IN DARKNESS

  These days it too often feels as if we are confounded as we attempt to find our way, groping our way through the darkness that surrounds us. Even if the sun is shining, allowed to shine through a bit, there still is that aura of darkness, seemingly more permanent than ever that precludes us all from totally trusting in the future before us. Indeed, many wonder if in fact there is that future awaiting us, the one we wish for, ache for.

It is not a lack of faith in the power of the Hands of the Almighty but rather a lack of faith in the unscrupulous ways of human beings given the freedom to choose the path upon which they walk. Yes, there are times we do not get that choice and in order to maintain our equilibrium we choose to believe that the events of life will, even if eventually, a long time coming, head us up or down, onto ways where we are meant to be.

It is on the nasty behavior and motivations of other human beings that we cannot rely upon other than to cause us trouble in so many woes. Some of those ways are the most awful situations that can ever be. Beyond comprehension and beyond any true manner in which to confront and defeat. When it comes to that level of ugliness it is then that we must turn to the highest power and pray that He turns His head, His mind, back to His creations. To not abandon them to the whims and wiles of others of His creation. Whether and whenever that takes place, we can and should express our gratitude. Even if we are in the depths of a sorrow in blackness unable to be penetrated by any light.

The people of Israel and in fact, the entire Jewish nation, wherever its individuals have chosen to reside or wherever life has placed them, is within an inky blackness, beset by enemies outside of our people who feel free now to indulge in their putrid hate. A Hate which enables them to perpetrate the worst of behavior and the worst of thoughts upon any and all with any relation to and of Jewish people and their infrastructure. More frightening and even more consequential is when from within the Jewish nation, traitors to their own people arise. 

Prior to October 7, 2023, much, most of the obvious in your face JewHatred was kept under wraps. It was only when we decided that no, we would not give in to the brutality of Hamas and their allies; we would not simply lay down our arms and our bodies awaiting our fates as deemed appropriate for us by our enemies. It was then that the times we had been living through, of ability to in positive manner to achieve much, to contribute much to the world disappeared.  A mostly decent time for Jews, though in fact that virulent Hate remained constantly just beneath the surface, at the ready. It was after that resistance we were met by a growing onslaught of a wave of Hate and its ugly manifestations such as we have not seen nor endured for a long time. How dare we!

The times have changed and the words of the song from to 'Live Another Summer' ring round and round inside one's head and apparently is the mantra of those who hate us, who wish us gone. “A Jew, who is a winner, is a disgrace.” When we were seen as the underdog, as the Jew who is eternally under threat, that we were granted the gift of time enabling us to create, to share, to prosper. However, when our strength grew, along with a certainty of survival, it is then that our enemies fear along with an overwhelming jealousy of what we the people of Israel, the people of the Jewish nation have managed to achieve, grew apace. 

From that time on all Jews are besieged and beset, increasingly surrounded by enemies open and furtive, overt and covert. We must also know and remember that those who have never been free of hatred remain so, only more exaggerated and more harmful. Once glorious centers of Jewish life over the millennia they have now become pathetic remnants who remain for one reason or another. Some valid, some not, of free will and some of not.

It seems there is no way out. It seems there is no time which is free of interference of return to the ugliest traits of humanity. The Jews of the world remain as a convenient scapegoat for those wishing to deny what is the truth and reality of the problems plaguing their people and the productive ways in which to address and fix them. Make no mistake about it. There are pathways to peace, to success positive in manner and outcome for humanity. Unfortunately, those ways are paralleled by the fetid ditches alongside. They reek of evil, and manage to send out enticing aromas speaking of wealth and power. There are those who heed those false enticements and too often have overcome any resistance and fight their way through to the nasty levels to which they aspire.

Yes, we have contributed much and wish to contribute more, for that is within the very genes of our being. However, that does not mean that some within the same people are not immune to the wrong path in life. Too often they engage in behavior shameful to their people and conducive of even more hate, of more persecution and oppression. Even as these perverse members of the Jewish people manage to achieve a form of “greatness”, it is a temporary achievement and one that often, too often, mostly results in a loss rather than a profit to all else in the world. Particularly upon their own.

But we are a resilient people, and we resist and fight against that darkness that envelops us and the world. Even if we are running to shelters both material and within our minds, we stop along the way to help those needing of aid to enter as well. Once inside those shelters we find that even with times as they are, at that moment, we can engage in joy and celebration, sharing with our neighbors all that we have. Weddings, celebrations of all types, food, toys, beds, distractions, music - all enter the shelters with us. All serve to buoy us, to keep   our heads above water and allow us the courage and faith to face it all and to move on with life. Move themselves seamlessly without panic, still singing and dancing from the halls on the surface to those beneath. Am Yisroel Chai!

All the while they did not forget the shelter that is always with us. We sing of national themes and songs of Faith, of Trust in the Lord. That He will hear our calls and return to us. National themes of    hope and optimism. Of faith which has been with us since time immemorial. One that will eventually  lead us into the time we all wish for, the time of the true Messiah. The time of peace throughout the world. A time when all are free to recognize and practice the ways of the good, spurn the ways of those who would pervert and spoil. They managed to bring those into the fold. They are welcomed and return to the right ways of life.

Oue enemies watch, frustrated in their inability to wear us down spiritually, morally, emotionally, even in the rain of cluster rockets down upon us.  We continue to sing, confident, that our blessed G-d loves us and will send us through the darkness. Another pillar of light and fire as guidance through the darkness, enable us all to return to a homeland to be free of foes and woes.  We and the people of the world wherever they are, will reside in peace and remember that not only are the people in this room responsible for other members of the Jewish nation, but that all humanity is responsible for the rest of humanity. It is not for the they and them. It is for the us, the we, the you, the me, the I. 

When we forget, when we allow that understanding to fade from within us, it is then that we stray far from where we need be. When? Nobody can answer that question other than the Lord Above. We must strengthen our faith, enlarge the world of hope and optimism. Pick ourselves up by our necks and shake us into sense and reality and understand where we are. Reset and find the proper way out. Then the world will be illuminated by the blessed light and welcome warmth of that column of light. We will indeed know that the Lord has not forgotten His creations. Has not abandoned them to the consequences of their horrific actions and thoughts.

Always in our yesterdays we managed to return to that belief that sustained us in nightmare conditions of life.

It is in our todays that we must recall the strength of our resistance, of our trust in G-d to return the world to at least a modicum of sanity.

It is with that faith strengthened that our tomorrows will be better. The darkness now shrouding us will fade before the light, pure, clear and productive. Goodness, graciousness and shared humanity will be the reigning atmosphere.

But we cannot rely on any other than ourselves to reach that point.

It is only we, the us. who can turn this ugliness around.

Us. Only the us.

It is when they and them will merge seamlessly and we will live in a world once presented to us, whole and beautiful, return to it in full appreciation and gratitude and be ever more watchful that we maintain that status. 

Till then it must be a continuous striving to arrive back to that time of glory. We must set aside all the ugliness we have immured within, spurn it, cast it aside. Make room for humanity in its full sense to enter and to sprout flowers, enhance the world, grow its beauty rather than pervert and twist until it dies beneath, totally unrecognizable.  

Can we do that? We can, with faith and the strength that He has gifted to us. To know if only we would tap into it, trust in Him, we can turn the world around.

But only we, only the us.

Not them.

Not they.