The cannons fell silent for about a week, and Am Yisrael, like a lion, could at last catch up on some sleep. We witnessed great miracles in the Twelve-Day War with Iran: wondrous Divine providence that brought about unfathomable military and intelligence successes, unprecedented American involvement in neutralizing the nuclear threat, and a casualty count far lower than even the most conservative predictions.
And yet, once the sirens ceased, we did not find ourselves swept by the euphoria that followed the Six-Day War. The heart sings in gratitude for the miracle, but a bitter taste lingers. In the final minutes of the war, Jews were still murdered in the missile strike on Be’er Sheva. In the first hours of the ceasefire, Iran launched yet more missiles at us, and the President of the United States prevented us from responding in kind, castigating Israel both in a televised interview and in his social media tirades and ordering our aircraft to turn back mid-flight.
And that very afternoon, we experienced another tragedy in Gaza. Seven holy souls ascended on high.
We were saved, yes. But what does the manner of our salvation reveal about the message Hashem is trying to send us?
We were saved, yes. But what does the manner of our salvation reveal about the message Hashem is trying to send us?
How Did Chizkiyahu Merit a Miracle?
The Book of Yeshayahu offers an expansive account of the miraculous salvation of the Kingdom of Judah from the Assyrian army. The mighty Assyrian force besieged Jerusalem, Rabshakeh blasphemed and taunted, and King Hezekiah tore his garments and sent messengers to the prophet Isaiah. And Isaiah had words of encouragement, a divine promise of deliverance:
Therefore, thus said Hashem concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there; he shall not advance upon it with shield, nor cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by that shall he return, and into this city he shall not come, says Hashem. (37:33-34)
And then comes the verse that makes clear the true merit by which the miracle would occur: “And I will defend this city to save it—for My own sake, and for the sake of David, My servant.”
Chizkiyahu was an exemplary king. The Pesukim attest: “After him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him.” He renewed the Temple service, eradicated idolatry from the land, and abolished private altars. His national revival of Torah study is described in the Gemara: “He drove a sword into the entrance of the study hall and proclaimed: Whoever does not engage in Torah will be stabbed with this sword. They searched from Dan to Be’er Sheva and did not find an ignoramus; from Gevat to Antipatris and did not find a boy or girl, man or woman, who was not expert in the laws of ritual purity and impurity” (Sanhedrin 94b).
And yet, when confronted with the Assyrian threat, neither Hezekiah’s righteousness nor the merits of his generation were enough to secure divine salvation. Hashem declared that He would protect Jerusalem “for My own sake and for the sake of David My servant.”
The Gemara in Berachos teaches that Chizkiyahu did not merit the miracle being called in his name because he sought mercy on the basis of his own righteousness. In another episode, when he fell ill and was near death, he prayed: “Please, O Hashem, remember how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your eyes” (Yeshayahu 38:3). The Sages contrast this with Moshe, who never pleaded on his own merit but always invoked the merit of the Avos—and therefore merited that the miracle be called in his name: “Were it not for Moshe, His chosen one, who stood in the breach before Him to turn back His wrath from destroying” (Tehillim 106:23).
Two important lessons emerge from the attribution of Jerusalem’s salvation solely to the sanctification of Hashem’s name and the merit of King David. First, even when a generation appears virtuous and upright, it does not necessarily possess the merit required for deliverance from great peril. As in the time of Chizkiyahu, salvation may still depend on Divine mercy for the sake of His name and the merit of our forefathers. Second, even if we believe we have the necessary merits—that we can appeal to Heaven based on our upright conduct, good deeds, and Torah learning—doing so may itself be a spiritual misstep.
The miracle did not come through our merit. And the undeniable fact that Hashem saved us from a terrible threat does not mean our path is pleasing in His eyes
Chizkiyahu was a righteous king, and the spiritual gap between his generation and ours is difficult to fathom. Yet emerging from a miraculous war, in which Hashem denied us the joy of unambiguous triumph and a seamless return to normal life, we too must open ourselves to the Divine message. It seems that the verse has been fulfilled in us: “And I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for the sake of David, My servant.” The miracle did not come through our merit. And the undeniable fact that Hashem saved us from a terrible threat does not mean our path is pleasing in His eyes.
This past Yom HaAtzmaut, as fires raged across the country and the state ceremony on Mount Herzl was canceled, a well-known Israeli cultural figure commented: “It seems God isn’t very pleased with us.” A simple, even folkish instinct—but one that strikes close to the kind of self-examination every Torah-committed Jew is raised to perform. After the Twelve-Day War with Iran, and deep into the second year of Operation Iron Swords, can any of us look around, see the great miracles we have witnessed, and not recognize that alongside them, Hashem is sending a message—not of satisfaction, but of rebuke?
Striking Another’s Heart
When the offensive against Iran broke out—sirens wailing, people retreating indoors, warnings circulating—an ironic message began circulating among Charedi email groups. It bore the satirical title: “Sanctions on the Torah World.” The tone was not free of schadenfreude. Someone had taken all the so-called “privileges” of the Charedim—so often resented in the public discourse—and reimagined them as a long list of collective punishments:
What about striking not someone else’s chest, but our own? Are we not also meant to ask, “Why has this been done to us?”
A ban on driver’s licenses – the roads are empty; only military and emergency vehicles allowed.
A travel ban – Ben Gurion Airport is shut down.
The cancellation of affirmative action in public service – the public sector is closed.
The end of subsidies for academic education – universities are shuttered.
The cancellation of daycare discounts – daycares don’t exist right now.
The loss of public transit discounts – there is no public transit.
No more National Insurance stipends – the system is hemorrhaging billions for the wounded.
Affordable housing revoked – entire buildings are collapsing.
No more property tax exemptions – property tax now funds disaster relief.
“Blind is he who does not see,” concluded the punchline.
One could dismiss this list as nonsense or an inside joke. But the tone—the sarcasm, the score-settling, the “you got what was coming to you”—remains deeply troubling. The real problem stares back at us: What happened to introspection? What about striking not someone else’s chest, but our own? Are we not also meant to ask, “Why has this been done to us?” Could it be that this is all a boomerang coming back from our own behavior?
You could even read it this way:
Yeshiva boys flaunt regulations and get driving licenses? – There’s now an official ban on issuing licenses.
You scorn the cherished land and flock to vacation abroad—or threaten to leave en masse? – Exit prohibited; Ben Gurion is shut.
You want jobs in the public sector you call “the government of heretics”? – Fine, there goes affirmative action.
You went to university, from which “no visitor returns safely”? – No more subsidies for academia.
You closed the doors of your institutions to Sephardi Torah scholars? – The state slashes funding to the very yeshivas that turned Torah into a sectarian interest.
You forged documents for daycare discounts? – Sorry, party’s over.
You leave empty strollers on buses, making transit a nightmare? – Transit discounts cancelled.
You treat the national budget as your private ATM, never asking how it gets filled? – Ask again. See: National Insurance.
You demanded cheap apartments while driving families into debt to finance your lifestyle? – So long, subsidized housing.
You treated public property as if it were ownerless? – Property tax relief is revoked; maybe now you’ll recall the laws of theft and deceit.
Moreover, was it only they who suffered in this war? The fact that wartime conditions have affected us—whether in blocked roads or fear in our homes—surely implies that we too are meant to engage in self-reckoning. Does the Divine message come with asterisks and a list of “target audiences”?
We were raised to believe that what happens around us is not mere coincidence—it is a call. Where are we in this story?
One Rosh Yeshiva was reportedly asked why his yeshiva doesn’t pray for the military campaign’s success. He replied, “Did you see where it hit? It didn’t hit us…” A truly creative form of chosenness. Let’s set aside the metaphor of the boat and the man drilling beneath his own seat; let’s even pause the talk of mutual responsibility for the Jewish people. What about the Gemara’s plain statement: “No calamity befalls the world except for the sake of Israel” (Yevamos 63a)? To interpret a regional war for survival as a form of heavenly vengeance for the cancellation of student transit passes? Please.
We were raised to believe that what happens around us is not mere coincidence—it is a call. Where are we in this story? Embracing modesty, guarding our speech, and reciting Psalms in rotation are certainly great and worthy things. But they are no substitute for real, honest self-examination. And beating on someone else’s chest doesn’t count.
High school boys are setting up tefillin stands in the corridors of secular schools, and their classmates are lining up to wrap the straps of covenant. Social media influencers are staging orchestrated “modesty journeys” and snipping short skirts to the tune of tens of thousands of teary emojis. Entire families are taking on Shabbat observance. Where are we—and where are these tectonic shifts? Only in our circles must all remain quiet.
Maybe we simply don’t know how to do it.
In the last two weeks, we’ve learned a great deal about the psychology of crisis. One basic concept is the distinction between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The first—autonomic—triggers the fight-or-flight response in emergencies. The second governs calm, conservation, and harmonious function. Under threat, the first system takes over, suppressing the second. In times of calm, the second system resumes control, and the first recedes.
This, too, is true metaphorically. When we are engaged in a spiritual war for survival, we are constantly mobilized to protect what exists. Our posture becomes defensive, apologetic, oppositional. We fight for independence, for funding. We do not have the luxury of stopping, of examining our existence from without, of thinking twice.
We had no choice. For decades, we lived in survival mode. We were a minority. And in the mindset of survival, self-criticism is dangerous. The default mechanism becomes attack and projection of blame.
In such an atmosphere, introspection becomes a kind of emergency switch—like a mine detector. It is narrowly focused, reserved for internal, local crises. What doesn’t hurt us doesn’t touch us.
But we are past survival. The demographic balance has shifted dramatically. Being roughly 15% of the population and holding 18 seats in the Knesset—this is far from a minority status. We can already adopt the rhythms of a stable society. And to an extent, we have. Driver’s licenses and real estate investments. Academic degrees and overseas vacations. But our system is still wired for crisis. Our vocabulary still sounds like Antiochus’ decrees. Our body language is still defensive. We are growing from a community into a public, developing the ailments of affluence—yet still thinking in terms of a shtetl and its Polish nobleman.
This mindset, as noted, is akin to a locked fight-or-flight mode. When the human body is trapped in chronic stress, the higher regions of the brain—those responsible for judgment, morality, and complexity—shut down. When this occurs on a collective level, every new idea is instinctively rejected. Discourse remains binary. All outside critique is perceived as an existential threat. Self-examination is replaced by total, unshakable faith in the righteousness of our path.
Fear of the Mirror
The need for reflection and introspection is the lifeblood of Judaism. There is hardly any need to elaborate.
In two-year-old children, the capacity for self-awareness is revealed when, upon seeing a smudge in the reflection in the mirror, they reach to wipe it off their own nose. If we are still reaching toward the image in the mirror, perhaps we are stuck at age two.
If we are still reaching toward the image in the mirror, perhaps we are stuck at age two
The price is the same personal, psychological, and moral price paid by any individual who lacks the ability for self-criticism: stagnation and paralysis, emotional insensitivity, and the projection of blame. A genuine inability to grow, to branch outward, to respond to expanding challenges. For when a society fears its own reflection, it begins to lose its face.
The cost is also educational: it is difficult to persuade our students of the truth and beauty of our path when they encounter such stark cognitive dissonance. The result is alienation, overt or hidden; a quiet unrest; ever-growing margins. Ironically, these are the healthy responses of individuals who refuse to suppress their basic intuitions of compassion and common sense.
Alternatively, we may “succeed.” We may succeed in training our youth into the emotional posture of the raincoat—impermeable, shut down. And from that will emerge self-centered “soul-accounting,” like the one above, whose authors keep reaching for their own mirrored image to scratch off the stain they see on its nose.
There is no doubt that Charedi society can be a model society. In its fear of Heaven, in its care for every Jew, in its zeal for spiritual purity. But that is not enough. It is not enough to be good and wonderful. To remain a model society, a light unto Jews, we must preserve the mechanisms of self-critique and guard against the development of communal narcissism. The sectoral interest must not cloud our moral vision. Above all, we must protect our basic moral instincts—our sense of responsibility, our moral clarity, our simple uprightness of heart.
First and foremost, we must be willing to ask the question: What is Hashem signaling to us? What is He asking of us? What is straight, and what is crooked? What will lift us up, and what will leave us stunted? A sincere question will invite a true answer—in every sense of the word.
Image credit: bigstouck
