The last several posts have been about the rain, hail and snow that has hit Israel in the last week. According to a news item I just saw, Israel received over 100% of its needed annual rain – in just this last week. In many places the rainfall was in the range of 150 – 200% of the seasonal expectations.

I opened this post because I wanted to write about something else, anything else, but the rain and the weather. Not because I’m sick of it – but because I thought maybe you were. But here I am again, summing it up because perhaps in making this many posts, those of you outside of Israel will realize what the rain and the water means to us. It is our yearly communication with God (from a people who communicate with Him daily)- yes, we see it as a blessing.

Every drop – even when it brings us mud, floods, and cold.

Sometimes, we see the rain as a message of comfort – I can’t tell you how many times there have been terror attacks and as the victims were being buried, the rain poured down. Some referred to the rain as God’s tears, that God was crying with all of Israel. Sadly, some very religious people take the rain as an indication of God’s whim. But God doesn’t have whims – He has plans; He makes promises and He keeps them.

There are things we do not understand – so many things, but I believe God answers EVERY prayer that is sent to Him. What we, as human beings, fail to accept is that “no” is as much an answer as “yes.” When we tell our children, “no, you can’t do that” or “no, you can’t have that” – we never mean that we don’t love them or that we aren’t listening or trying to do what is best for them. It is no different with God, who is the Father of all we are and all we have. I think God loves us – despite ourselves.

And what all these posts were meant to say is that we felt God’s love over the past week – yes, even in the floods, even in the damage. Trees were knocked down – okay, they will be replanted or re-planned. Houses flooded – okay, they’ll dry out and be repainted. There were, as there always are – so many miracles and so much positive.

A bus of soldiers was hit by a flash flood and swept away – it could have ended so badly – but they were all rescued. Children in several places were also swept away – and again, saved. Two Palestinian women were drowned but many Arabs were saved by our emergency forces.

From trapped cars, trapped homes – from roof tops and elsewhere, Israel’s emergency forces deserve our tremendous gratitude and love as the sun slowly works its way through the clouds and the weather forecasters promise a few warmer days of sunshine ahead.

Yes, Israel got hit with a storm of historic proportions last week – but we had a lot of fun. We saw some pretty silly people try kayaking down swollen waterways (and yes, one needed to be rescued) and since we’re less than two weeks from the elections, even politics made it into the weather with pictures of Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home Party photoshopped into various places.

He is, in many ways, the darling of the election. He is young, handsome, dynamic and fresh in a system that is predictable and dirty. While most others attack him and put words in his mouth, he has run a surprisingly clean and positive campaign. Several times, over Shabbat, his political enemies have attacked him – putting words in his mouth that he didn’t say, twisting and spinning. Bennett is a religious man and so keeps the Sabbath.

But I saw a report in which he said (paraphrasing here) – something like – “but Saturday night always comes.” There are reckonings to be made in all things. For all the nastiness that has come his way, his party has risen above all expectations and much of Israel laughed as his image was placed water skiing on the flooded highways, rising from the snow below Netanyahu’s feet, and elsewhere on Facebook.

And, I’ve just come home from the local mini-market (called “makolet” in Hebrew) and saw snow on the roof of someone’s car. I took a plastic bag and filled it part way; Elie wanted another. As I was doing it, a little boy across the street said, “Daddy, look snow.” And so I took him a handful too. I gave a snowball to Aliza and one to Davidi and put the rest in my freezer. I’ve done this before – it will turn to ice and be thrown out around Passover time (about 3 months from now). but for now, I have snow in my freezer and my house is warm. Shabbat is coming.

The Sea of Galilee is rising and Israel was reminded last week that blessings come from above, that sun follows rain, that we are forever protected, watched over, loved.

All the rest is the little stuff…I have snow in my freezer!

Visit A Soldier’s Mother.

With Santa Claus scheduled to arrive any minute, here are a few pre-Xmas warnings. Be sure to stay away from Xmas parties, non-kosher wine, frivolity, and kissing Suzy under the mistletoe. If there’s a Xmas party at the office, tell them you have a stomach ache. On Xmas day, keep as far away from their festivities as possible. Since Christians are considered idolaters, on their holiday it’s best not to have any business with them at all (Rambam, Laws of Idol Worship, Ch.9, 1-4).

Don’t be fooled into thinking that those twinkling Xmas lights are romantic, and that exchanging gift-filled stockings and candy canes is a harmless gesture of love. Remember, in the name of brotherly love, the Xtrians massacred millions of Jews throughout history. The color red that you see everywhere at Xmas-time is the blood of the Jews.

If I were in the Diaspora on Xmas, I’d spend the whole day locked in the john. It’s a lot purer there than out on the street. Xmas is the most impure day of the year. Its cloud of impurity is 100 times greater than the radioactive cloud that spread out over Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped. All over the world, in America, and Europe, and countries all over the globe, hundreds of millions of people are paying homage to Western civilization’s best loved idol worship.

The prohibition against idol worship tops the list of the Ten Commandments. No one is allowed to make or worship a graven image. As the Rambam explains, “The essential principle concerning idolatry is that people are not to worship anything created – neither angel, planet, star, the elements, or something derived from them.” That includes worshiping a man, and bending down to a statue, and praying to Buddhas, Hindu monkey gods, totem poles, crucifixes, and the like. I would post a few photos in illustration, but it is even forbidden to gaze upon the picture of an idolatrous figure, as it says, “Turn not after their idols” (Vayikra, 19:4. See Rambam, 2:2, loc. cited).

In Rabbi Kook’s writings on Christianity, he explains that it began as a break-away sect of Judaism which grew in influence and ultimately led the world astray with its doctrines. He categorizes it as idol worship, and says that its founder brought the majority of the world to err by serving a god other than the Almighty. By abandoning the mitzvot, Christianity enshrouded the world in a seemingly legitimate offshoot of idol worship. While imitating many of Judaism’s values and beliefs, Christianity actually led the world away from the true service of God.

Referring to Christianity’s renegade founder, the Rambam writes: “Can there be a greater stumbling block than this one? All of the Prophets spoke of the Messiah as the redeemer of Israel, and its savior, who would gather the dispersed and strengthen their observance of the commandments, while this one caused the annihilation of Israel by the sword, and caused its remnants to be scattered and scorned. He caused the Torah to be altered, and brought the majority of the world to err, and to serve a god other than the Lord…” (Laws of Kings and Their Wars, Uncensored version, Mosad HaRav Kook edition, Ch11).

This is what we affirm several times a day in the concluding“Aleynu” prayer. The following verse is deleted in many prayer books used in the Diaspora, but here in Israel, we say it concerning the nations, “They bow down to vanity and emptiness, and pray to a god that cannot save.”

The “Aleynu” prayer expresses our heartfelt wish that idol worship be uprooted from the earth, and that the world come to understand that God alone is the One and Only King, “We hope, therefore, Lord our God, soon to behold Your majestic glory, when the abominations will be removed from the earth, and the false gods exterminated; when the world will be perfected under the reign of the Almighty, and all mankind will call upon Your Name, and the wicked of the earth will be turned to You. My all the inhabitants of the world realize and know that to You every knee must bend and every tongue vow allegiance….”

There is no question that we have a lot of problems and challenges facing us in Israel, but at this time of the year, I have to take time-out from the headlines to thank Hashem for granting me the incomparable blessing of living in His Holy Land, and not in the spiritually polluted lands of the Diaspora, where Christmas is being celebrated in all of its insidious force and make-believe holiness.