Where is the Front Line?

Over the years I’ve shied away from discussing politics and current events for one basic reason; they often create discord between people when there otherwise might not be any. The other reason I avoid politics is because everybody has an opinion, and adding mine to the crossfire of insights might not necessarily contribute anything positive. On the other hand, I feel somewhat compelled to discuss current events because they are movements within the grandiose mechanism of the Coming of the Moshiach. In this light focusing on them can also be a relevant pursuit.

If the entirety of human history was a book, it would be the most complex document ever written. There would probably be an infinite number of ways to separate the content into chapters. And yet, we could still identify general themes. It seems relatively clear that we are now somewhere in the middle of an Islam chapter, where Islam occupies an unproportionately large place in the eyes of the world. This chapter started picking up real speed in 2011 after the World Trade Center attacks. A few years ago we saw the Merkaz HaRav attack and others. In the last few months it has kicked up a gear again with the rocket fire from Gaza, the Hagana Train Station stabbing, and increasing international attacks.

It seems that this movement has again turned up a notch with the public butchering in Woolwich, south-east London, Har Nof and Paris attacks. The frequency and brutality of these attacks are not the common thread. Instead, it is the element of sheer brazenness required to butcher people in broad daylight and to trample their holy places. Neither the mundane nor the holy have been spared – the most common (cafes) and sanctified (synagogues) are ripe targets. Is there any other place where the violation of life can take place? All the rocks have been overturned. The front line is everywhere.

And yet the past again reflects into the present, helping us to peer into our history to see when this has happened before. This is not the first time in history that a wave of attacks on Jews has happened in Europe. Not all of the details are identical – the players are different and are organized on an international level – but the motivation to murder Jews is the same. Another difference is that this Muslim expression of hatred extends beyond Jews and to purported enemies of Islam in general. We are not supposed to, and most people are incapable of, accurately determining information about the future.

However, what the Torah says about Ishmael seems out of place and disconnected to the events of the Book of Genesis. Soon after this information is revealed Ishmael virtually disappears from both the pages of the Tanakh and history. Most Jewish sources agree that the Torah’s mention of Ishmael’s power refers to a latter epic in history. It does seem that the Torah’s description of Ishmael’s ruthless vigor is manifest today. This is a just a blip in history, albeit a big one, because certain sources as well say that Ishmael did teshuva. The ancestral potential for such an act must then be embedded deep in the Muslim populace and should too become manifest.

The front line is every prayer.

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