Month: May 2025

Here is a peek into the reality we live in. Le’ah, one of my besties, updated our little circle of life-long friends with her whereabouts this past Thursday. As we read it, we wept, laughed, clapped our hands, worried…

Read it, if you wonder how we are doing these days in Israel.

Thursday morning she wakes up (all of us around here) to the terrible news of the terrorist attack in Washington. Yaron is a young Israeli believer who served in the Israeli embassy in Washington, and was murdered with his fiancé. Le’ah knows the family well.

A few minutes later, one of her sons calls from his base. His unit is going deeper into Gaza and he knew he won’t have access to his phone for a while. He wanted his parents to hear his voice and wish them an early Shabbat Shalom.

Wanting to breathe a little, she went out with her husband for breakfast. While at the café, the sirens went off and everyone on the street ran into the bomb shelter.

By noon, she arrived at Hadassah hospital with her eldest son, for his annual oncologic check-up, and also to say goodbye to the doctor, who cared for him for the past 20 years and was now retiring.

From there she drove to her office “just for a couple of minutes,” but left it 3 hours later.

Back home she started cooking for the guests she expected that evening. In the midst of that all, her eldest son and his fiancé performed their civil legal wedding via Zoom (the formal wedding will be in Israel in a few weeks). All the tears accumulated since that morning broke during that event, as they acknowledged their son’s healing and celebrated his bright future!

Finally, after the guests left, they got to bed. In the middle of the night, the sirens went off again. Out of bed, rush to the shelter, back to bed, hoping to finally rest and catch their breath. However, the day was not over yet.

Early that morning the phone rings. Her brother was on the line. His wife went into labor, and wanted to leave his two baby girls with her.

So how are we doing?

We often go from one extreme to the other in one day. We are facing birth and death and risk to our lives on an ongoing basis. We are stretched physically and emotionally, yet somehow find the strength to still cook, host, do our laundry…

Oh, yeah, there is now a new baby in the family. And if everything goes well, in just a few days they will celebrate his circumcision.

P.S.

There is nothing that unique about this report. This is how the day looks like for many of us since October 2023.

What Can You Do?

God is stretching our souls and bodies to new measures. Not in order to make us more flexible, but so that we lift our heads up and our eyes higher. Higher than the ability and schemes of our army, higher than the wits of our leaders, even higher than Trump’s agenda.

“You, Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation.  Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long? Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old, unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.” (Lam. 5:19-22).

The highlighted words above – Restore us to yourself that we may return – are translated from 3 Hebrew words: Hashivenu Eleicha VeNashuva. It literally says: Bring us back to you so we may repent.

This is what it’s all about – a powerful and painful plan, designed to make us turn back to Him. Pain and suffering can take a person in two opposite directions: either harden one’s heart (as happened with Pharaoh), or soften it.

Please pray for us along these lines. I’m not even recruiting prayer for relief or ease of circumstances. I’m asking you to pray that in the midst of the intensity here, we will turn back, soften our hearts, and re-find the strength that dwells in our knees.