The celebrated Israeli military leader and politician, Moshe Dayan, was once stopped by a police officer for a speeding violation. “You – Dayan?” – asked the officer in surprise when he saw whom he had stopped – “come on, I expected more from you?”
Responded Dayan, “Look, I have only one eye. Do you want me to keep it on the speedometer, or on the road?
If we would have looked at the speedometer; we would have crashed. If our nation would play by the rules of the game, we would have been gone long ago. It doesn’t make sense that we’re still around. All the odds were and are against us. But who said it has to make sense?
This is the message we must take from this period of time, during which we mark the destruction of the holy temples among other calamities ; we are not bound by any rules. We Have within us the capability to jump – to overcome , any and every obstacle that stands in our way.
True, sometimes the obstacles seem impossible to overcome, the rules have predicted that the game is over. It doesn’t matter. We have the ability to pass it all over.
Why? Because we are not a mere number that is judged by statistics. We have been entrusted with Hashem’s Torah. The creator of the world has got to know something that we don’t. Obviously he feels that we are going to stick around, otherwise he would’ve entrusted someone else!
The next time you hear someone predicting something terrible, although it seems like it makes sense and the statistics back him, just turn around and say; “Hey, it actually makes more sense that we can and will prevail!”
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Mendy
