Gary Cooperberg, March 17, 2005

What is it about growing up in the United States that makes good Jews forget the dream of Zion? There is an old, and not so funny, joke which defines a Zionist as a Jew who raises money from another Jew to send a third Jew to Israel. Zionism isn't about raising money. It isn't about supporting the Jewish State. It isn't even about visiting once in a while, which most American Jews have never done anyway.

For those who may have forgotten, genuine Biblical Zionism is the ancient, unshakable, yearning by the Jew to come home. It was this unquenchable longing for the time when our Exile would finally end and we would, at long last, be able to return to our only homeland, Israel, that gave our forebears the incredible strength to stand up to all obstacles and maintain their Jewish identity over the centuries.

The fact that most Jews either forget or choose not to think about is our role to become a light unto the nations. Indeed, the true function of Jews on this planet is to become a living example to the nations of the world to prove that our world has a Creator. By trying to become just like all the other nations we are defying our destined purpose on this earth. In every generation and in every nation in the world we Jews have done just that. We have tried our utmost to blend in with the nations and become just like everyone else. Yet, just when we thought we were accepted as equals in countries like Spain, France, England, Germany, Poland and so many others, antisemitism suddenly erased our welcome and found us either expelled or murdered.

With so many historic examples of our failure to become like unto the nations, and our terrible punishment in the wake of our attempts, one would think that we would have learned our lesson. With the miraculous reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, one would have expected all of the Jewish people around the globe, without exception, to have rushed home immediately. The realization that we still existed as a people in spite of our two thousand year exile should be proof enough of our Divinely ordained destiny. But to see a sovereign Jewish State be resurrected exactly where our ancient homeland was, in defiance of powers greater than us, should have wiped out any doubt.

In 1948, it seemed suicidal for Ben Gurion to have dared to declare an independent Jewish State in the Land of Israel. The world watched and waited, expecting to see a repeat of the Holocaust as the Arab nations would wipe out the tiny new country. Much to their disappointment, not only were we not destroyed, we defeated our enemies and continued to grow. Again, in 1967, as Nasser told the world that he would wash the streets of Tel Aviv with Jewish blood and throw all the Jews into the sea, the nations of the world, and most Jews living in them, expected that Israel would be destroyed. No one was more surprised than the Israeli Army when, not only did we survive the attempts by our Arab neighbors to destroy us, but we roundly defeated them all, regaining even more of our ancient homeland in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Rather than recognize and accept the miracles, and thank our Creator for rescuing us from our enemies, our myopic leaders decided to try to use our unexpected victory as a tool to bribe our enemies into loving us. Every single Jewish government, from 1967 until this very day, has done everything it could to try to give away the miracle of 1967. . . for peace! What makes them force themselves to believe that, were we to turn back the clock and give the Arabs all of the land that were restored to us in 1967, that our enemies would suddenly love us? Do they ever consider why they didn't love us before June of 1967 when all of these lands were in their possession? Why did our enemies seek to destroy us then? What will prevent them from going to war again even were we to give them all of those lands? How can we continue to delude ourselves into trying to commit national suicide while pretending that this will somehow bring us peace? This is nothing short of insanity.

What makes the present threat so much worse than the preceding ones, is that this time, the Israeli government, under the leadership of an alleged right wing war hero, is planning to arbitrarily surrender to an enemy we can easily defeat! And, what is worse, this enemy has consistently been murdering our civilian population, and instead of obliterating them, we reward them by promising to throw Jews out of their homes and surrender our land to the PLO!!!

The fact is that even this attempt has got to be part of a Divine Plan. It defies any other explanation. As redemption continues to unfold before our eyes, the Living G-d of Israel is testing our faith and our love for Him. This may well be our last opportunity to express those feelings by denying what our eyes and ears tell us and just doing what our Jewish hearts tell us to do. Let us remember the words of our Passover Hagaddah, "In every generation there arise those to seek to destroy us, and every time our G-d saves us from their hand." Can we doubt that even the government of Israel will fail if it attempts to defy our Creator?

Yes, indeed, we must do everything in our power to oppose the efforts to desecrate our G-d, our people and our homeland. We must act creatively and try our best to prevent these plans from being carried out. But, above all, we must continue to live our lives every day in service of our Creator. It is laudable that some Jews living in the USA really care about Israel and express that love by generously supporting efforts to oppose the present government. It is praiseworthy that there are those who plan to come to Israel to stand with their brothers in Gaza. But the very best a Jew living in the USA can do to help his people, is simply to come home. If, especially in time of apparent danger, Jews would come home to Israel in large numbers as an expression of faith in G-d, we would transform desecration into sanctification and certainly hasten our redemption.

We must force ourselves to stop thinking logically and begin to think as Jews of faith. We have seen so many miracles which have defied logic in our own lifetimes that we should be able to understand that they were not accidents. Jewish destiny has a logic of its own and does not fit into our perception of logic. Numbers are irrelevant when you are a participant in Biblical Destiny. No matter how great and powerful our enemies may be, no matter how vastly we may be outnumbered, if we stand with our G-d and our Torah, we will defeat them all, be they leaders of powerful nations or be they misguided leaders of our own government. If we stand true to our faith victory is guaranteed.

Gary Cooperberg is a resident of the Jewish community in Hebron, Israel.

Copyright © 2005 Gary Cooperberg