A Lieutenant Colonel in the IDF was killed last night at the Gaza Strip. The residents of the Gaza Periphery returned tonight to their safe rooms because of the escalation, and there was no school today. Netanyahu returned to Israel in the middle of his visit in France.
"And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it." Yaacov Avinu (Jacob our Patriarch) dreams in this week's Portion of the famous ladder, and our commentators explain that he sees the whole world history there: nations rising up and going down, taking control of other nations and then falling; Babylon rising and is then destroyed, followed by Greece, Egypt, Persia, Rome and more.
The message that Yaacov gets is simple, and is true also today: different forces (like tonight in Gaza) will yet try to harm and destroy, but evil will not rule forever. There is one tiny nation that will survive all those rising ups and going downs.
And these are the consolation verses that Yaacov hears in that ground-laying event, verses that are dedicated today to the residents of the South and the soldiers who are there now:
And, behold, the LORD stood beside him, and said: 'I am the LORD, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee back into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.'
