Many Jews believe that Israel can only be regained miraculously
I say that these Jews are blind and fail to see the miracle that Jews still exist?
The persecution of Jews has been a major event in Jewish history, prompting shifting waves of refugees and the formation of diaspora communities. As early as 605 BCE, Jews who lived in the Neo-Babylonian Empire were persecuted and deported. Antisemitism was also practiced by the governments of many different empires (the Roman empire) and the adherents of many different religions (Christianity), and it was also widespread in many different regions of the world (the Middle East and the Islamic world).
Jews were commonly scapegoated for tragedies and disasters such as the Black Death, the 1066 Granada Massacre, the Massacre of 1391 in Spain, the many Pogroms in the Russian Empire, and the tenets of Nazism both prior to and during World War II, which led to The Holocaust and the murder of six million Jews.
During the days of the Babylonian captivity, writings by the Israelite prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel encouraged their people with the promise of a future gathering of the exiles to the Land of Israel. Since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the continual hope for exiled Jews' return to the Land of Israel has served as a core theme of Judaism. Maimonides, a prominent medieval Jewish scholar, connected the materialization of this return with the coming of the Davidic Messiah.
A little about myself and how it fits into the subject of this article
My father was raised in an Orthodox yet broken home, and raised his children in a secular home. Due to an antisemitic incident at school when I was 8 years old, I became aware of my Jewish heritage. For some reason I can’t explain, I felt a desire within my heart to learn about Judaism, and to make Israel my home. This tug at my heart started when I was sixteen years old. To my surprise my mother urged me to explore my Jewish roots, she gave the address of my grandfather and uncle, and helped me write letters telling of my desire to learn about Judaism. They sent me books on Judaism and Hebrew, my uncle Sam, my father’s older brother told me about a program where Jewish children can go to a Kibbutz in Israel for a summer vacation. I talked to my parents and they thought it would be a good idea, I wrote to the Kibbutz and they sent me a pamphlet and an application form. I studied the pamphlet and it said that Jewish children could go for free, I was so excited. My mother helped me get my passport and to complete the application form.
After a few weeks the Kibbutz accepted my application, but I had to pay for airline tickets, something I didn’t know is that the Synagogue or Temple the children attends pays for the airline tickets, I didn’t attend either a Synagogue or Temple because I lived in the country and the nearest Synagogue or Temple was 110 miles away, I was heartbroken, I wanted to go so bad.
How does this story of me discovering my Jewish heritage fit into the subject of this article. I see it I being one of the scattered bones as written below.
Step By Step
Step By Step
From Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones restored to life, we learn that geula is a two-stage process. First there is the scattered bones finding one another and being once again joined together. Then there is the new growth of sinews and muscle and flesh, until complete bodies have been restored. That’s the first stage. Stage two is the soul being rebreathed into the revived body. That’s the prophetic vision.
Yirmiyahu - Jeremiah - Chapter 23
Synopsis of this chapter by Rabbi Menachem Leibtag, click here
1. Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the flocks of My pasture! says the Lord.
Flocks of my pasture are the people of Israel.
And then there is us.
The Shechina is the neshama, the soul, of Am Yisrael, the Jewish nation. The Jewish nation, is the body for the soul. And each of us is a unique part of this great collective of Am Yisrael. Exile, galut, tore the body to pieces. Bones were scattered everywhere, and the neshama, the ohr ha’Shechina—that inner, radiant, unifying light of the nation—was forced to retreat to the heavens. It no longer had a place, a body, a home.
2. Therefore, so says the Lord God of Israel concerning the shepherds: You who pasture My people, you have scattered My flocks and have driven them away and have not taken care of them; behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your deeds, says the Lord.
3. And I will gather the remnant of My flocks from all the lands where I have driven them, and I will restore them to their dwellings and they shall be fruitful and multiply.
4. And I will set up shepherds over them and they shall pasture them, and they shall no longer fear nor shall they be dismayed, nor shall [any of them] be missing, says the Lord.
This started in 1948 with the modern state of Israel, but many of the flock is still scattered. I hope soon to join my flock in Israel.
5. Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will set up of David a righteous shoot, and he shall reign a king and prosper, and he shall perform judgment and righteousness in the land.
The new king of Israel, that will come from the House of David will be the The Moshiach.
The first phase began with the ingathering of the exiles. In 1948 there were slightly more than 600,000 Jews in Israel. Today there are six and a half million! The step-by-step, year-after-year process is breathtaking. The bones and the limbs have been reunited. The land blossoms and thrives; everywhere there is life and vitality and development and flowering of potential. Yet, while we have come so far, nonetheless, the full potential of the reborn body has not been fully actualized. Shechina, the soul, still can’t be fully present in a body that isn’t completely whole. We are still plagued by divisions and divisiveness, by machloket, and by schisms that stand between us and ourselves, our collective Self. The Shechina is still stifled.