By DAVID LAZARUS, ISRAEL TODAY—
Once again, another inexplicable, perhaps even divine spin of events, will bring President Obama to Israel around Purim. Some see this is an opportunity for Obama to press for a renewed peace initiative on the newly elected Knesset. Others, a politicized Obama trying to get himself into the spotlight for some lame foreign policy legacy.
Whatever the reason, the timing of this sudden and rushed decision of the American leadership to visit Israel cannot be ignored. Who can forget their meeting on Purim one year ago when Prime Minister Netanyahu put a magnificent, hand-written manuscript of the Scroll of Esther into the hands of President Obama? With Mordechai-like clarity, Netanyahu declared to Obama, “Mr. President, we must stop Iran, before they destroy us!”
For the Jewish Prime Minister, it is a no-brainer; Israel is facing a modern-day Haman. In his speech to the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group, Netanyahu described Haman as “a Persian anti-Semite who tried to annihilate the Jewish people.” Netanyahu explained that “In every generation, there are those who wish to destroy the Jewish people. In this generation, we are blessed to live in an age when there is a Jewish state capable of defending the Jewish people.”
This time, even more than ever, Netanyahu’s message must remain clear, and not only to Obama. Purim must be a reminder to all of us, women and men, that we must take action to save ourselves. It is not enough to just allow events to take their course. We must not wait passively for some divine intervention.
That is the message in Esther’s Scroll. Purim is the assurance that the divine hand of intervention will turn the tables on Israel’s enemies, when someone is willing to stand up for what is right. The hero of Purim is neither fate nor consequence. It is the young girl, who with a good sense of woman’s intuition and gentle feminine persuasion convinces a King listen to her plea. It is about the “coincidences” that happen when a faithful Uncle risks everything to stand up for what he believes and does not hesitate to warn his people of impending danger.
While Purim is a constant reminder that Jews have enemies dedicated to our destruction, we learn from the Scroll of Esther that we also can, and should, do something about it. When the chips are down, and it seems like the cards are stacked against us, it is not time to sit around and brood. It is time to remember Purim, a celebration to shake us out of our apathy. It is a call to do something, something we can do, something we should do. Something that could turn the tables on an enemy, foil a foe by his own foolishness, or hang a Haman on his own hemp.
While Netanyahu is said to be considering military action against Iran, Israeli Author Yossi Klein Halevi believes that Netanyahu’s reading of the Purim story is understandable. “Tradition emphasizes that the Book of Esther is the only sacred text in the Hebrew Bible without God’s name in it, and that’s understood as an indication that this is a story that requires human initiative, that saving oneself requires human initiative, and that God’s help is implicit,” he said. In that sense, Netanyahu is reading the Purim story correctly when he calls for active Israeli self-defense against our existential threats.
This year as we approach Purim with a nuclear Iran ticking, killer chemicals floating over the Syrian border, Hezbollah missiles stockpiled in Lebanon, Al Qaida wannabes tunneling under Gaza’s sand hills and civil wars raging on our doorsteps, the stakes have been raised. Long ago the die was cast in the Middle East and we have long since crossed the Rubicon of diplomatic solutions for Israel’s security. Israel cannot and will not risk her survival to rhetoric and wishful thinking. The only question remaining is whether or not President Obama and the United States of America will cast their lot in time to make a difference.
Perhaps this Purim Netanyahu should highlight with a yellow marker for President Obama the passage in Esther that reads, “If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place… And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
Dearest brother Lazarus in Yeshua,
and dear brother Hutchisen,
How nice to read you! Amen! Obama is in the perfect position to make a difference for the better of Israel and he should use it quickly before the fate turns back against him and the American people for time, I believe, is running short.
So nice to read you after I’ve been surching for you brother Lazarus and your congregation in Israel in 2009 when I went. I am this french canadian women who met you and your wife (pregnant at the time) at the Toronto Blessing in the mid 90s and heart brokenly sobbingly confessing the sins of my people against Israel and begging for forgiveness.
I have remained faithfully active to speak for Israel and the defense of the Jewish people trying to spread the truth and all necessary informations related to it and the jewishness of the Gospel of our Lord as much as I could with my extreemely limited resources. When in Israel in 2009, I was hopping so much to find and see you and your wife & to visit your congregation and offer my volunteer services for the time I was there and to learn some Hebrew, but learned only at the last minute that you were in Yaffo through your pastor/rabi friend at the church close to the entrance of old Jerusalem at Jafa Gate. I then had no resources or time left to try to go to Jaffa and find you and participate at your gatherings.
God richly bless you and strenghten you and your family and congregation. One must never forget that we restle not against flesh and blood (Eph.6) in this battle in order to have the way cleared for action in favor of Israel. I have had a first hand notice of that a year ago when 3 hours after witnessing to the same jew, here in Pensacola, Fl.,for the 3rd time and seeing him finally very open, I got hit by a Taxi cap while crossing on a pedestrian light and had to be brought to emergency at hospital for a badly broken leg and head concotion. Had to be operated and they put a metal plate in my leg. Evenmore, as I wasdoing missionary street evangelism on a volunteer basis, the church I was attached to let me down and did know me anymore after this accident. So I was left to myself and stranger, pennyless and helpless alone in this foreign country and city once so full of God’s glory and annointing that you could feel the annointing growing as you were coming down on the road from the nort.
Not wanting to go in more details about this ordeal, I can just testify that it was hell through unbelievable circumstances following this accident and knew first hand what it ment when to defy the ennemy straight foward with integrity and hole heartedness in faith for the truth to prevail and the Glory of the Lord shine forth. But it turned out that faithfully the Lord didn’nt let me down, and while I’m still in difficult circumstances, may faith and resolve are stronger than ever and I have been able to sow hundred times more for the Jews since and because of that than before. The Lord rescued me, I do not regret anything and praise Him that I could go through that to learn first hand that everything works for the good of those who believe in Him… and that what seemed to be an end at the time was a new beginning to get more strenght and resolve, better equiped as I remind myself that that devil can’t stop the plans of our Lord for the Jews and if He dare to shoot at one of God’s soldier for the spreading of His Gospel to the Jews and the defence of Israel and fight against anti-semitism, he is only in for a begger lost. Praise God, I have been able to do more to reach jews and defend Israel in that in the past 6 months since this accident than I would have ever thought.
It is true that the devil has threthened those who bring the gospel to the jews or keep in good fellowship with the messianic jews and fight antisimitism in the church and in the world, but it is also very true that Yeshua said that that devil is only AS a roaring lion! At one point I was loosing all hope to have a usefulness anymore in the kingdon during this ordeal, but the Lord brought just in time someone with just the right words for me to lift me up, and sustain my faith again in just 5 minutes. And there I was focussing again on the Kingdom what ever the price.
The Lord had told me as I entered the USA to be faithfull unto death… This fight is real but we only see the tip of the iceberg of it the real fight of course I know you and brother Hutchisen know it, is in the spirit realm. And I now want to proclaim boldly that Nos weapons formed against us shall prosper… and that Obama and the American people ought to stand up more boldly than ever for Israel and loose sight of the bening consequenses of that confrontation from the ennemy in view of the so much greater victory and blessing deriving from standing up in such a time and moment as now!
Love you and your wife and pray for you and your congregation, Israel and the Jerusalem Connection ministry everyday,
Shalom,
Beulah