|
Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus:
Sara Lamm to my knowledge is not yet in Yeshua's Kingdom, but she has some key insights into God's chosen people: resilience.
Resilience is the word of the day here in Israel. You do not need to look very far to see it.
Last night, a video popped up on my social media feed that brought tears to my eyes. It showed Israelis in a neighboring city watching, with held breath, as a missile seemed to be heading straight for a massive building. You could hear the people in the background chanting, “Lo, lo, lo!” “No, no, no!” in Hebrew, almost like they were watching a sports game. And then, at the very last second, the Iron Dome interceptor shot into the sky. The crowd erupted. “Yes!” “Thank God!” “Kol hakavod!”
It was relief, gratitude, and national whiplash all rolled into one. My children are resilient like that. For the last two and a half years, they have been living in a war. Some seasons are more “normal” than others, but even in the most ordinary moments, they carry something extraordinary. And yet, everything they do, they do with strength. But it is not only my children. It is my neighbors, the shopkeepers, the bus drivers, the mothers in the grocery store, the fathers carrying sleepy children into shelters, and the citizens of Israel who stare directly at darkness, at terror, at the ugly threats of radical Islam, and still somehow laugh.
There is a famous line in The Lion King where Simba says, “I laugh in the face of danger.” And that, in many ways, is what resilience is. It is the ability to take something frightening, painful, and deeply uncertain, and still make room for laughter. Not because the danger is not real. Because it is. And that is what has struck me most over these past three weeks. Israelis are not resilient because we do not feel fear. We are resilient because we do. We feel it fully, and then we keep singing, joking, praying, parenting, and showing up anyway. And when I started noticing these small acts of resilience all around me, I realized something else: none of it is actually new. The Hebrew Bible has been teaching this kind of resilience for a very long time.
So here are ten acts of resilience I have seen over the last three weeks, and ten places in the Bible where I see that very same spirit staring back at us.
1. We laugh.
Israelis have been posting bomb-shelter jokes, reels, memes, and one-liners faster than some people answer texts. It is absurd. It is hilarious. It is deeply necessary.
The Bible has seen this before. When Sarah is told she will bear a child in old age, she laughs. And when that impossible promise comes true, she names him Yitzchak, Isaac, “he will laugh”. In other words, the covenant itself carries the sound of laughter.
וַתֹּאמֶר שָׂרָה צְחֹק עָשָׂה לִי אֱלֹהִים כָּל־הַשֹּׁמֵעַ יִצְחַק־לִי׃
Sara said, “Hashem has brought me laughter; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”
Genesis 21:6
2. We dance anyway.
One woman I know changed her alert sound to a popular dance song. So every time the early warning goes off, she and her children are essentially forced to dance their way to the shelter. If the siren is going to interrupt dinner, it might as well interrupt it with choreography.
That is pure Miriam energy. After the splitting of the sea, with danger barely behind them, Miriam takes a tambourine and leads the women in song. Sometimes resilience is not stoic. Sometimes it has rhythm.
וַתִּקַּח מִרְיָם הַנְּבִיאָה אֲחוֹת אַהֲרֹן אֶת־הַתֹּף בְּיָדָהּ וַתֵּצֶאןָ כָל־הַנָּשִׁים אַחֲרֶיהָ בְּתֻפִּים וּבִמְחֹלֹת׃
Then Miriam the Neviah, Aharon‘s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her in dance with timbrels.
Exodus 15:20
וַתַּעַן לָהֶם מִרְיָם שִׁירוּ לַיהֹוָה כִּי־גָאֹה גָּאָה סוּס וְרֹכְבוֹ רָמָה בַיָּם׃
And Miriam chanted for them: Sing to Hashem, for He has triumphed gloriously; Horse and driver He has hurled into the sea.
Exodus 15:21
3. Our children learn the language of crisis, and keep growing anyway.
My one-and-a-half-year-old has had a language explosion during this explosive season. He has learned all sorts of new words, including azaka, the Hebrew word for an incoming alert. That is not exactly the vocabulary list I would have chosen for toddlerhood, but here we are.
The Torah assumes children will ask questions in the middle of history, not after it is safely over. Jewish resilience has always included teaching the next generation how to name what is happening around them.
וְהָיָה כִּי־יִשְׁאָלְךָ בִנְךָ מָחָר לֵאמֹר מַה־זֹּאת וְאָמַרְתָּ אֵלָיו בְּחֹזֶק יָד הוֹצִיאָנוּ יְהֹוָה מִמִּצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים׃
And when, in time to come, your son asks you, saying, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘It was with a mighty hand that Hashem brought us out from Egypt, the house of bondage.
Exodus 13:14
4. Children still insist on being children.
My kids have been out of school for weeks, but that has not stopped them from talking about their friends, their teachers, and who is going where for a playdate. We are blessed to live in a neighborhood where many classmates are nearby, which means a lot of shuttling between homes and bomb shelters and a lot of children just…playing.
That is not small. The prophet Zechariah describes redemption like this:
וּרְחֹבוֹת הָעִיר יִמָּלְאוּ יְלָדִים וִילָדוֹת מְשַׂחֲקִים בִּרְחֹבֹתֶיהָ׃
And the squares of the city shall be crowded with boys and girls playing in the squares.
Zechariah 8:5
In the Bible, children playing is not background noise. It is a sign that a people is still alive.
5. We teach our children to recognize Haman when he shows up again.
This year, as we read the Purim story and shouted “Haman!” with all the usual gusto, my children also saw the face of the Ayatollah. There was no confusion. They understood that evil still wears costumes. Some of them are just less subtle.
Esther teaches that resilience is not pretending wickedness is imaginary. It is recognizing it clearly and refusing to collapse under it. The Jewish people have been teaching our children to identify the Hamans of history for a very long time.
6. We keep moving, even if it looks ridiculous.
In the Modi’in Facebook group, someone posted a recommended running route for serious runners during this time. Because outdoor exercise is only possible if you stay near a shelter, one person apparently ran in circles around a playground until it added up to a half-marathon. Only in Israel can cardio become a geometry problem.
That, too, is biblical. In the days of Nehemiah, the people rebuilt Jerusalem under threat, with tools in one hand and readiness in the other (Nehemiah 4). The work continued. Not normally, perhaps, but faithfully. Resilience often looks less like a straight line and more like a determined circle.
7. The sound above us can be comforting.
Airplanes are the sound of self-determination. Hearing Israeli jet planes above our heads is not just noise. It is a reminder that we are not helpless. Someone is watching the sky.
The Bible’s vision for Israel was never merely survival. It was the restoration of a people in their land, with dignity, responsibility, and strength. Resilience in Tanach is not only the ability to endure. It is also the gift of no longer being powerless.
8. If you give Israelis a shelter, someone will add a coffee bar.
People have done amazing things with mamadim and underground parking shelters. I have seen coffee bars. Kids’ zones. Cozy corners. You force people underground, and within 48 hours someone is serving snacks and organizing crayons.
That feels very Abrahamic to me. Abraham’s instinct was hospitality, even in uncertainty (Genesis 18). Jewish resilience has always included taking a place of vulnerability and making it human.
9. When the sirens sound, my children say Psalms.
This one gets me every time. My children hear the siren, and almost instinctively, they begin reciting Tehillim.
And of course they do. King David gave us words for exactly this. “I lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where will my help come? My help comes from Hashem, Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).
שִׁיר לַמַּעֲלוֹת אֶשָּׂא עֵינַי אֶל־הֶהָרִים מֵאַיִן יָבֹא עֶזְרִי׃
A song for ascents. I turn my eyes to the mountains; from where will my help come?
Psalms 121:1
עֶזְרִי מֵעִם יְהֹוָה עֹשֵׂה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ׃
My help comes from Hashem, maker of heaven and earth.
Psalms 121:2
The words rising from my children’s mouths are ancient words. That may be the deepest resilience of all.
10. If the synagogue closes, the prayers still happen.
Since the synagogues in my area have been closed on Shabbat, I have been hosting the children who live in my building for kids’ services. We have a potluck of treats. We sing our Shabbat prayers and songs. There is so much joy. And sometimes a boom happens, and we all high five.
That is one of the most Jewish things I have ever seen.
The prophet Ezekiel speaks of mikdash me’at, a “little sanctuary”.
לָכֵן אֱמֹר כֹּה־אָמַר אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה כִּי הִרְחַקְתִּים בַּגּוֹיִם וְכִי הֲפִיצוֹתִים בָּאֲרָצוֹת וָאֱהִי לָהֶם לְמִקְדָּשׁ מְעַט בָּאֲרָצוֹת אֲשֶׁר־בָּאוּ שָׁם׃
Say then: Thus said Hashem: I have indeed removed them far among the nations and have scattered them among the countries, and I have become to them a diminished sanctity in the countries whither they have gone.
Ezekiel 11:16
When the big holy spaces are inaccessible, holiness does not disappear. It gets portable. It shows up in living rooms, in shelters, in stairwells, in underground garages, and apparently, in my building with grape juice and slightly too many cookies.
The truth is, resilience is not a modern Israeli invention. It is an old Biblical habit.
The world often imagines resilience as something hard and grim. But the Bible paints a more surprising picture. Biblical resilience laughs. It sings. It teaches children. It gathers in small holy spaces. It names evil clearly. It keeps moving. It makes room for both fear and faith.
That is what I have seen in Israel these past three weeks.
I have seen children run to shelter and then burst into song. I have seen adults hear a boom and crack a joke. I have seen strangers share underground space like old friends. I have seen people stare at the sky, hold their breath, and then thank God when the interception comes.
And I have realized that the Jewish people are not resilient because history has been easy on us.
We are resilient because our Bible trained us to be.
*********
My dear friend Delores Purvis in Virginia wrote this about the book: "God's Gift: Repentance"
Pastor Jeff,
Thank you so much for your new book called 'God's Gift: Repentance.'
I am enjoying it very much. It is the best book that I have ever read on repentance. The book leads us step by step into repentance and teaches us about the deception that Satan tries to deceive us with to stop us from completing our full potential for total truth..
The many scriptures lead us into a greater depth of knowledge about the urgency of the need to repent. As we repent, we come into the full knowledge of what this cleansing is all about. In my opinion it is the best book that I have ever read on the gift of repentance.
Each day I find myself digging deeper into the areas of cleansing that I, myself, still need to work on. This book has been such an asset to me and I know it will be for others also.
You and the National Day of Repentance has been a blessing to each of us! Thank you!
With blessings and respect,
Pastor Delores Purvis
Here it is on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GD5JBG6K
If you wish a signed copy please email me with a donation to NDR in whatever amount the Lord puts on your heart to support the work NDR is doing--- thank you and I'll mail you a copy.
| 
