Praying

IC XC
✙
NI KA

RECENTLY I’ve been able to make contact with all my friends in Israel and it seems that, for now, with the Help of Heaven, everyone is present and accounted for. As an American and a non-Jew I’m aware of being removed by several degrees. But with friends who are (suddenly back) in the IDF, I feel an investment I’ve never had before. Everything is abstract until there are friends involved and I know I have at least one other reader in Eretz Israel, you’re in my prayers as well. I’ve no clue how to process this: I’ve not seen it as bad since the mid70s, although – again – at my remove what seems to be to be mild on the evening news could be horrifying locally. So even though it’s not been reported as strongly, it could have been really bad at several points in recent history. So I sit at home and, in safety, cheer as the Iron Dome works well, not feeling the life-threat of every point of light in the sky; just as I sat in the Fraternity House fearing the bombardment over Kuwait City in “Desert Storm”. Such is life. It would be easy to feel something self-righteous or worse, but emotions aside, the prayers are real.

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
They shall prosper that love thee.
Peace be within thy walls,
And prosperity within thy palaces.
For my brethren and companions’ sakes,
I will now say, Peace be within thee.
Because of the house of the LORD our God
I will seek thy good.”

ברוך אתה ה׳ גואל ישראל