Healing Well of Miriam

The Torah passages concerning the curses Israel would suffer for failing to keep the Law of the Torah (Deut. 28:16-68) are description of the sorrows of the exile in a nutshell.  It speaks of endless wandering, homelessness and rejection.  It speaks of the fears and uncertainty, as the people would be subjected to the whimsical cruelty of the rulers of the host nations. 

So you will serve your enemies whom Hashem will send against you.  In hunger and in thirst, in nakedness and without anything; and he will put an iron yoke on your neck, until he destroys you.  Hashem will carry against you a nation from afar, from the end of the earth, as an eagle will swoop, a nation whose language you will not understand, a brazen nation that will not be respectful to the old nor gracious to the young. ~ Deuteronomy 28:48-50

Anyone who has studied Jewish history will recognize this as the diaspora story of the Jewish People time and again.  In fact, this passage above has been fulfilled several times—by Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome…among many others.  Centuries of wandering from country to country, life was precarious and extremely dangerous.  We think of the Holocaust—and each of the Torah’s predictions of horror do vividly describe that period—but that massive pogrom was far from the first.  In fact, Hitler was said to have been inspired and instructed by the model of the Spanish Inquisition.  Far from being rare, for centuries, anti-Semitism was the accepted rule.  The plight of the Jewish People fed the Nations’ narrative that the Jews were an accursed people, rejected and hated by God for believing in, and clinging to, the Torah.  Along this narrative, the Nations were not only harshly judging the Jewish People, but the Torah—and God Himself.

Yes, this curse was the consequence of failing to keep the Law.  However, it was never intended to be an eternal damnation.  Promise of rescue from those Nations and ingathering back to the Land of Israel are numerous throughout the Prophets.  The fulfillment of this promise was first demonstrated through the exodus from Egypt, rescuing a whole nation from the midst of another nation.  With the end of the exile of Babylon and Persia, a remnant of the people returned to rebuild the Temple. 

“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.  “Speak consolingly of Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her period of exile has been completed, that her iniquity has been forgotten; for she has received double for all her sins from the hand of Hashem.” ~Isaiah 40:1-2

This is one of the passages of consolation that is read each year following the fast of Tish b’Av, when the Jewish People fast and mourn for the sins that brought about the destruction of both Temples and subsequent exiles.  No, Hashem does not reject His people.  No matter how long the exile is, He never forgets.

Zion said, “Hashem has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.”  Can a woman forget her baby, or not feel compassion for the child of her womb?  Even these may forget, but I would not forget you.  Behold, I have engraved you upon My palms; your walls are before Me always.  Your children will hasten to return, and your ruiners and your destroyers will leave you.” ~Isaiah 49:14-17

In our own time we have witnessed the incredible fulfillment of the restoration of Zion, of the rebuilding of the ruined places, of the replanting of trees.  Every forest in modern-day Israel has been lovingly planted by the Jewish People, and the desert has again bloomed.  The fruit of Israel—once a barren wilderness—now goes out to the world!       

In our time we have seen the miraculous ingathering of the people of Israel from all parts of the world!

Fear not, for I am with you; from the East I will bring your offspring and from the West I will gather you.  I will say to the North, “Give them over!”  and to the South, “Do not withhold!  Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth…”  ~Isaiah 43:5-6 

In the 1980s I was involved in the Soviet Jewry movement in the States.  There was a time when the situation was so intense, it was very much like early Nazi Germany.   Soviet Jews could be sent to gulags for learning Hebrew or pushing for a visa to leave.  Eventually, they were allowed to leave Russia and go to Israel.  Famous refuseniks, like Natan Sharansky, were released from prison and allowed to go to Israel.  Some of these people now sit in Israel’s Knesset.  The year 1990 brought massive immigration from the Soviet Union.  One day I was praying at the Kotel, the Western Wall, and realized that the people around me there were the very people I had prayed to see released.  I had been blessed to live to see the answer to the prayer of multitudes of Jewish people for the liberation of our brothers and sisters!  Then in December of 1991 the USSR collapsed.

Following the Gulf War, in 1991, an airlift arrived from Ethiopia, called Operation Solomon.  This was the latest of several operations over the years, all having been planned and executed clandestinely to rescue Ethiopian Jews from a growingly tense region.     

Between June of 1949 and September of 1950 Operation Magic Carpet brought about 49,000 Jews from Yemen.  The people had never seen airplanes, so it came to be called Operation On Wings of Eagles.   In the early years of the State of Israel, Jews from other Arab nations also fled to Israel—Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Iraq, Egypt, Iran, Syra.  They were forced to abandon their property and given no compensation whatsoever.

During the British Mandate following World War II, holocaust survivors fled to Palestine from Europe.  Not wanting to upset the Arabs, the British intercepted the ships and detained the people in camps in Cyprus (sending people from Nazi concentration camps to British detention camps).  Golda Meir visited the camps, trying to work out compromises with the British to facilitate entry of more people.  Famously, she said she cried over encountering a child who had never seen a flower.  Some of the boats were able to elude the British army so that the people could be smuggled into the country.  Eventually, all the refugees from Europe became citizens of the newly declared State of Israel. 

About 85,000 Jews from India immigrated to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s.  More recently, a group from the Indian state of Manipur, who claim to be the lost tribe of Manasseh, have sought to move to Israel.   The 3,000 people who did immigrate, converted once arriving.  This could be a model for other peoples claiming to be members of the Lost Tribes, carried into captivity by the Assyrians 2,700 years ago.  The Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan may well be members of several other Lost Tribes.

People from former Soviet nations, such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, came to Israel with the Soviet refugees.  Interestingly, these are other countries that have people with a strong claim to being the Tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  One man I met whose family came from Kazakhstan said their vernacular language had been Aramaic.

I heard a story about a young man who came to a community in Israel from Myanmar.  He said his people had been in China centuries ago, during the building of the Great Wall.  The emperor took their Torah scroll and said he would only return it after they had worked on the Wall for a specific period of time.  When they finally did get the Torah scroll back, they fled as far as they could and ended up in the jungles of Burma (now Myanmar).  Like many other isolated communities in far-flung countries, they thought they were the only Jews left in the world.  When they found out there was a Jewish community in Israel, they sent him as an envoy to investigate how their community could move to Israel.    

There are countless stories of Jews picking up and moving to Israel.  Besides the countries mentioned above, Jews have made aliyah (moved to Israel) from Australia, South Africa, the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, South American countries.  It has literally been from all parts of the world!  This modern day aliyah has been so massive that it is exactly as Jeremiah foresaw when he said it would dwarf the story of the exodus from Egypt so much that “no longer will it be said, ‘As the Lord lives who took the Children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt,’ but rather, ‘As the Lord lives Who took the Children of Israel from the land of the North and from all the lands where He had scattered them!’”   (Jer. 16:14-15).

I will whistle to them and gather them, for I have redeemed them; and they will become as numerous as they had been numerous.  I had sown them among the nations, and they remembered Me in faraway places; so they will live, with their children, and they will return. ~Zechariah 10:8-9

An understanding of Zechariah’s imagery is as a bee-keeper whistles for his bees to return to the hive, Hashem whistles for His people to return to their home.  This ingathering has certainly been a phenomenon like never seen in history.  Even before there was a State of Israel, rabbis of renown journeyed to live in the Land of Israel throughout the centuries.  In the early nineteenth century the followers of several rabbis, such as the Vilna Gaon, moved to Israel.  The secular aliyah of the early twentieth century built the kibbutzim (collective farms)—draining swamps, clearing and planting land, building settlements.   So, even before the founding of the State of Israel, Jews had begun hearing the divine whistle and returning to Eretz Yisrael. 

This ingathering is one of the stages spoken of in the Prophets and by Israel’s Sages through the years.  Although this is a promise made by God, it does not make everyone happy…in fact, some people have tried very hard to keep it from happening.  Hashem used the Nations as the axe in His Hand to punish Israel.  However, He says to them: “ I am wrathful, a great wrath against the complacent nations, who, when I became slightly wrathful, augmented the evil….” (Zech. 1:15).  Yes, they were in a position to be the instrument of Hashem’s punishment—for a time—but they enjoyed it too much, and they mistakenly thought this meant they were going to maintain a superior position over Israel.  They thus made the dire mistake of cursing Israel—through their actions.  To Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob God said: 

 “I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you, I will curse; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.” ~ Genesis 12:3

On September 22, 2023 Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations.  He began the speech with reference to the famous parting words of Moses to Israel (Deut. 30:19): “I place before you today life and death, blessing and cursing.  Choose life and blessing.”  He showed a map of the Middle East and talked about how the region could be incredibly prosperous through peace and shared technology.  But this requires the choice of LIFE and BLESSING.  He ended his speech as he had begun it, with a call to the world to choose life and peace over death and war.  That day was between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, when the courts of Heaven judge all Mankind and the Nations.  Judgment is made on Rosh Hashana; it is sealed on Yom Kippur; and it is executed on Hoshana Rabba.  Incidentally, the October 7^th attack on Israel was the day after Hoshana Rabba.  All the demonstrations in the nations since, as well as the condemnations of the UN against Israel for defending herself, are sad indications of the choices that have been made at that critical time this year—2023/5784.

How many times has the United Nations passed resolutions condemning Israel?  Who are those nations?  What has happened to nations who have cursed Israel in the past?  It is still true that sun never sets on the British Empire?  What about the Spanish empire, after the inquisition and expulsion of 1492?  Where is the glory of Egypt, or Babylon, or Greece, or Persia, or the Ottoman empire, or Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union?  And we are not quite to the end yet.

But as for you, do not fear, My servant Jacob, the word of Hashem, and do not be afraid, Israel; for behold, I am saving you from distant places, and your descendants from the land of their captivity, and Jacob will return and be at peace and tranquil, and none will make him afraid.  For I am with you—the word of Hashem—to save you; for I will bring annihilation upon all the nations among whom I have dispersed you, but upon you I will not bring annihilation; I will chastise you with justice, but I will never eliminate you completely. ~Jeremiah 30:10-11

This Jeremiah passage is saying that as the Jews leave the nations of their dispersion, those nations will fall behind them.  This is the judgment for cursing what God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, has blessed.  The nation will fall.  This is a principle judgment made ages ago.  It is on the nation…but not necessarily on all the people of the nation. 

The function of Israel in the world is not to be better than everyone else.  It is to be the guardian of the Torah, a light unto the nations.  (This is the reason Heaven holds Israel so strictly accountable to the Torah—more so than any other nation.)  It is amazing that in the midst of all the turmoil in the world, Heaven was preparing a vessel among the nations for this light.  It was there all along, but the rabbis of Israel officially recognized it in April of 1990—Bnai Noah.  This movement evoked the memory of an ancient status of non-Jew in Israel—Ger Toshav (resident stranger (“in the Gate”))—those who come to be a part of Israel, embracing the Torah, but without fully converting.  With this, each individual can stand with Israel on his own—even apart from his native nation—and never have to taste the wrath of Hashem on the complacent nations who augmented Hashem’s wrath against Israel….  For the Light of the Torah is LIFE and BLESSING. 

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Miriam Ben-Yaacov © Nov. 2023