We Do Not Rely on Miracles
Shabbat Parashat Beha'alotcha
June 14, 2025
I stand here today a proud Jew and a proud Zionist – and I hope you feel the same way. Our little Israel has just pulled off a spectacular military strike – one that will be taught at war colleges and military academies for generations. It was surgical. It was brilliant. It was necessary.
Those who led chants of “Death to Israel, Death to Jews” are now themselves gone – taken out with precision. The nuclear facilities whose very existence posed an existential threat to Israel are in ruins… or are soon to be. While world powers postured, playing with their policy papers and partaking in negotiations that yield nothing, Israel – out of moral necessity and sacred obligation – acted.
This campaign did not begin last week. The planning took years. The intelligence gathering and asset development, perhaps decades. Israel waited. And waited. And waited. Until Israel could wait no more.
In Parashat Beha’alotcha, we read of the cloud that hovered over the Mishkan. When the cloud lifted, the Israelites moved forward. When it settled, they encamped. “Whether it was two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud lingered… the Israelites would remain encamped… but when it lifted, they would set out” (Numbers 9:22).
This model – a people poised, ready to move when the signal comes, when the way forward is clear as day – mirrors the moral urgency with which the State of Israel must navigate a treacherous world. This week, the cloud lifted. Israel moved. Global leaders – in their predictability – responded with mealy-mouthed condemnations and hollow calls for restraint. This, even as many know that a weaker Iran means a safer world for all.
America, Israel’s closest ally, equivocated.
But the Jewish people must speak with clarity: This is not aggression. This is not war-mongering. It is the Jewish people assuming the role of שׁוֹמֵר יִשְׂרָאֵל – guardian of the People of Israel. This is the IDF living up to its name – a defense force, a moral army, a Jewish army. And sometimes, tragically, that means raining destruction upon those who plot our annihilation.
אין סומכין על הנס. We do not rely on miracles. We rely on memory. On wisdom. On preparation. And yes – on power. This week, Israel showed Iran both brains and brawn.
Iran – which funds Hamas and Hezbollah, which has trained the Houthis and armed Islamic Jihad, whose supreme leader proclaims genocide from a pulpit – has now seen that Israel means what it says.
We are no longer the Jews of exile who must ask others for protection. We are the Jews of sovereignty, the Jews of independence. And let the world understand: we are also the Jews of resolve.
In 1944, Jewish leaders begged the Allies to bomb the tracks to Auschwitz. They were ignored. In 2025, Israel did not ask. Israel acted. Never again is now.
When someone says they’re coming to kill you, you don’t negotiate. You prepare. And you strike. When the Ayatollahs build bunkers instead of schools, missiles instead of mosques, and glorify martyrdom more than mercy; when Uranium enrichment reaches a critical point – the time of stasis ends. The cloud lifts. Israel moves.
Now I want you to sing something with me. You already know the words. But – warning - I’m going to stop in the middle.
וַיְהִי בִּנְסֹעַ הָאָרֹן וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה קוּמָה יְהֹוָה וְיָפֻצוּ אֹיְבֶיךָ וְיָנֻסוּ מְשַׂנְאֶיךָ מִפָּנֶיךָ׃
“When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: Advance, O Lord! May Your enemies be scattered, And may Your foes flee before You!”
This is the verse we say when we remove the Torah from the ark. And here is what we say when we return it:
וּבְנֻחֹה יֹאמַר שׁוּבָה יְהֹוָה רִבְבוֹת אַלְפֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל׃
“And when it halted, he would say: Return, O Lord, You who are Israel’s myriads of thousands.”
These verses – surrounded by inverted nuns in the Torah scroll – carry a radical message. When the time is right, it is not God that tells the Israelites to fight, it is the other way around. When the Ark moved, Moses said: “Advance, O Lord!” When the people rested, Moses said: "Return, O Lord”. This is our tradition – that human beings, with eyes wide open to threat, can call even God into action.
We here in the Diaspora sometimes feel helpless – watching the war unfold not from bunkers but from Twitter and CNN. But we are not helpless. Let us follow Moses’ lead.
Minutes ago, we came together sing the Prayer for Israeli Soldiers in which, like Moses, we asked God to strike down the enemies who arise against us. We do not have the force of fighter jets, but we do have the power of prayer. That is our weapon. As Jews, it is our duty to use it.
We do not sit silently at home. We pray and, by tradition, we also do something else.
וְכִי־תָבֹאוּ מִלְחָמָה… וַהֲרֵעֹתֶם בַּחֲצֹצְרֹת
“When you go to war,” parashat Beha’alotcha says, “sound the trumpets.”
When times are tough – you make noise. Yes, I stand here today as a proud Jew – and also, like many of you, an anxious one. Anxious for the safety of our Israeli brothers and sisters. And anxious for us. We who have already experienced a destabilizing and horrifying increase in antisemitism know that surely more is to come.
But we must not be afraid to be who we are. We must not lower our voices. Toronto is not Tehran. We must make clear to our neighbours, our co-workers, our elected officials, and even to our friends: we do not apologize for Jewish survival. This is not just Israel’s fight – this is the fight of every Jew who refuses to live in fear.
We are not guests here. We are citizens. We are contributors. We are leaders. And we are proud. Our children deserve to walk their campuses in safety. Our families deserve to go to synagogue in peace. Our Holocaust survivors – the living conscience of this country – deserve to see a Canada that will not bow to bullies in keffiyehs and a government that can understand that Israel’s fight against Islamists is Canada’s fight too.
We will not cave to Hamas apologists. We will not flinch before campus mobs who chant in favor of terrorists. We will wear our Magen Davids and our kippot and our mezuzot and our Hebrew names with pride.
In the silver trumpets that sounded at the Kotel in the dawn hours of Friday, I heard echoes – of Masada, of Warsaw, of Entebbe. Of David facing Goliath.
This is one of those moments when the Jewish people writes our own history. We will not let it be written for us.
Jewish blood is not cheap. Jewish life is not expendable. Jewish dignity is not negotiable.
We will not hide. We will not whisper.
We will not retreat. We will not cower.
The time for hesitation has passed. The cloud has lifted. We are Jews and we will rise.
