Like many people of faith, I yearn to see God’s presence in the world. And like most religious Jews, I see the return to Jewish statehood as an expression of that presence. It is relatively easy to see God in our nation’s great victories. More difficult is to find Him in the apparent setbacks of the Jewish return to Zion. And yet the Jewish tradition endorses looking for God’s benevolent hand even in such circumstances, and not just as a prod to repent. Indeed, I have often spoken about how fundamental this is to Rabbi Akiva’s thinking about how Jews are meant to look at history.

In light of this approach, I want to suggest at least two important and clearly positive effects of this war that (short of open miracles and/or suspending human free will) were otherwise basically impossible. To read more, click here.