This past Sunday evening we were honoured to welcome a distinguished guest from Israel, Rav Doron Perez, who shared his deeply personal and powerful story with our community.
 
He spoke with profound grace about having faith in a time of crisis. With a heavy heart, he also recounted the tragic loss of his son, who was killed in combat, and the ongoing agony of having his son held hostage in Gaza. His message was profound when he spoke about the fact we live in “G-d’s world.” The world isn’t a jungle where things just happen at random, with no director. In “G-d’s world,” we are in his hands and can have faith that all will turn out well.
 
He went on to recount the positive aspects that he encountered whilst suffering a terrible tragedy. How his son was there fighting for his people, doing exactly what he was trained to do and what he always wanted to do. Knowing the day of his son’s Yahrzeit and having a grave where his uniform with some of his blood was buried, was very important to him and allowed him to be thankful.
 
He pointed out that since we are in “G-d’s world,” we have witnessed many miracles throughout the 656 days since the beginning of the war.
 
The Parsha this week (also my Bar Mitzvah Parsha) recounts the journeys of all the Jewish people throughout the desert. On the surface it seems that the Jewish people wandered aimlessly through the desert with no direction for 40 years. But when one looks closely at each journey they made in the desert you see that actually they didn’t move around too much. They were settled for most of the time.
 
In the words of Rashi, “by reading the journeys in the desert, we are reminded of the kindnesses of G-d, that although He decreed upon the Israelites to have them move around and wander in the desert, you should not say that they were wandering and being pushed from place to place the entire 40 years and had no rest.”
 
This reminds us to always endeavour to find the silver lining and positives in life. To remind ourselves that we live in  G-d’s world.
 
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Zalman and Esty