As people of faith and a part of this nation, we are keenly aware that throughout our history God has used our enemies to bring judgement against us and return us to Him. The book of Judges is a template of how God used Israel’s enemies to chasten the fledgling nation dwelling in the Promised Land whenever they lost sight of their identity as His chosen people and began worshipping other gods, thus enacting the covenant curses He enumerated in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Today, the lines of this curse speak to new, deep wounds in our souls which they describe:

The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven…

You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it…

 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand…

The sights you see will drive you mad. -Deuteronomy 28:25, 30, 32, 34

In response to enemy attack, ancient Israel would repent and cry out to God to save them, and He would raise up a deliverer. Israel continued in this sad cycle throughout her ancient history until God began sending His prophets to warn and call the people to repent and return to God, lest He bring destruction and exile upon them. Finally, God sent the great Prophet, Yeshua Himself, who stood overlooking Jerusalem and sorrowfully declared her impending judgement that would result in an exile lasting nearly two-thousand years…until 1948.

THE CHASTENING OF MODERN ISRAEL

Since the establishment of the modern state of Israel (a miracle and fulfillment of biblical prophecy), Israel has experienced two main instances of God’s chastening through our enemies: the Yom Kippur War which began on October 6^th, 1973 and again, fifty years later (according to the Gregorian calendar), on October 7^th, 2023—a day which fell on another biblical holy day (according to the lunar calendar), the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles when we celebrate the Word of God given by Moses to the Israelites.

The surprise attacks Israel experienced in 1973 and 2023 have a number of elements in common. In both instances, Israel’s government and military were completely caught off guard. In the wake of each attack, the entire nation, including our leaders, was struck by the terror that this attack could be a third “chorban bait” which refers to the destruction of the two temples: in other words, national destruction.

In the months since October 7^th and the years since the Yom Kippur War, it became apparent that pride and arrogance in the government and security agencies caused a great institutional blindness to the many warning signs of an attack. Indeed, the failures in each instance are so egregious that is clear God struck our leaders with blindness.

Finally, each of these terrible blows against modern Israel came on two of our most significant biblical holidays: Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) and Sukkot (The Feast of Tabernacles). Understanding that as a nation, we are in the template of blessings and curses God established in the Torah, today we must tune our ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to us. The voices of the prophets who spoke to this nation in ancient days and foreshadowed our present regathered nation echo the same message time and again:

My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water. -Jeremiah 2:13

OCTOBER 7TH: A FIERCER JUDGEMENT

The attack we suffered on October 7^th was far worse than what struck us fifty years earlier. On Yom Kippur 1973, Arab armies attacked us from vast open territory in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights. Yom Kippur war battles were fought between the military forces outside of population centers. On the early morning of October 7^th, a Sabbath and a holiday, Hamas terrorists crossed a matter of a few kilometers to attack defenseless farms, villages and cities where many were still asleep in their beds; they entered homes and perpetrated massacres that defy description. They massacred our people completely unhindered for most of the day because the army and security forces were in utter confusion and disarray.

JUDGEMENT OVER WHAT?

One of the greatest massacres on October 7^th took place at Nova, the desert rave where terrorists paraglided into the middle of partygoers. In one of the news broadcasts, I saw in the central pavilion set up for the party, the partygoers had erected a giant statue of Buddha around which they danced all night. My heart broke when I saw that. Many in Israel who saw that blatant display of idolatry did the quick arithmetic of “God is judging the hedonistic, secular Israelis for the sin of idolatry.” On many social media sites, Israelis lamented “the sin of the golden calf” at the Nova festival. But what I saw at that party were the lost sheep of Israel.

BROKEN CISTERNS

When Jews who have left orthodox Judaism seek spiritual meaning, they seek it in mysticism and eastern religions which they see as the only options open to them. Due to the legacy of Christian\western antisemitism which culminated in the holocaust and rabbinic teaching that the New Testament is a forbidden, dangerous Christian book a great barrier exists between even secular Israelis and the revelation of Yeshua as the Messiah.  While many, including many believers here in the Land, indeed saw October 7^th as God’s judgment on the sins of secular Israel – abortion, immorality and materialism—I felt strongly that the judgement of the Lord was against the spiritual shepherds of Israel who had rejected Him, the source of living waters, hindering anyone else from Him:

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” declares the LORD. Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says about the shepherds who tend My people: “You have scattered My flock and driven them away….” -Jeremiah 23:1-2

THE MESSAGE OF THE LAST DAY OF SUKKOT

In February we shared the prophetic word that our brother Oren received just weeks before the October 7^th attack. In the word, the Lord said that He would bring great suffering on our people in order to break the shell of religion which is keeping them in spiritual exile and hindering them from coming to Yeshua, the source of living waters.

In the days and weeks after the attack, while we were processing everything that had happened in the light of the word that the Lord had graciously given us, we realized that there was a deep and important message in the fact that the attack came on the last day of Sukkot, traditionally called Simchat Torah when we celebrate the giving of the Word of God. We realized with awe that our Lord, the Word of God made flesh, stood in the Temple two thousand years ago on the very same day and cried out:

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” -John 7:37-38

We believe that Yeshua’s cry to come to Him, the source of living waters and the living Word of God, is going out to our people right now in a more powerful way than ever. Our people have been led to broken cisterns (rabbinic Judaism) or have been fleeing to other broken cisterns (secularism, mysticism), but we believe that through this great tragedy that God allowed to strike us, many are seeking for truth more earnestly than ever and, in His faithfulness and mercy, He is drawing them to Him. Please stand in prayer with the people of Israel in this hour of trial that the shell of religion would shatter and release the people of Israel to come to their Messiah, the source of living waters.