 30 kilometers of every major city in Israel, all trying to outdo Hamas.  

It’s only a matter of time before the radical extremists in America start trying their own version of Oct 7 on our brothers and sisters in Europe and America – Hashem forbid!!! 

There is No Peace  

That’s why our biggest tragedies are taking place on our most joyous days.  It’s why we break a glass at a wedding. Today, when the glass is broken, it signifies that “it’s official.” They are husband and wife. The crunch is accompanied by cheers and song.  

But that’s not why this tradition started. It was started to remind us that we cannot be happy while we are all seriously ill.  

How can we dance when Jerusalem lies in ruins? How can we celebrate when there are no prophets, no High Priest, and we are still scattered like ashes across the ends of the earth? 

How can we celebrate while hitmen from Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and even Europe and America have 10 million rifles aimed at our heads? 

We must make repentance. We can never conduct ourselves as if we don’t have a care in the world.  

Even when the rockets aren’t hitting our neighborhood. Even in those temporary lulls when things feel like they are back to normal. Even when the top of today’s agenda is our best friend’s birthday, we must conduct ourselves like the man with a gun to his head.  

We must make repentance to our King. We must return to our Master of Legions, Who fights for us in our wars.  

The sword is hanging over all our heads. Even in those moments of our highest joy, everything is muted. The judgments are as close as ever.  We must be more vigilant to guard our words, guard our bodies, pray to Hashem, and learn Torah.  

It’s the only way we will ever be like those ambulances that disturbed a bright sunny day on the first of Adar by racing to disaster, and then returning from the front.  

God Willing, in the merit of our efforts, Hashem will send us Mashiach and remind us that it was all an exercise.  

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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David‘s Israeli startup, 300 Marketing Solutions, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO-optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.