The Jewish Story: Six Day War, part V: Something Miraculous

miracles says c.s lewis are retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see well not only am i trying to see those letters i'd like to know a little bit of what they say because i'm rob mike foyer and this is the jewish story episode 31 60 war part 5 something miraculous if i asked you to list the three biggest miracles in jewish history what would you say splitting the red sea plague of the firstborn the mana sinai maybe you'd get a little more subtle and offer me the hanukkah lights esther's rise to her place in the palace but how many people listening right now would mention operation mccaid the critical turning point in the battles of the six day war that we're going to speak about in a bit of detail in just a moment i'm not simply throwing it out there in order to set the stage for what's to come i'm giving it as an opportunity to contemplate what exactly a miracle might be you know the word for miracle in hebrew is nis and it has more than one meaning classically like i said if you ask a person what's a miracle they'll start listing off the sort of cataclysmic events of the biblical narrative they might also start talking about what we call the hidden miracles or the more subtle expressions of god's hand in their own lives but i think the deeper meaning of miracle comes out when we look at its other definition in the hebrew language and nase isn't just a miracle it's also a flagpole or a sign it's something which is lifted up beyond the horizon in which we normally dwell i mean after all in the battle or in frankly in the american national anthem what is a flag on the battlefield other than a reminder of that which you're fighting for which lies above the plane of struggle it's an indication that there's a broader horizon within which the events of our lives are taking place you know the maharao great mystic sage of the late 16th and early 17th century he teaches that there are actually two ways in which god runs the world he calls them derek hateva anderhanes the way of nature the physics that we're all familiar with even though he lived in a world of physics which was somewhat different than ours you know but the world as we say kim in hago noheg functioning as we indeed expect it to whether it's the laws of gravity sociology or anthropology but then says the maharao there's the miraculous path and yet the maharao makes a fascinating fascinating assertion you can look it up in his second introduction to his work guru the shem the sort of mighty acts of god it's his his sort of prolonged analysis of the events of the exodus along with his commentary on the haggadah but there in that second introduction when he's talking about the challenges which the modern science of astronomy poses to the simple reading of the book of joshua when joshua of course makes the sun and the moon stand still he goes into a discussion of the relationship between this der between the natural and the miraculous and with one hand dismisses the atheists the other hand he dismisses the christian scholars then just points out god can do anything so why are we even having this discussion but finally he offers us a frame which i think is quite important for the story we're about to tell because the morale says yeah well when joshua made the sun stand still and the astronomers say uh that doesn't happen like the whole world would spin out of control it tethers it furthermore every single human being would have noticed if the sun stood still because there's only one sun the moral says no that's not how it works see der khateva is universal nature is nature wherever you may be but der khanes the miraculous guidance that the world receives is a question of consciousness and the way the morale puts it is that only those who are within the ophec were within the horizon of yeshua and amisrael for whom that miracle was a critical expression of god's will unfolding in their historical journey only they those within that horizon even experienced the miracle at all and for everyone else derek hago noheg the world continues as it always must be and i want you to keep this frame in mind as we go forward in this story because the question of what role the miraculous plays in the war of 1967 we'll touch it today but it's going to follow us for quite a bit of time to come because it's going to play a significant role in the motivations of the actors who attempt to actualize what they feel to be the essential message of the victory of 1967 and for me what's important is that whatever we may think that message may be it's a call to consciousness and consciousness should unite rather than divide i'm looking like the morale to bring as many people into the horizon of this story as possible and so as we go forward i just want you to remember there's two ways in which you can understand the way of the world and the way of a sign that lifts us up to a broader horizon and sends us a message about what exactly events we're about to discuss might mean the spirit of israel's heroes accompany us to battle with king david the maccabees and the fighters of 48-56 we shall draw the strength and courage to strike the egyptians who threaten our safety our independence and our future fly sore the enemy destroy him and scatter him throughout the desert so that israel may live secure in its lands for generations i know it sounds downright biblical but these were actually the orders issued by air force commander moti hod on the morning of june 5th 1967 as he sent nearly 200 planes aloft ho it's an interesting character unto himself the israelis israeli he was both father and child of the israeli air force he helped to fly israel's first spitfires over from czechoslovakia in 1948 thus giving birth to the iaf and he completed his flight school training in israel in 1949 which meant that when he took the post of commander in 1966 he made him the first commander of the israeli air force to have actually earned his wings in an iaf course now operation muked as this attack plan was known was the culmination of more than five years of planning its initial phases had been sketched out by ezra weitzman future seventh president of the state while he himself had the role of air force commander before hood and they had worked together on it until one year ago when weitzman moved on and up to the role of chief operations for the entire idf and ho took over the air force hoda spent the better part of that year perfecting muked and this day was about to prove whether it was an operation planning at its finest or the wildest hail mary pass ever thrown in the history of warfare ezranhode had known for years that in order to win any war particularly the multi-front conflict which they saw coming on the horizon israel needed to gain immediate air superiority it's by the way one of the two pillars of israeli military doctrine to this day and since they also knew that they were hopelessly outnumbered just the egyptian air force alone had nearly 500 combat aircraft the only hope was to destroy the enemy on the ground as hode was fond of saying a fighter jet is the deadliest weapon in existence in the sky but on the ground it's utterly defenseless and in order to achieve that it would require every fighter and bomber in the iaf to be aloft more or less at the same time an incredible logistical feat in and of itself but that wasn't enough the first wave would actually have to destroy the egyptian runways in order to prevent any counter-attack and that was something which had never be done but you know they say necessity is the mother of invention and so the result of this need was the world's first runway destroying bomb it had a parachute to slow it after release in order to gain optimum penetration angle and a time delay rocket which then fired and drove the bomb straight down and through the runway where it left a five meter wide hole but hode knew that even this wasn't enough because egypt was only the first target his pilots also had to be ready to defend israel's skies and potentially take on the jordanian and syrian air forces as well and so he concentrated on his human potential always the backbone of israel's power training for better part of a year he built mock egyptian air force bases in the desert and he drilled his flight crews until the turnaround time for a refueling and re-arming a jet dropped to eight minutes just for comparison the egyptians was around 8 hours finally last but not least there's always the question of intelligence and security internally the planners knew that the mission had to be a complete surprise in order to succeed only a few top ministers even knew about mokade even the general staff of the idf received nothing more than a one-page briefing paper on the day of the attack in after takeoff the pilots were instructed to approach egypt just above the wave tops in order to avoid radar detection and to maintain total radial silence even a mechanical failure was going to require them to eject and dive into the sea rather than calling back the base now on the external front the planners needed to know everything they could about the egyptian air force fortunately weizmann had begun working on that well back in the early 60s first with the help of wolfgang lutz a german-born israeli spy who had gained critical intelligence on the entire egyptian military by posing as a former ss officer add to this electronic intelligence and other high placed sources so that by the time muked was launched multihode basically knew how many planes where they were the pilots training routines he even knew what the pilots like to eat for breakfast okay that might be an exaggeration but he did know when they ate and that's why the first strike was planned for the strange time of 7 45 am now traditionally one would think that dawn was the optimal time for an attack when the element of surprise was such a critical factor but hode knew actually that the entire egyptian army was on its highest alert at first light and that this level of readiness would expire at seven a.m each morning when breakfast was served and then routine operational activities began at eight with that in mind he estimated that at around 7 45 most commanders would be in route to the bases and the pilots in their quarters making their last preparations for the day haute also knew having flown over the sinai himself many times that early moanings over the peninsula are usually kind of misty which meant reduced visibility and he couldn't afford for his pilots to miss a shot on the other hand by 7 45 the fog would have burned off leaving targets clearly visible from the air so the planes rose and as the minutes after launch ticked by he reviewed obsessively the details of the plan in his mind never had it seemed him more hopeless dozens of squadrons were launching from different bases in israel meant to rendezvous over 11 different egyptian air bases all while maintaining complete radio silence the only communication was with hand signals from cockpit to cockpit but while this was going on hode pushed the most terrifying thought out of his mind that this was truly an all-out gamble there were only a handful perhaps maybe a dozen fighter planes that had remained behind in order to protect israel's city should the raid be detected on route the country was all but defenseless and little did he know they'd actually already been seen one of the most powerful radar facilities in the middle east was at ajlun in jordan and at 7 15 a.m as the first squadrons left israel the operators saw a massive concentration of aircraft lifting off from all over the country and setting out to sea to them it could mean only one thing the duty officer leapt to his radio and blasted one word message over and over to his commanders in amman grape grape grape it was the code word for war amman instantly relayed the message to defense minister shasbadran in cairo in ab in abinab but that's where the message died because as they say man plans and god laughs just the day before the egyptians had changed their encoding frequencies and when doing so had failed to update the jordanians and so what came through was not the signal for war it was simply indecipherable nonsense the radar operators at adjaloon watched those blips on their screen turned toward the signing frantically broadcasting the warning but lost in translation by 7 30 the first targets had come into view and what followed was as the american ambassador told his superiors a turkey shoot surprise was complete and the devastation nearly total the egyptians were so unaware of the coming danger that their planes were parked on the runways without so much as a sandbag for protection the first wave of israeli jets swooped up to 9000 feet to begin their bombing run and every radar in egypt suddenly went berserk pilots scrambled out on the tarmac toward their planes few made it those who were able to fight back did so with pistols against fighter planes first went the runways as those derndal bombs pockmarked them with craters some were set with delayed fuses which were meant to prevent any repairs then came the long-range bombers which if one even got off the ground could threaten israel cities fortunately none did after that the first wave strapped every fighter they could unloaded the last of their munitions on every missile radar and support structure in sight before returning to base it would be a 20 minute return flight 8 minute refueling and a 10 minute rest for the pilots before they took off again but meanwhile the second wave was immediately on their heels already engaging targets across the sinai by 8 a.m the first planes had returned to israel and multihold and azer white zone began to receive the reports as they pieced together the information everyone present was stunned six airfields completely destroyed communications across the sinai severed 204 planes nearly half of egypt's air force annihilated in the first wave alone and even more amazing was the minimal losses of israeli pious eight planes and five pilots which once again might be attributed to the finger of god radar operators in israel had noted two large transport planes in the air above the sinai they were afraid that these planes themselves might detect the raid but they couldn't possibly know that on those planes were most of the egyptian army's commanders including field marshal ammar himself now armor ever suspicious of plots on his life and none too confident frankly in the abilities of his men had issued a no-fire order for all of egypt's 100 anti-aircraft batteries and its 27 sam missile sites and that meant that not one shot was fired at the israeli jets as they streaked over the sauna on their initial approach the devastation continued for three hours until finally at 10 35 a.m matihud could turn to the chief of staff yitzhak rabin announced the egyptian air force has ceased to exist operation muked was of course the beginning of the war not its end but the fact that egypt's air force was eliminated in the first few hours to be followed quickly by the crippling of both syria and jordan's fighters certainly set the mold for what was to come and our question is what exactly was that if you've been listening to the jewish story for a while you've heard me say any number of times that i am not a military historian so if you want the details of the battles in the sinai or how the golan plateau was taken you're going to have to seek them elsewhere i would highly encourage as i've said before michael oren's excellent book six days of war what i'm trying to do is to understand what do these events all mean how are they a product of the moment of the past how do they channel forces in the present and where are they taking us in the future not to mention my own personal desire to catch at least a glimpse of the higher will peeking through these moments in history so when we try and understand the coming phase of the war as opposed to detail its events there are two primary motivations that i want to keep squarely in the center of our focus the first is survival when defense minister moshe dayan heard the reports of operation mccain's fantastic success he declared a stone just one but of agonizing weight rolled off my heart now if the idf was on its way to smashing the egyptians in the sinai to an extent which the jews hadn't seen since the crossing of the red sea what were the other stones weighing him down the answer is simple remember dayan was born in 1915 on kibbutz de gana he was its second born native son and since he could hold a gun he'd fought in every war battle and border skirmish from before during and after the establishment of the state so no one knew better than dayan that another victory might buy 10 years of calm but by itself smashing the egyptian army would not bring peace or regional acceptance as he said in his famous 1966 eulogy for roy rothenberg a security guard murdered outside of the gaza strip how did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate and see in all its brutality the fate of our generation let us take stock today with ourselves we are a generation of settlement and without the steel helmet and the guns muzzle we will not be able to plant a tree or build a house that is the fate of our generation this is our choice to be ready and armed tough and hard or else the sword shall fall from our hands and our lives will be cut short and the truth be told the situation of the state of israel had not changed all that much in the ensuing 10 years since he gave that speech she was still surrounded by hostile neighbors far better armed in fact than they did in 56 due to the cold war inspired backing of the soviet union as we've discussed she still had no natural borders and no strategic depth the bulk of her populace was concentrated along the coastal plain that fertile strip nine miles wide at its narrowest point dominated by the hills of the chamron at this point just to drive it home israel was the only non-island nation in the world whose sole means of access was air or sea that's what it means to be surrounded to diane and the other pragmatists on the cabinet survival in the region meant more than beating the egyptians unless they wanted to do it every few years now the war had begun with highly limited objectives but once the shots began to fly who knew where it would end ideally the golan heights from which the syrians launched frequent attacks must be secured the hills of the chamron to the east of the coastal plain which practically invited an armored thrust to cut the country in two should also really change hands and clearly only possession of the gaza strip and the sinai peninsula would provide the much needed buffer between egypt and israel now such a selective expansion as we'll call it could provide the security which they sought either as an immediate tactical benefit or in strategic terms as a political bargaining chip it could be the price which israel would pay for peace and finally regional acceptance so you might say but what about the arab government in question i mean aren't we talking about just taking territory well first of all egypt could fairly be said to have gambled and lost when it came to gaza and the sinai the syrians decades of shelling and cross-border raids left no sympathy amongst the israeli government for their territorial integrity now as of yet just to let you know the syrians had stopped just short of joining into the conflict sufficing themselves with massing their troops near the border and making bloodthirsty declarations about destroying tel aviv this combination of militant pronouncements and practical inaction had quickly given rise to the joke that the syrians are willing to fight to the last egyptian and it's true that with the outbreak of war in the sinai the shelling of the golan will start once again the desperate pleas of the residents of those northern settlements who were the country's largest lobbying group are not going to fall on deaf ears in the critical days to come prime minister eshkol himself was a former farmer from up there in the galilee and his lifelong devotion to the national war carrier gave him a particular longing for the headwaters of the jordan which right now lie in syrian territory labour minister igal alone head of the avodah faction within the governing alignment and an old-time secular advocate of the vision of a greater israel had sworn to the residents of the north that the war would not end with serious guns still trained on them but for now defense minister moshe dayan held them in check he sought to keep the army focused on the limited objectives which it had set from the beginning and to minimize the cross currents of international politics which might cause them to be frozen by a ceasefire before they could actually achieve those objectives remember the syrians are a true soviet client state at this point but he knew their time would come the other government that needs to be considered is of course jordan i'm not right now going to go deep on the fact that jordan only became jordan when it seized the hills of yudhan shumron as well as the old city of jerusalem through outright conquest when it expanded across the river in the year of 1948. if we're going to say that all's fair in love and war then that's got to be true of both sides practically speaking though prime minister ash girl and his cabinet wanted jordan to stay out of the war so much so that they actually sent a personal appeal to king hussein to that effect through multiple pass by the way that appeal was sent over the protests of defense minister dion who asked quite pointedly in the meeting doesn't hussein no he's not supposed to attack us one such message was actually delivered to u.n representative general odd bull i just love saying his name by foreign ministry rep arthur lurie only a few hours after operation mucade was launched and it read at 8 10 egyptian planes were spotted crossing into our airspace and our planes and armor had commenced action against them the foreign minister asked that oddball urgently convey to king hussein that israel will not repeat will not attack jordan if jordan maintains the quiet but if jordan opens hostilities is will respond with all of its might bull was far from pleased to be delivering what he saw as a thinly veiled threat he also took some exception to the claim that egypt had begun the hostilities of sinai it didn't exactly match his read but he was a professional and the message was indeed delivered but it was too late now partially the reason it was too late is fake news i know it's a popular term today but disinformation is hardly new to human history and it played a major role in how the six day war unfolded as israel was smashing every airfield in the sinai the egyptian airwaves were filled with government pronouncements of their victory field marshal ammar himself sent a message to the jordanian command announcing that in spite of the initial surprise the egyptian air force had destroyed 75 percent of israel's air power and that even now the army was amounting its offensive and as if to substantiate those claims jordan's loon radar station showed hundreds of aircrafts approaching israel from the sinai which of course were actually the returning first wave of israeli jets but they had no way of knowing that the level self-deception was almost complete cairo radio was declaring that quote our airplanes and our missiles are at this moment shelling all israel's towns and villages and they were calling on every arab to avenge the dignity lost in 1948 to advance across the armistice line to the den of the gang itself to tel aviv but this fake news and jordan's ultimate willingness to act on it brought into play the other motivation that we have to keep in our focus if we're going to understand how the world played out and that is a scent of historic destiny and for um israel destiny lies not in the den of the gang itself in tel aviv but rather in jerusalem gentlemen the jordanian army is all but smashed and our own army is at the city's gates our soldiers are almost in sight of the western wall how can we tell them not to reach it we have in our hands a gift of history future generations will never forgive us if we do not seize it these were the words of menachem begin as he spoke to an emergency meeting of the israeli cabinet late on june 5th hours after the success of operation mucade now bacon was a man who understood the gifts and the demands of history including the very fact that he was there at all huddled together with the other cabinet ministers in a storage room in the basement of the knesset what but the hand of god in history could have propelled him from holocaust escapee to reviled underground fighter to perpetual opposition leader right to pillar of a unity government now one may doubt whether it was the hand of god that placed bacon in the cabinet this historic moment when the question of reuniting jerusalem arose but there's no question as to why such a critical discussion was taking place in a broom closet that's because jordanian shells had begun raining down on west jerusalem at around 9 9 30 that morning just before king hussein declared on radio amman that jordan had been attacked and that quote the hour of revenge had come at first general uzi narcisse idf commander in the central region hoped that jordan would satisfy itself with a symbolic show of support for egypt firing off a few shells and making proclamations like the syrians but essentially honoring the status quo furthermore he was under strict orders from defense minister dion to avoid any provocation so much so that in some border areas he told his soldiers to remove the clips from their rifles lest the misfire set off another front in the war nonetheless narquis had fought with the harel brigade in 1948 and its failed attempt to seize the old city was an enduring memory i would even say a motivation as it was for every soldier who survived that failed attempt he later wrote in his memoirs there was no order to conquer the west bank or the jordan valley yet i was certain that war would come and certain that it would end in jerusalem despite this restraint and the diplomatic attempts to hold off king hussein the jordanian shelling intensified as the day drew on the suburbs of tel aviv were subjected to a two-hour barrage and just before noon the remains of jordan's air force 16 american-made hunter hawkers struck netanyahu the actual destruction was limited but the psychological and political impact of these attacks was immense syria seeing what was happening launched its own air offensive in the north and general narkis while continuing to restrain his own troops now was engaged in exchanges of fire from the old city surveying the extent the attack the soviet ambassador to jordan told his american counterpart in iman our estimate is that if the israelis do not receive arms we think the arabs will win the war if they are allowed to fight to the finish in the coming hours six thousand shells rained down on jewish jerusalem and the jordanian legion was ordered to advance on ammon native the government ridge which dominated the old city this combined with those sorties over netanyah were enough to change dion's stance on avoiding a second front not to mention the fact that the sign i wore was going smashingly pun intended just before noon he finally relented in the face of ezra weitzman's insistence and the israeli air force was once again unleashed within an hour jordan had the answer to its shelling as the remnants of its air force met the same fate as egypt's as did their 40th armored brigade devastated from the heirs as the fighters looped back over beit lechem garon and yurijo even in the midst of the escalation though general odd bull made an attempt to broker a ceasefire and it was attempt which was accepted by the israelis but though he informed jordan of the elimination of the egyptian air force contrary to the announcements were made hussein was in no mood for compromise we are today living the holiest hours of our lives declared prime minister juma on his radio address we are fighting the war of heroism and honor against our common enemy we have waited years for this battle to erase the stain of the past loudspeakers from the top of the dome of the rock blasted out a much more straightforward message take up your weapons and take back your countries stolen by the jews the rest as they say is history the battles around jerusalem continued for another two days it was some of the most brutal fighting of the war unlike the tank clashes and aerial battles over the sinai most of jerusalem was taken through hand-to-hand combat in streets bunkers and trenches as the idf encircled the old city international diplomacy began to swirl once again in the region that's its own storm and we'll discuss it i think in the next episode i only mention it now because by the afternoon of june 6 king hussein had realized the folly of his military approach and was attempting his own route to a ceasefire but at this point moshe dayan was having nothing of it he ordered the idf to take all the high ground in judah to roam the so-called west bank as well as to descend to jericho and seize the jordan river crossings only as they surrounded jerusalem did he hesitate saying i want none of that vatican it's a statement that reveals much in its double meaning the secular kibbutznik dayan felt no pull of destiny toward the temple mount on the contrary he dismissed it as a vatican an irrelevant religious relic furthermore deon also feared the reaction of the international christian community who he felt were not going to tolerate jewish control of their holy sites and if any of their holy sites were damaged in the fierce house to house fighting which was certain to ensue with any conquest of the old city they would be enraged now he wasn't alone in that stance in fact his biggest supporter was actually hayao moshe shapira of the national religious party who resisted to the very end the notion of conquering the old city it may sound strange in light of the hawkish stance that the national religious world takes today and that shift in the camp of the national religious world from dove to hawk is a story which also lies ahead and in many ways is a response the events we're speaking of now but it will come it will come so in the end it was once again menachem began who forced the issue when he heard that the bbc was reporting rumors of an imminent u.n security council ceasefire one which was supported by both the americans and the soviets which means it might have actually happened he called prime minister eshkol at 4 am waking him up and demanded an emergency cabinet meeting to decide the fate of jerusalem once and for all and so the israeli government gathered at 7 00 am on june 7th by this time the picture of the war was becoming clear and to many it was nothing short of miraculous the egyptian army was collapsing in the sinai gaza was all but conquered most of the hills of udansha ruin have been taking including those north and south of the old city even latrun that fortress which dominated the jerusalem tel aviv road where the idf had met a series of humiliating and painful defeats in 1948 was in israeli hands the issue of the syrian front of taking the golans was becoming pressing but for now the only real question on the table was the old city of jerusalem earlier that morning before they met eshkol had sent one last appeal to king hussein if you agree to peace talks we won't invade but he received no response and so at long last after nearly 2 000 years of waiting the question of jerusalem was in the hands of a jewish government and the answer was yes send in the paratroopers that was the famous recording of colonel matagur commander of the paratroopers conquered the old city when he declared the temple mount is in our hands listen to it closely this is way more than a report on developments from the battlefield to his commanders it's the voice of history he's staking a claim to having returned to the source after 2 years forgoer and his man the route to the mount had been anything but simple or straightforward after all paratrooper brigade 55 were an elite highly trained but unfortunately prepared for the wrong war no one had expected the fighting of the sinai to progress so smoothly or for a second front to open up so fast these men were actually trained for the conquest of el arish which is a heavily fortified town on the sinai coast as their intelligence officer arik ahman later said i knew every egyptian position there i knew next to nothing about jerusalem and he of course was the intelligence officer nonetheless despite the real challenges and the terrible fighting it was matagor's half track which crashed through a massive bronze doors of lion's gate onto the via dolorosa veering left almost immediately onto the temple mount goran ahman jumped from the vehicle and rushed up a flight of stairs leading to the golden dome of the rock that's where he made that famous announcement declaring to the world the focus of longing the place toward which we prayed for thousands of years is now at last in our hands the brigade's chief communications officer azer orni pulled an israeli flag from his pouch and asked permission to hang it over the dome gore's response was classic israeli yala was all he said accompanied by ackman orton climbed to the top of the building and fastened the flag to a pole ironically topped with the islamic crescent and for a brief historic moment a mere four hours there it flew now down below the paratroopers were clearing the rest of the old city and of course taking that iconic picture by the western wall ugh the irony i mean after all it's a wall of course it's a retaining wall the remnant of the structure upon which the holy temple was built and as such it's been sanctified by the prayers and tears of generation and it's deserving of veneration but we didn't pray 2 000 years for a wall we prayed for a bite for a home or as matagor put it why go down to the wall there it's crowded closed in and low here it's unobstructed and elevated i feel good being with king david and judah maccabee chief rabbi of the army goren someone who will hear about more incoming episodes knew what gore was speaking about better than anyone but in addition to being a fervent believer in the imminent redemption he was also a true spiritual shepherd to his soldiers and so he dressed them around the wall down below i'm speaking to you from the plaza of the western wall the remnant of our holy temple comfort my people comfort them says the lord this is the day we've hoped for let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation the vision of all generation is being realized before our eyes the city of god the site of the temple the temple mount the western wall the symbol of the nation's redemption has been redeemed today by you heroes of the israel defense forces by doing so you fulfill the oath of generations if i forget theo jerusalem may my right hand forget its cunning indeed we have not forgotten you jerusalem our holy city our glory in the name of the entire jewish people in israel in diaspora i recite with supreme joy blessed are you o lord our god king of the uterus who's kept us in life preserved us enable us to reach this day this year he declared in jerusalem [Applause] rebuilt [Laughter] bye and for those four hours it seemed it might indeed be so that is until the flag was spotted by defense minister moshe dayan he was watching the battle unfold from his observation post on mount scopus and when he saw the star of david rise above the dome of the rock through his binoculars he radioed gordon demanded are you insane do you want to set the entire middle east on fire and commanded him to lower the flag only a week later the defense minister would enter the al-aqsa mosque also on the temple mount remove his shoes and announce to the muslim waff the religious authorities that israel had not come to take away their shrine he had already ordered the idf to stand down off the mount and he'd evicted rob goran from an office which he'd begun to prepare on the edge of the plaza declaring we must view the temple mount as a historical site a relic of the past and not interfere with the arabs treating it as they do now as a muslim place of worship now there's more of the war ahead of us and even more analysis to be done my sense is the bulk is going to belong to season four but i do feel the need to touch on dion's decision the political cultural wise and wherefores i think belong to that analysis and i'll leave for another time history does have wisdom and lessons to offer here but i want to end on a torah note your sages saying the gemara and sanhedrin 94 a if you want to look it up that king hezekiah could have been the messiah and that sen herith his enemy from assyria could have been the war of gog and magog now before we get to why he wasn't just sit with that idea could have been the messiah for a moment it means that the messianic process is not lockstep that there's always a possibility for success and of course conversely a danger of failure now i know it's a bit of a stretch to say that you too could be the messiah except if i say in sort of poetic or the moral responsibility sense but is it a stretch to say that certain generations have a messianic potential that the leaders who recognize that who make their decisions accordingly are those who merit to push our story forward and maybe even bring it to its climax the answer of course is yes and unless you think i'm taking a radical stance i can citizen my source none other than the rambam himself who when he discusses the failure of barcodes messianic revolt against rome back in the second century you can look up season 1 episode 11 if you want has the following to say now if a king should arise from the house of david who is versed in torah and engages in commandments and he enjoins all of israel to follow in his ways and encourages them to repair its breach as he fights the wars of the lord then he may presume to be the messiah he has hezkat hamashiach says the rambam and if he succeeds in his efforts defeats the enemies around him builds the temple in its proper place gathers the disperse of israel he's definitely the messiah now this idea that you could have the presumption of messiah together with the notion that nothing proves like success i think has an important message for our discussion now there is another angle on the rhombone for those who might find the literalist approach to messianic redemption just a bit too medieval for their tastes rib khalibak used to speak about having mashiach eyes about the ability to look at people at the world in such a way that you bring forth their potential their redemptive potential and if you put the two together the presumption of messiah you'll get how i understand redemption the world without question needs to be reordered read the news look around israel needs to get on mission justice has to be done in every corner of the globe and we need to let go of our obsession with consumption in order to apply humanity's considerable talents toward the true well-being of all life that's going to take real world politics it might even involve the wars of the lord as the rambam says but it will certainly necessitate a revolution of consciousness a shift in how we look at the world at our fellow human beings at the events of history how conceptualize god and seek the divine presence trying to infuse it into our actions and so much more without that shifting consciousness action in the political world will remain what it's always been a game of power it may produce a bit more justice for a few more people it may ameliorate the damage our wasteful culture has done but it will never set the potential of this planet free so why did hezekiah fail to be the meshiach well the gemara says the holy one blessed be sought to designate hezekiah as a messiah anton herrev as gog and magog but the attribute of justice said before the holy one master of the universe when came to david king of israel who recited endless songs and praises before you you didn't make him the messiah then for hezekiah for whom he performed all these miracles and never recited praise before you are you going to make him the messiah hezekiah certainly fought the battles of the lord and if you read both the texts and the rabbinic narrative he returned the crown of torah to his glory raising up the temple service to its proper place but he failed when it came to karate to recognizing the goodness which had been done not just to himself and not even just to his generation but the goodness which he witnessed in the scope of the divine plan he fell short and that might be the same failure we witnessed in 1967 and yet it may not now i could tell you a tale and it's out there that sees the lowering of the flag from the dome of the rock as the first step in a retreat a retreat which is continued basically unabated for more than 50 years bringing in its wake bloodshed and shame but i can also spin you a story in which the time wasn't right because as our sages say blessed be the bones of those who force the end if the time isn't right then to leave that flag on top would have indeed brought destruction and not redemption and of course bottom line no matter which narrative you find most compelling the tale is clearly far from over the real lesson of hezekiah's failure to be the messiah and perhaps of mosha'an's decision if you should call it that is that redemption still lies in our hands and i'm pretty sure that's a story we can all get behind i just want to thank a few folks i want to thank all the folks who give their hard-earned money to help make this show possible to keep it free and widely distributed i want to invite you to join them go right now to my website jewish story dot co upper right hand corner you'll see a little button there that says be a patron you can click on that to make a little bit of per podcast support or you can be in touch with me at rob mike mikefoyer gmail.com or you can message me on facebook at ralph mike4 and i'm happy to share with you the details of how you can dedicate a show in honor of someone living today or in memory of those who pass i also want to thank the land of israel network that's the land of israel.com for creating a platform that allows me to reach so many amazing people i want to thank the pardes institute p-a-r-d-e-s dot org dot il for building an educational institution that gives me the privilege of teaching so many wonderful jews and i want to thank you for listening