While in Israel, I discovered the meaning of the Valley of Dry Bones, yet I did not realize it until Passover weekend. The Haftara segment read after the weekly Torah portion is from Ezekiel chapter 37. It starts by describing the prophet Ezekiel who was taken by the Spirit of God to a valley, “and it is full of bones.” God moves Ezekiel round and round over the bones, “and here they are very many on the face of the valley, and here they are very dry.”
First, God grows flesh and ligaments and skin on the bones and then instills spirit in these dead ones so that they will live, a “very very great army.” God explains: “These bones are all of the House of Israel; here they say: ‘our bones have dried and our hope lost, we are doomed and gone.’ Thus, [God tells Ezekiel] prophesize and tell them: So said Lord God: Here I open your graves and I will bring you out of your graves my nation, and I will bring you to the Land of Israel.”
In Israel I found an army of willing volunteers. More than a quarter of a million native English speakers expatriates. I found a new generation, women and men in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties who are thirsty for action and for whom the appeasement and tiredness of their parents’ generation are the wrong way, the taking-things-for-granted and living-in-a-materialistic-society is not the true meaning of life. In Israel I found a population that believes in God and country and subscribes to the famous motto from 48 years ago: “Ask not what your country can do for you….”
During my 19 weeks in Israel I was also sadly reminded of the great divide here in the USA, of the media and the universities where the anti-Israel sentiment is at an all time high, of a race for riches and blindness towards those who are less fortunate, of a complete deafness to reasons and screams of self preservation, utterly replaced by a correctness of so-called caring for others – parasites that will eventually kill the host body. All this I sadly found in Israel, and was further horrified to discover that the same lack of accountability and personal responsibility that has brought the USA to its knees is prevalent in Israel.
The Jewish people are very few. Some six million live in Israel. Another million Israelis are spread over the world, of which more than 300,000 are in Greater Los Angeles. In addition to Israelis, there are Jews living in the Diaspora, outside Israel. They total another seven to eight million. There is a small community even in Iran. Altogether, then, there are 13 – 14 million Jews living today in the world.
Jews have one country, a home, a shelter, a refuge, a heaven: Israel. The country is approximately the size of New Jersey, slightly over 20,000 square kilometers, surrounded by enemies on the north and north east, still in a state of war with the Jewish country, enemies on the south west, calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, enemies from within and disloyal citizens who are acting as a fifth column. There is today an archenemy, Iran, that uses cronies that are closer geographically to Israel and is determined to wipe Israel off the map. There once was an orator who used the Jews as a mean to an end. Today there is a religious fanatic who believes that to hasten the return of the 12th Imam, horrible things need to happen.
Ezekiel did not talk about the end of days, Apocalypse, Armageddon, the Second Coming or the re-appearance of al Mahdi, the 12th Imam. God instructed Ezekiel to look around, and he saw a divided nation, he saw a nation spread around, he saw a nation that lost its inner strength, spirit and will, he saw a nation in its graves, dry bones spread, layer upon layers. He was floating from above, like a bird’s eye over the universe, today’s global village, and saw it full of dry bones.
God has told Ezekiel that these bones are the House of Israel-not dead but without hope, not extinct but lacking motivation, not uprooted but forgetting the source of their strength and their being. It is God that will salvage us from all of our dwellings outside of Israel, will cleanse us and make us into a united nation. It is God who will be the God of this nation which will dwell in the land where our forefathers lived and where we, our children and our grandchildren will live until eternity.
The Jews of France have already experienced the call to return to Israel. They were followed by the Jews of Venezuela, and will soon be followed by numerous others. But the return is not only of Jews immigrating to Israel. The return to the roots must happen from within Israel as well – to an understanding of why we live in this land, what makes us unique, what binds us and what will ensure our survival. A covenant of peace, a covenant for all eternity between God and His nation will be brought about, and it is up to us, an enormous army, to wake up, to be reignited and to act.
In the series “Postcards from Israel,” Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel’s on the ground, Zager’s counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related - the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts - and so is this “point - counter-point” presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives.
