By Hanan Caspi

Shalom Dear Friends

2 weeks after my previous message to you, and the quest for tranquility continues. I want to share with you my experiences in the last 2 weeks. I have actually travelling for my work, in the US and Canada. I was frustrated angered and dismayed at the media coverage of the operation. While I myself was calling home at every chance I had in order to hear how are my family and friends doing in the line of fire, I am astounded to hear on the US radio news, that “another day of Israeli hostility in Gaza".

As we thankfully get a phone call from our son in law – Chiyya – reporting that all is well, we get another phone call from our son Yair, a student at Tel Chai College near Kiryat Shemonah, advising us that he is OK, sitting in a shelter, due to 2 Katyusha rockets that landed nearby. At the same time an important Union leader in Canada calls for the boycott of Israeli teachers at Canada’s universities, until Israeli “aggression“ is stopped.

But here – back at home, the rockets keep falling .Yesterday at Beer Sheba Angela Izraelov, an O.R. nurse at the Soroka Hospital in town, was driving her 7 year old son Orel, back from school.

They heard the siren, she stopped the car, they both got out, and Angela laid on her son to cover him and protect him. The Grad Missile fell very close to them. Angela was unscathed, yet little Orel was hit by shrapnel which entered his skull and lodged itself in his brain. Angela’s colleagues at the hospital have operated him , and he is now fighting for his life in the hospital.

So our quest for tranquility continues.

At the front, children from Beer Sheba, Ashkelon and Sderot, send letter of thanks to the soldiers who are risking their lives in order to protect them, singers and artists go down to the front to volunteer and perform on behalf of the weary soldiers, and in synagogues across the country tehilim psalms are said, in the hope and prayer that HaShem should give strength, countenance and protection to our soldiers .

In view of the unbalanced media coverage, we must remind the world, that Israel is not forcefully retaliating against some minor aggression. The IDF, Israel Defense Forces, are taking pro-active steps to defend its borders, and its citizens against rockets which are being intentionally aimed at children such as Orel .

In tomorrow’s Sedra, Shemot, we read of Israel’s of the beginning of Israel’s redemption from the hands of their tormentors:

כג  וַיְהִי בַיָּמִים הָרַבִּים הָהֵם, וַיָּמָת מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם, וַיֵּאָנְחוּ בְנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל מִן-הָעֲבֹדָה, וַיִּזְעָקוּ; וַתַּעַל שַׁוְעָתָם אֶל-הָאֱלֹהִים, מִן-הָעֲבֹדָה.

23 And it came to pass in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.

כד וַיִּשְׁמַע אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-נַאֲקָתָם; וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹהִים אֶת-בְּרִיתוֹ, אֶת-אַבְרָהָם אֶת-יִצְחָק וְאֶת-יַעֲקֹב.

24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

כה וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל; וַיֵּדַע, אֱלֹהִים.

25 And God saw the children of Israel, and God took cognizance of the
 
(Shemot 2, 23)

May we experience the same cognizance of HaShem as then now.

Shabbat Shalom