Stand for Israel

Yeshiva students lighting the menorah made from Kassam rockets, which was placed on top of the yeshiva. (Courtesy David Cohen, Yeshivat Hesder Sderot)

This turning around–using something intended to harm them as a means of proclaiming the Jewish people’s enduring connection to God–is a particularly Jewish response: When Syrians used to shell kibbutzes in the Galilee region in the early years of the state, the Zionist response was always to build more. Israelis call this response “dafka” — a word with a number of meanings, but in this context, it means doing the exact opposite of what someone’s trying to make you do.

Not for nothing does the Bible repeatedly call the nation of Israel a “stiff-necked people.” Sometimes–unfortunately–the label refers to the nation being led astray, but the same quality is what gives the Jewish people the resilience to cling to their ways and their God. They do this in the face of far powerful opponents, as in the case of the yeshiva students who defeated the far more powerful Syrian-Greek empire, who established the festival of Hanukkah. And they do this today as a single country singled out and piled upon by dozens of other countries who can’t accept that they exist, and they do this fighting terrorist foes who wage war against them in the style of the Biblical Amalek, who attacked the weak and most defenseless. The terrorists’ blatant disregard for the sanctity of life–even of their own people–makes it that much more difficult (and that much more imperative) for nations of conscience to fight them.

That imperative brings us back to the Macabbees, the yeshiva students who defeated an empire and brought light into the world.

SFI wishes all of Israel,and all who love her, a happy and joyous Shabbat and final night of Hanukkah.

(Read the complete story about the Sderot menorah by the incomparable Aaron Klein here.)