How do we find hope in these times? So many places in Scripture describe days just as we have experienced and give us this answer for we know our God is with us and there will be days ahead when suffering will stop. We are to forgive too but it is so hard when not only must we face upside down times in so many ways, we personally as Jewish people feel rising antisemitism running rampant. We feel it not only currently in the world, but also, in our souls generationally through millennia and personally through stories of our grandparents of the Holocaust as well as by ourselves having experienced such treatment. Hatred just for being who we are is palpable, and so, we struggle with hope for the end of such evil.

I have not been able to escape, actually daily, the visceral pain I feel for the deaths of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, the young Israeli Embassy staffers shot down in cold blood last week, and I don’t want to stop thinking about them, or talking about them, or writing about them, at least now. It feels similar to when we lose close family members through death. We compartmentalize in our grieving process and work through the pain over time, but the process is not fast or easy.

I can’t get the phrase of lambs being led to the slaughter out of my mind when I think of them. The image is only fortified further when I read of who they were.

After graduating from the University of Kansas in 2021 Ms. Milgrim received her masters degree in natural resources and sustainable development from the University of Peace established by the United Nations in addition to a master’s degree in international affairs from American University. At the Israeli Embassy she focused on promoting peace and environmental issues including cooperative efforts between Israelis and Palestinians. Mr. Lischinsky moved to Israel when he was 16 and received his bachelor’s degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His close friend David Boskey described him as a “. . . a man of conviction, of humility, of warmth, and of profound integrity. A man of whom the world was not worthy.” As a passionate member of the Messianic Jewish community in Israel he worked to bridge cultural and religious divides.

Both were bridgebuilders, seekers of peace, innocents. Having said that, this week’s headlines also described the horrific deaths of 9 out of 10 Palestinian children in one family as well as the critical injury of their father and the 11^th child. Again, lambs being led to the slaughter. . . Yeshua the ultimate innocent died for us as somehow all of these deaths, as well as the Bibas babies and their mother, hostages whose bodies were returned earlier this year, bring up these same thoughts and feelings – the deaths of innocents.

I have no soothing words at the moment. Yet it is surprising, and hopeful, that in reporting the deaths of Ms. Milgrim and Mr. Lischinsky the reactions of the world, and specifically the wider Jewish community, have not (dared to) comment negatively on the fact of the victims’ religious beliefs as Messianic Jewish. Their being Jewish is demonstrated by their working in the Israeli embassy. Given the horror of being murdered for being a Jew, even our mainstream Jewish brothers and sisters can’t go down the divisive road. Perhaps these young martyrs became the ultimate bridge builders through their deaths, at least for now.

Strangely, perhaps that is the bigger point, that given the amazingly sacrificial, peace loving, bridge building lives of dedicated service, including being forthright in faith in Yeshua, the wider Jewish and Israeli communities will be less divisive on this issue. Beautiful souls are beautiful souls, even moreso when they live in the model of Yeshua.

Sunday morning as all of these thoughts were swirling in my head, as usual, I turned on Chagigah Radio. At that very moment (in a three hour program) the national anthem of Israel, Hatikvah, was playing. Of all the possible songs, this was what was on just then. As I reacted with tears and my heart outpourings to HaShem, the next song played was The Sound of Silence in English and then by Shulem in Hebrew. Cheryl and I had just sung that song to the melody of Adon Olam the morning before at Shabbat services.

When I originally put the lyrics of Adon Olam to The Sound of Silence it was just to create another melody option to our closing song at Shabbat services. Little did I know then how God would bring all of this together at this very moment so powerfully to minister to me and to share with you through the lyrics of these songs brought divinely together so synchronistically by Him:

Adon Olam

“‘Lord of the world – who reigned before any creature was formed – at the time when all was made by God’s will then God was proclaimed ‘King.’

. . .

He is my God, my living redeemer, and the Rock of my destiny in time of distress.

. . .

Into God’s hand I commit my spirit, both when I sleep and when I wake; my spirit I entrust to God; Adonai is with me – I shall not fear.”

. . .

The Sound of Silence

. . .

“‘Fools’ said I, ‘You do not know, silence like a cancer grows,

Hear my words that I might teach you,

Take my arms that I might reach you,

But my words, like silent raindrops fell

And echoed in the wells of silence.

. . . ”

Song after song, so relevant, soul piercing, meaningful, divinely communicative as I was praying and meditating on the loss of these two young diplomats for peace.

He is our King. There is no fear when we stay reminded of that truth. May we also be reminded of His words, His teachings, Yeshua’s sacrifice of His life for us, and not be silent in these days so desperately in need of change.

Shabbat shalom.

Diane