What Do You See?
This question was asked by Avraham more than three thousand years ago of Yitzack, his son, and then repeated the question for Ishmael and Eliezer. Avraham had seen the Shechina, the Divine presence, having asked Yitzack what he saw. He replied he saw a pillar of fire ascending from the ground to the heavens. When asked, Ishmael and Eliezer saw nothing.
Tragically, this question has been asked for the last two thousand years of Jews regarding their return to the Land of Israel, and sadly for the majority, the answer has been the same as that of Ishmael and Eliezer. They see no reason to return. They see nothing; blind to reality, they choose the pragmatic, myopic, ”now” investing their future and that of their children in a state of illusions and compromises.
Too many Jews of today are blind to the approaching end of Exile, believing the Diaspora has no end and will continue generation after generation regardless of the pogroms and Jew-Hatred that proliferate in gentile societies all over the world. No lesson seems to have been learnt from the Holocaust or, in more recent times, the barbaric slaughter of Jews on October 7 2023. The abyss of Jewish ignorance towards their obligation to return Home to the Land of Israel is staggering in its hold on Jews of all backgrounds and persuasions.
With failed leadership lulling them into a false sense of security, allowing their fellow Jew to believe they are better off living in other peoples countries. At the same time, the Jewish State is seen as an afterthought, a piece of Jewish history to be trotted out on festive occasions, a sentimental reconnect to one’s roots.
They, like Ishmael and Eliezer, don’t see that the Diaspora is the Jew’s graveyard and are committing a fatal blunder by believing that all will be well. Current upheavals are a passing phase, and all will return to normal. They could not be more wrong. If history has anything to teach us, it is that history repeats itself with regular monotony. The price for not seeing will be horrendous unless we open our eyes to the reality confronting the Diaspora before it’s too late.
