Feels Like Lockdown Again - But So Much Worse

We're having a rough couple of days here in Israel. Last night 5 people died. Missiles landed on my friend's apartment building here in Petach Tikvah, and also near my brother-in-law's business in Bnei Brak. That's at night. During the day there's an eerie silence very similar to Covid when people only came out to get more supplies at the supermarket.

Are We Getting Smarter?

I want to ask you today dear readers - with all the craziness in our lives, have we learned anything? First there was Covid that totally turned our lives upside down. but that pales in comparison to October 7th and the devastation inside Israel we're seeing right now.

The crazy part? The whole world has a front row seat this time. And I don't see anyone rushing over to help us. There are reports here and there that the US has aircraft on the way with missile interceptors, just to be prepared for "potential escalation." So essentially, we still feel alone in this battle against the world's greatest evil.

So what have we learned?

First of all - that we can only depend on ourselves.

Second - some people understand on some level that we have to unite. But of course everyone's still sticking to their guns when it comes to their perspective of how things should be.

Ideally we would put our heads together to figure out what the world wants from us already, so we could make all insanity go away. But we're not there yet. Like any entity hit by major tragedy, we're too busy dealing with the current crisis.

And when we're not in crisis mode we're too busy fighting each other.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Today I asked ChatGPT about the major atrocities we've experienced as a people - maybe there's a clue in there somewhere:

1. The Destruction of the First Temple (586 BCE) – By the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar, leading to the first exile to Babylon.

2. The Destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE) – By the Romans, a defining catastrophe that led to the dispersion of the Jewish people for centuries.

3. The Massacre of Jews in the First Crusade (1096) – Tens of thousands of Jews were slaughtered by Crusaders in the Rhineland and other parts of Europe.

4. The Expulsion from England (1290) – Jews were expelled from England by King Edward I, not allowed to return for over 350 years.

5. The Expulsion from Spain (1492) – Over 200,000 Jews forced to convert, flee, or face execution under the Catholic Monarchs.

6. The Khmelnytsky Massacres (1648–1657) – Brutal pogroms in Ukraine under Cossack leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky; tens of thousands of Jews were killed.

7. The Holocaust (1941–1945) – Six million Jews were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany in the most devastating genocide in Jewish and human history.

8. October 7 Hamas Attack on Israel (2023) – The deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, with over 1,200 Israelis killed and hundreds taken hostage in a brutal terror assault.

According to my ChatGPT: These events shaped Jewish history and collective memory, reinforcing the importance of resilience, identity, and unity.

So as a people we keep going through all these horrible experiences. And whether we like to admit it or not, these things are always revolving around our current state of unity/brotherly love or division/hate. Throughout history, no matter where we are, we always have a false sense of security. Because we know on some level that really bad things are always happening to us throughout our history.

But now it's different. Why? Because we're living in such a so-called enlightened world, where we talk about things like kindness, equality, cohesion and empathy. But in reality, we're far from knowing how to implement these things in society. And subconsciously, the whole world is waiting to get that example from Israel.

Up until the Holocaust we may have been uneducated or not organized enough to understand what's going on. But today with the Internet and everything being shared publicly in real time - we can no longer use ignorance as an excuse for our lack of awareness. We can no longer pretend that we are the same as everyone else.

It's incredible how we're so intelligent in every other respect, except when it comes to understanding what the world wants from us.