Faith Option
Unfortunately, Jews are all too familiar with being in crises situations. There are hardly any Jews alive to this day, who are not survivors, in one way or another. This is not just about the major drama of the twentieth century, the Holocaust, the selective mass slaughter in civilized Europe of a third of the Jewish people.
A closer look at Jewish destiny reveals an almost uninterrupted historical chain of dramas, massacres, wars, rapes, flight, expropriation, theft, destruction, expulsions and others. The peaceful life of the Jews is the exception. Almost all the families of the People of Israel retain the memory of tragedies. However, this is precisely because those who have remained in the fold of this People, in the final analysis, have remained linked to the Jewish faith, or have rediscovered it, that they do not indulge in a victim posture.
They are moving forward in the Diaspora as well as in Israel. They have remained faithful, and their fundamental texts are proof of this, not only to the divine uniqueness but also to their country, their historical homeland, the Land of Israel, conquered, destroyed, severely depopulated and then colonized by the enemy two thousand years ago.
However, this catastrophic experience is no longer, in our time, the prerogative of the Jewish people. Modern man in general may find himself, and often is already, in a position to lose his bearings, or even to have to recover from traumatic situations including « the great replacement », when populations from elsewhere settle massively in your home without complying with your customs or your rules.
It is precisely when the referents of the world where you grew up, obviously collapse to make way for an unknown world, whose functioning is foreign to you, which revolts you, which frightens you and repulses you, that firm belief can pave the way for you.
Certainly, there is no shortage of belief options. You can believe in social justice, in ecology, in democracy, in the Communist Revolution, in the Messianity of Jesus. The option of faith is the secret of survival in extreme cases. In times of change, or even collapse, a firm belief is a considerable asset and perhaps more, a buoy, an anchor, a fulcrum, a torch in the midst of darkness.
The Jews, on the other hand, have stuck to body and soul faith in the Creator of Heaven and Earth as described in the Hebrew Bible and in His Promise to bring them back to their Land despite all exiles.
As our generation sees this promise fulfilled before our eyes and the Land of Israel prospers despite all the attempts to eradicate it, always restarted, The Peoples therefore question Israel, often without amenity, or even with hostility and jealousy. : « how did you hold out »?, and how do you, so weak at first, have become so strong and contribute so much to the development of human civilization?
The only answer we can provide is always the same: in the face of such adversity capable of shaking the firmest beliefs, we choose to believe in the One, Creator of heaven and earth, because our Tradition has been our only home for too long and we only had this choice or the choice to disappear.
It remains that each generation must remake this choice because modernity and especially postmodernity sows great confusion. It often takes the hindsight given by age and experience to perceive acutely the permanence of human wanderings and the actuality of a wisdom of 4000 years.
Trusting in those who authentically transmit Tradition is then an essential key.
Leon Rozenbaum
Laisser un commentaire