There is a feeling among besieged Jewish students that “living a more Jewish life is all we can do”
I am just back from a week of speaking in Los Angeles both to adult groups and in local schools. Needless to say, there was a great thirst to understand better the lessons of the past seven months since Simchas Torah.
The lessons enumerated in a lecture entitled “The Great Clarification” were not, in the main, salutary. First, neither the existence of the State of Israel nor Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel can be taken for granted. Israel is surrounded by enemies bent on its destruction from every side.
Second, all those institutions on which we relied for our security — in particular, the IDF — proved to be not nearly so invulnerable as we had all assumed. A billion-dollar security fence between Gaza and the surrounding Jewish communities proved to be no barrier at all to cheap hang gliders.
It took one of the most powerful armies in the world five or more hours to even respond as the Hamas hordes overran settlements surrounding Gaza and slaughtered more than a thousand Jews, even though attack helicopters could have reached those kibbutzim and moshavim in short order.
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