The True Miracle of Israel

Beyond the Cusp ^ | May 11, 2008 | Self

[bsaunders]

Over the past week, and I suspect for the next week, many of us have read, or at least seen, numerous articles on Israel and her 60th anniversary. Many of these articles stated the seemingly obvious fact that the reestablishment of the state of Israel was nothing short of a miracle. In many ways that is very true, but is it the real miracle? Other countries have disappeared only to be reestablished though none waited quite as long as the Jewish state. So, if Israel returning to the list of countries after almost 2000 years is not the miracle, what then is?

The miracle is that there are any Jews alive and knowing their legacy, history, and all that makes a people bind into a country remained to establish the state of Israel. The miracle is that Jews from all the corners of the world came together as a people with as many varied backgrounds and litanies and formed a homogeneous country able to accommodate their differences, as the similarities overcame these disparities. Some of the Jews were still residing in Israel from the times of Rome and before. Many Jews had answered the call of Zionism and returned to what would become Israel from the late 19th century until the founding in 1948. Almost a million Jews were driven from Muslim lands took refuge and comfort in the welcoming arms of their fellow Jews in Israel. And since Israel’s founding in 1948, many Jews from all over the world have made Aliyah returning to Israel, their homeland. When the Jews in Ethiopia faced the threats of genocide, Israel took them in and gave them a safe home. Israeli leaders fought with the aid of their fellow Jews to gain the freedom for Russian Jews to make Aliyah. Israel has been taking in some long lost Jews from India, though some complain too slowly. Israel has become the one place where any Jew can find their home. The fact that there are any Jews left after the years of turbulence, trials, persecutions, pogroms, inquisitions, and other violence is the miracle of the founding of the modern state of Israel.

Even further, the miracle is that the Jews still held to their traditions, rituals, and laws despite attempts to crush their spirits and souls. With no homeland, no Temple, no central authorities, no structure, with nothing more that Torah and other religious writings, the Jews remain true to their faith and each other. Through dedication to traditions and a shared history kept alive through these traditions, the Jews remained a united peoples despite their separation in the Diaspora. It was against all the norms of history that a people without any semblance of a uniting factor other than their belief in Torah and G-d that the Jews remained a people. This fact that there are Jews today is the miracle that made the miracle of Eretz Yisroel.

Beyond the Cusp

[bsaunders]

Hope some find this of interest from my Blog.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks bsaunders.