My eye is to the sky as I watch in wonder Israel overtake Iranian airspace.
Just before this all began, my eye was already to the sky here in Denver, gazing at June’s ripe and luminescent strawberry moon.
Things shifted from stargazing to witnessing the world, and the fate of the Jewish people, shift before my — and all of our — eyes.
The news hit fast and hard. The stunning opening military accomplishment of the Israeli Air Force sounded nothing short of the Six Day War’s “Operation Focus,” sometimes known as the “Sinai Airstrike.”
In time we will know and understand more about what has transpired. Perhaps the current astonishing military operation in Iran even surpassed it.
The breathtaking news that seems to be coming and changing so swiftly feels nothing short of miraculous.
Of course, a war is determined by its end, not by its opening shot — as stunning as that may be.
So along with all of Am Yisrael, I continue praying fervently.
Regardless, the sheer audacity and brilliance of the IDF’s military operation thus far undoubtedly ranks in the historic chronicles of Israel’s — and perhaps any military’s — warfare.
For 30 years there has been a menacing march from Iran toward Israel. Indeed, it succeeded in trying — operative word trying — to choke off Israel with its “Ring of Fire.”
For 30 years, Iran has been waiting for a head to head confrontation with Israel.
Face to face.
Sky to sky.
Only Iran imagined that it would be the one prevailing in destroying Israel. It feels like so much is riding on and been invested in this very historic moment.
Even now, with the ballistic missiles of terrifying strength and speed that Iran has been targeting Israeli civilians with, when I see the Iron Dome at work thankfully intercepting most of the missiles, it creates a kind of beauty all its own, sometimes expressed in electric golden gossamer wisps and tendrils streaking the night sky, so delicate and curved, they can sometimes almost seem like a flock of birds is flying by.
Between these images lighting up the night sky and the Israeli Air Force bravely battling for Israel’s safety, I couldn’t help but think of the verse from Isaiah 31:5: “As birds hovering overhead, flying, so will the G-d of hosts above, defend . . . ”
But unlike the Israeli military, whose unmatched tactical precision is like the surgeon’s scalpel cutting out a life-threatening cancer, removing an existential threat to Israel, the Iranian missiles have, yet again, been aimed at the children, the elderly, the families, the people of Israel. And the anguish of this trauma and of these losses is unbearable.
Iran’s and Israel’s approaches, as vastly distant as the sky and the land. Diametric moral opposites.
Our eyes are to the Iranian skies, but on the ground, wrenchingly, there has also been mourning. Heroic brave soldiers, part of the ground forces fighting in Gaza have fallen. I have seen the all too painful news of two beautiful young soldiers, killed.
Right now there is profound hope but also profound mourning. Right now there is the deepest Jewish pride in our miraculous people, but also gut wrenching anxiety.
Indeed, we are a miraculous people. Over and over in history, we have been persecuted. We have been the target of oppression. To see our annihilation has been the desire of so many nations. We have suffered. Yet we remain. Our people’s survival is nothing short of a walking miracle. It is destiny.
And it’s not just survival. Each attempt to erase us seems only to have catalyzed us onto greater and deeper accomplishment.
“Am k’Lavi,” Rising Lion, indeed. Not without our scars. But we rose. And are rising still.
The name of this military operation stems from the prophetic words of Bilam in the Book of Numbers. Do some prophecies patiently wait thousands of years before they come to be?
Throughout the vicissitudes of time, we have been broken, utterly bleeding from our wounds. Yet we found ways to heal. To rebuild. To live our mission.
I look at Am Yisrael dwelling in the land of Israel, and its response to the terrifying missiles right now, and the secret of the Jewish People’s spirit and fortitude is so deeply moving.
Lurching and racing together to the bomb shelter in a Tel Aviv building, religious and secular neighbors together, stuck on Friday night Shabbat in the miklat, the bomb shelter, begin singing “Shalom Aleichem.”
In other bomb shelters, it’s an uplifting “Lecha Dodi,” the melodious Friday night prayer service welcoming the Sabbath Queen. Calming scared children, supporting the elderly is so very real.
Somehow, amidst it all, the prevailing spirit is one of hope and song and continuity.
When these same Israelis have been caught on the road and there is no bomb shelter in sight, hundreds of Israeli Jews, at a standstill in the underground traffic tunnel, paused alongside their cars, one of them on top of his car, like a conductor, leading the crowd in a boisterous rendition of the trendy optimistic Israeli song whose refrain is: “Od yoter tov v’od yoter tov, shetamid yihiye rak tov,” “that things should just get better and better!” In this scene, I noticed a father cradling his toddler in his arm, as he swirled and moved to these words.
I feel so proud of our miraculous Am Yisrael and that intangible sense of how we are all in it together.
It is at pivotal Jewish moments such as these, when so much hangs in the balance, when we are at the edge, praying not to be forsaken, that the spiritual intimacy with the Divine is concentrated so strongly, practically palpable in Israel.
As stressful and very real the fear and threats are, so is this noble kind of heightened emotional collective. For that it is hard that exactly now I got shut out of Israel.
At such a time, there is nowhere I would rather be than with my people.
“Libi b’Mizrach,” as Rabbi Judah Halevi’s expressed it. Indeed, while I am physically in my American hometown of Denver right now, “libi,” my heart, is there with my people.
Since last week, it feels like a moment in modern Jewish history has changed. It feels like a seismic change.
Time will tell, and we are certainly not out of the woods.
The relentless Jew hatred does not seem to have abated. Only Israel can be so brutally attacked, need to conduct wars of survival on seven fronts of its tiny country’s borders — this one against a country whose land mass is a mammoth swath of soil with a population and manpower of eight times Israel’s citizenry, and be the one perceived as the aggressor.
For now, internal tensions in Israeli society are temporarily on hold, as we all bask in the open miracles we have merited to experience in our time.
The initial euphoria of feeling like an existential threat that has been hanging over Israel might actually soon be eliminated, might soon fade.
On some level, though, fathers, mothers, children, brothers, sisters and grandparents have been carrying this fear with them for decades. It might have been supressed, but it was there. From the Israeli shopkeeper, to teacher, to high tech CEO. The street sweeper, athlete, rabbi or doctor. Somewhere in their eyes, in their voices, in their souls. The fear for the next generation and what will be, was there.
Just one, two and three generations from the Holocaust. And we had to contend with an evil regime that was hellbent on our destruction.
The euphoria is not an appetite for war. Rather, it was the adrenaline of collective relief.
“To everything there is a season” . . . A time for war, is one of them.
It’s certainly deeply sad to live in a broken world when such seasons of war are at times necessary, in order to safely ensure survival.
It’s difficult to see the cost of war, strewn around you. It’s difficult to try and go on, one baby step at a time, through the fog of war. As a nation, Israel is strong.
But individually, many people’s lives there are in tatters right now.
But Am k’Lavi — Rising Lion. It’s not just the name of this startlingly wondrous military operation, thus far. It’s the essence of our nation, of who we are. Of our national character.
It’s hard to know exactly what will be in the days to come. In the Middle East, where old alliances and new enmities can change in a heartbeat.
From afar, it feels like the peak holy moments of Yom Kippur, when our personal destiny for the impending year hangs in abeyance.
Right now it feels like our national destiny for the impending era of Jewish history hangs in abeyance — yet bursting with tremendous hope and potential, for more peaceful times for our people and for all good people of the Middle East, and the world.
My eye continues toward the sky, beyond the golden moon of June, beyond the stars, beyond the air force and the winged birds, in fervent prayer to the mystery of G-d, that Israel continues to prevail in vanquishing a force of destruction, and with that reduce conflict, strife, trouble and danger, ushering in an era of enhanced tranquillity, harmony and calm, so we can continue live the miraculous words of: “Am Yisrael Chai!”
• • •
As I penned the above column last week, when indeed it felt like the fate of Israel was held in abeyance, not knowing whether America would lend a hand in disabling Iran’s nuclear facilities, a verse from Joshua hovered on my mind.
Before Joshua’s fateful battle with Jericho, the verse states:
“He lifted his eyes and looked and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, ‘Are you for us, or for our adversaries?’”
This same age-old question that Joshua asked so long ago was on my mind.
This past week, that age-old question that echoed through history was answered.
Indeed, America came to Israel’s side. Decisively.
In an instant, we awoke to a changed and new world, flooded with cautious elation.
I feel profoundly encouraged for Israel’s and the Middle East’s future, yet also mindful of the long and complex road ahead and that we are not quite out of the woods.
Overwhelmingly, though, the gratitude for this miraculous moment is indescribable. I continue to hope and pray it portends new political alignments that can bring more durable freedoms and peacefulness with them.
That notorious doomsday clock that stood in Basij headquarters in Tehran, a tangible and corrupt, evil symbol of Iran’s plan for Israel’s annihilation, has been blown to smithereens. The insidious tick-tock towards Israel’s destruction is no more.
Also shattered were the doors to the infamous and reviled Evin Prison, where Iran confined and tortured political prisoners and regime opponents.
Perhaps for Iran, this will turn out to be like France’s Bastille Day.
A wonderful kind of unintended consequence, in Israel’s effort to protect and secure its own existence.
The pride I feel in the Israeli Air Force’s remarkably brave leadership in taking so brilliant and precise a stand against Iran, that hasn’t changed since I wrote my column last week.
It has only been amplified.
Now, who knows what comes next.
Maybe a new kind of clock, marking a kind of tick-tock toward a newer better safer era for us all in both Israel and America.
My eye continues to be on the sky, praying, as we are living through these historic days.
© IJN 2025
