Dear Friends,

I write to you just prior to landing back in Los Angeles after an extraordinary trip to Israel this past week.  While there were numerous meetings and visits in which I participated, I will leave for this coming Friday evening's Service (1/26, at 7:15 PM) a more detailed accounting of my trip, inclusive of my reflections upon my visit with The First Baptist Church of Bethlehem and my dear friend, Pastor Naim Khoury. 

For this correspondence, let me share with regard to my visit to Bethlehem simply that I feel honored and humbled to have been blessed with this rare opportunity to visit decent, brave Christians who love and support Israel while suffering in ways which we could not  imagine at the hands of the Palestinian Authority and its terrorist leadership and supporters. While two Orthodox Jewish women visited this church some years ago, this was the first time that a rabbi has ever visited the church and its parishioners, and the warmth with which I was greeted will remain with me for a very long time.  In this message, however, I will share with you two strong impressions with which I was left after meetings in Israel throughout the week. They can offer some perspective regarding the extraordinary moral and spiritual character of The State of Israel and of Israelis as individuals, the unique and imminent vulnerability that Israel feels, and how the Jewish People the world over can address together with Israel its needs for security. 

In visiting with numerous young soldiers, several unit and base commanders of the IDF, and a handful of high-level military and political leaders, one prominent theme that emerged is the sense that Israel knows that it preserves its fundamental moral virtue every time it acts to preserve a life of its enemies' civilian populations while risking its own soldiers and citizens. Most recently, Israel refrained almost entirely, this past summer, from targeting civilian locations from which Hezbollah terrorists fired missiles at Israeli civilian and military targets -- and then did so sparingly, only after warning civilians, hours if not days in advance, to evacuate.  The second prominent theme that emerged is inextricably linked to the first; Israel's care for the lives of its enemies' citizens and residents and for those of its own soldiers and citizens proves evermore to be the greatest source of its tactical, strategic, and political disadvantage.  Israel faces enemies who value ever-increasingly the fulfillment of their collective prophetic vision of world domination, while diminishing the worth of individual human lives -- even their own -- in achieving their aims.  These two themes, when taken together, exhibit not only the widening of a huge gap that already existed between Israel's values and aims and those of its enemies, but also the danger that a nuclear weapon in the hands of Israel's enemies would pose to Israel; those weapons that Israel has at its disposal it preserves for its own protection with the prayer that it will never need deploy them, while those sought by its enemies are intended for their immediate use toward the aim of wiping Israel off the map!

We live thousands of miles away from Israel.  However, our hearts and efforts must be turned eastward at this moment in time as those who seek Israel's destruction approach the real possibility of achieving their nuclear ambitions. According to most experts (even in Israel) Iran will not have a nuclear weapon this year, and probably not next year either However, the time for us to act to ensure that Iran or others never launch an attempt at a second Holocaust is not three years from now, after they do obtain this capability. It is right now, this week, this month, this year.  And, we should not for a moment underestimate the role that each of us can play in ensuring that Israel is not faced with a true and enduring existential crisis.

Call me an alarmist if you will, however, please do so only after indulging my profound fears for our brothers and sisters in Israel (and for all others in the west who will be within striking range of Iran's nuclear arsenal) by learning more about that which fuels my concern.  Visit the AIPAC website (www.aipac.org) or that of The Washington Institute of Near East Policy (www.washingtoninstitute.org) and learn about Iran's ambitious plans and bold actions --  and of the confused and conflicted response on the part of the entire world.  At the AIPAC site, learn how Jewish activism and lobbying efforts (along with those of others) have already helped to influence our own government to begin to take a leadership role in inhibiting Iran's efforts through diplomatic and financial means and how we can strengthen our country's resolve to redouble our important efforts in this regard. At the Washington Institute site, learn how our country's most preliminary actions and those of its few allies in cause have begun to affect the Iranian regime.  Let us each consider how we can help to make an immediate difference to help to ensure Israel's vibrant future; let us consider, thereby, how we can each begin to help to secure a future for our children and grandchildren, wherever in God's world they may choose to reside.

I have often said the if Israel's enemies laid down their weapons, we should all be certain that peace would reign between Israel and her enemies, but that should Israel decide to do so on her own, we would be wise to be just as certain that Israel's destruction at the hands of her enemies would be imminent.  History will one day judge us for our commitment to ensure that Israel's enemies do not obtain the capacity to destroy her with the press of a button, rendering Israel's strength useless, as a deterrent, as its enemies value for human life - even their own - diminishes.  May we see to it that history finds every reason to judge us kindly and may we find every reason to feel proud for the difference that we will have made together on Israel's behalf and on our own.

With greetings from Israel -- a land blessed by the decency, ethical virtue, and spiritual courage of those who make it evermore so, every day, our greatest source of Jewish pride,

Rabbi Isaac Jeret
Spiritual Leader