The Impossible Dream? 

Just one week ago, I was privileged to sit with one of the great rabbis of our generation, someone who was instrumental in building a major hesder yeshiva in what was then a new settlement town known as Maale Adumim.  Overlooking the sandy hills of where a planned housing project was shelved due to a concession to the "peace process", Rabbi Nachum Rabinowitz  bemoaned the chronic neurosis of the Jewish people, our failure to recognize our strength as a people, and an inability to acknowledge our miraculous existence and accomplishments.

I am once again struck by how we always underestimate ourselves.

The State of Israel and the Jewish people have never been stronger: economically, militarily and spiritually. Yet we continue to believe that we must cower to foreign pressure and yield to their demands and perverse perspectives in order to survive. Perhaps this is the smatterings of the same insecurity, the same struggle, that paralyzed the brothers from accepting that the dreams of Joseph, those of self-realization, of miracles and grandeur, could ever be realized. The same weakness that led the spies, sent by Moshe to Israel, to return with the emphatic declaration that we cannot conquer the land of Israel as our enemies are  stronger than us.

If there is one message that Israel as a nation and we Jews as individuals personify, it is that we can, we have, and we continue to actualize dreams, fulfill G-d's prophesies, and realize His promises. 

Our history has repeatedly proven that we prevail.

We must therefore never allow ourselves to be circumscribed by our myopia, limited by our insecurities, or frozen by a lack of belief in our greatness and eternality.

As the famous Maccabees before us, we too must learn to model and teach our children to believe in themselves, that we can and will survive and flourish with G-d on our side. Indeed, the housing project has now been resumed, yet another indication that what seemed impossible yesterday is tomorrow's reality.

As we approach the Holiday of Miracles, may it be G-d's will that He continue to perform miracles "bayamim hahem bazman hazeh" in our days as in the past.

Happy Chanukah,