Today's date and time:

Sermon for Sidra Vayechi
January 2009
by Rabbi Geoffrey Hyman

Friends, no doubt you are reeling like me, from a week of so much negative reporting against Israel; demonstrations and nasty new style blood libels; scenes and incidents that reflect a inert hatred that is stored up against us, that no other country ever experiences, whether it be the plight of innocent civilians in Darfur, Georgia invaded by Russia, or even the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The anti-Israel behaviour in the world at present is “frenzied” and “violent” and something rather difficult to fathom.

But we must not become despondent; remember we are an “old people” who have sojourned the face of this earth for well over three and half thousand years. As in the imagery of Jacob wrestling with the “spirit” of Esau, the spiritual messenger says to Jacob these words: “For you have struggled with G-d and with men, and you are able (you survive)”. We have “struggled” in our existence down the ages. We have experienced the golden ages and the horrific ages, but we survive and go on.

Permit me to share with you some thoughts on the issues of the war in Gaza. The word “chamas” is used in this week’s Sidra and in Hebrew it means violence. The organisation so named, is based on some Arabic acronym, but they are true to its meaning in the Hebrew, “violence” – that is what they are filled with. They are totally cruel and wicked; they are militants, they are terrorists! They have abused their political position in Gaza and it’s a shame that so many people are so ignorant of their true colours. Therefore Israel must fight on and be strong. But what has happened in Gaza under the control of Hamas teaches us a very simple but vital lesson. For if there is ever to be a two state solution with the creation of a Palestinian State, then the Hamas must be banished from the scene. For if this is what has happened to a tiny area that has been taken over by the Hamas, imagine if they were to control a whole Palestinian State bordering with Israel from the north to the south! What has happened in Gaza is an early warning to the world and especially to Israel to learn from. Hamas must be eradicated from the equation.

Tomorrow, Sunday, there will be a mass rally at Trafalgar Square, from 11.00 a.m. to 12 noon. This is being organised by the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council. Please assemble at 10.40 am prompt. A mass rally of thousands of our people, as had been done in New York and elsewhere, will show our solidarity with Israel; it will lift the spirits of our people here and in Israel, and show others that we are “Am Echad”, one people with one voice. The power of a unified people is powerful and is a great spiritual” motivator in earthly and heavenly spheres. So please, I urge you, support the rally.

We are told in the Sidra, as Jacob assembles his large family around him before his death, now in exile in Egypt, and as recorded in the verse, he says to them: “Gather together and I will tell you what will happen to you in the end of days”. At that moment, he was filled with prophetic spirit and was about to tell this young emerging nation what would be in “the end”, but as our Rabbis tell us, “Whilst he wanted to reveal the end, the Shechinah (the Divine Presence) left him and instead he went on to speak of other matters.”

Jacob knew how much he had struggled during his lifetime to build the Jewish Nation and he knew that his descendants would also struggle, but he was not permitted to share the prophetic vision about the end of days, the days of the Mashiach, that was withheld.

But let me share with you an awesome insight. From the very mention that he wanted to reveal to them what would happen “to you” at the “End of Days, told them and tells us, an incredible piece of good news - that his descendants, the Jewish People would still be here in the world over 3,500 years later, to witness the “End of Days”. Here we are told that there will be an “End of Days” and here we are told that we will witness it – that is awesome!

We pray for those days to come when we will witness G-d’s Unity in the world and peace to all mankind, speedily in our days. Amen.