June 29, 2018, the land of Israel
רְאֵ֗ה אָנֹכִ֛י נֹתֵ֥ן לִפְנֵיכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם בְּרָכָ֖ה וּקְלָלָֽה
(דברים יא, כו)
Behold I have given before you today a blessing and a curse (Deuteronomy, Chapter 11, verse 26)
Moshe, thousands of years ago, turns to his nation and gives an eternal warning, God has spoken these words, I set before you today a blessing and a curse, the choice is yours. Follow the way that is right and the blessings shall be yours, chose the wrong path and troubles shall be your lot.
Enough said. We understand.
Man generally makes the wrong choice, time and time again. We have created a world of hatred and intolerance, of falsehood and misunderstanding. Like the ancient Tower of Babel man cannot understand his brother. We speak but we hear nothing. And the curses come upon us like a Biblical prophecy. We are our worst enemies.
But we have a positive attitude. We in Israel have accepted the curses. For whatever the reason is we have been cursed by mankind. We live in a small desert land surrounded by and infiltrated by a cruel and vicious enemy that is funded by haters and fools from around the world. Peace, Peace, but there is no peace.
We have no natural resources to speak of, we have limited manpower, we have a constant water problem, and we have turned all these into blessings.
We are isolated and discriminated against by nearly all, The Nations United voted that we have no right to even call our eternal capital Jerusalem, as our current capital. We stand alone. With just a few scattered friends.
And what do we do with all these curses? We turn them into blessings.
A Jew named Bob wrote about this...
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He's the neighborhood bully.
We have no resources, so our brains and creativity become our great natural resource, we invent what has never been seen before, we are leaders in the Hi Tech and Scientific fields.
No one will sell us weapons so we develop our own and are among the top ten weapons exporters in the world.
We have not enough people so we develop a people's army where each and every one becomes part of a national effort.
We have not enough water so we develop the revolutionary drip system that now helps farmers all over the world. We have been hurt so we help others that have been hurt, in Africa we help build the economy, where disaster strikes our Search and Rescue teams arrive.
We have been given a choice, a blessing or a curse. But even when the only choice we have is the curse we do not despair. We take that curse and we turn it into a blessing.
Shabbat Shalom everyone.