Don’t Let Yourself Drown!

When there is a tsunami coming straight at you – it’s hard not to drown. What do you have to do? Head to high ground as fast as possible – and don’t look back! 

The Jewish world is currently being shaken to its foundations by a tsunami of antisemitism in the wake of the events on Simchat Torah, Oct. 7, 2023. Recent events are too numerous to count. Particularly shocking and noteworthy are the deaths of three American Jews on clearly antisemitic grounds with no corresponding federal hate crime charges, and the lack of appropriate “iron fist” deterrence responses to the antisemitic bullying that is happening around the world.   

As Rabbi Arush once said, “There is a special place in Hell for the media.” I quote it often, but even much more since Simchat Torah. Time and again, perhaps even daily – we find the media spouting Hamas’ lies, “Pallywood”, and even flat-out blood libels as truth.

Don’t even start me with the United Nations and UNRWA, in particular. It is becoming increasingly clear that for a good chunk of the world, absolutely nothing has changed since the Holocaust: There are human rights for all humans except Jews. The evidence of antisemitism throughout the UN is again too numerous to remunerate here. Compare the glaring silence after the brave UN report on the sexual crimes committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 in contrast to the entire world screaming for an immediate investigation about two Gazan women supposedly assaulted in an IDF detention center. (The women were terrorists who had to undergo a standard physical check to make sure they had no weapons on them.) The pain is just too great to bear. 

Actions speak louder than words. When the victims are Jews, there are repeated calls for “evidence” even though the body cameras of the terrorists themselves provide the evidence. In contrast, when the (false) victims are Palestinian women, the response is an immediate “we believe women”. The glaring double-standard would be a sick joke if it wasn’t real. 

“Never again is NOW” is a nice saying, but it seems that the only ones who really remembered and cared about “Never again” in the first place were the Jews, and not the world. The world is still drowning in hatred, gaslighting, blood libels, and blaming Jews for absolutely anything and everything, including the massacre of our own people – no matter how ridiculous the accusation, no matter what the evidence. Jews are isolated, blamed, and attacked. Those attacks are only becoming more and more physical, dangerous, and desperate as the war continues. 

In short, the Jewish people are currently amid the turmoil of a second Holocaust. Hamas is holding hostages in captivity, and we pray that they are alive and can be rehabilitated. In addition to the hostages, there is concurrent Holocaust denial – all while being spat in the face and told that it is the Jews who are committing genocide in Gaza. 

The pain is simply too great to bear. The water is over our heads. We are gasping for breath, holding on to straws – and hopefully, simply holding onto Hashem and emuna for dear life. 

I myself have been in this very deep emotional place – drowning.  

But here comes Rabbi Arush to throw us a life rope – telling us, “Don’t wallow in the pain! No one can handle it, you included!” He says that we must let ourselves have moments where we stop and feel the pain, when we sit down to pray, say Psalms, etc. But most of the time, we must “turn our minds” from the pain and simply live our lives to the best of our ability. 

Social media is filled with antisemitic lies – whether we are there to desperately push back with the truth or not. The news screams the heresy that “Everything is bad! Look how terrible it all is!”  

Ultimately, it’s our choice whether we throw ourselves into the water and drown in the feeling that the world is spinning out of control into who-knows-what – or we decide to step aside and live in the world of emuna. 

We can choose to live in the world where there is a Creator, where everything is being perfectly planned to be only better and better – bringing the world and each individual in it closer to their personal perfection and purpose, and ultimately to the final and complete Redemption, very soon, amen.  

If it sounds like a pipe dream to you – then every day you should be praying for the emuna to truly believe it. As Rabbi Arush says, “Emuna doesn’t change ever – not under any circumstances.” Watch this incredible clip how Rabbi Arush answers the question of “how do we possibly have emuna that what happened on Simchat Torah was for the best?”

The biggest shame on Hashem is not believing that He is doing everything for our ultimate best. It might be hard – as Rabbi Arush recently mentioned on Shabbat that the fear of the war is opening people’s hearts, and they are returning to Hashem – every day Jews are returning to Hashem, Baruch Hashem! Sure, we would rather it not be through fear, but if the fear is bringing us closer to Hashem, and bringing Jews together in love and unity as we are seeing – then ultimately this too is very good! 

It’s our choice – drown in the evil of this world around us, drown in fear, anxiety, depression and more – or fly up to the world of emuna! 

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