Journey Toward The Light

Hashem is My Light

"O David, Hashem is my light and my salvation, whom shall, I fear?

Hashem is the refuge of my life, whom shall I be frightened" Tehillim 27:1

  לדוד ה אורי וישעי ממי אירא ה מעוז חיי ממי אפחד

    So, it came to pass in the days when the almost ten thousand Jews of the Jewish Gaza communities were expelled by their government in Jerusalem. At that time their beautiful houses were destroyed when their communities were surrendered to the Gaza Arabs whom in their hate promptly burned their synagogues to the ground and destroyed the rest of the farming infrastructure by which the Jews there made their source of income. Four small northern Shomron Jewish communities were also destroyed at that time. It was a time when Israel was under the extreme external pressure from the international communities of nations and the proliferation of the psychologically damaging Arab terror within the nation, which killed and injured many Jewish Israelis, resulting in the weakening of the minds and hearts of many good Jews. A Jewish man Yochanan ben Yehudah set out early one morning from Arad in the south which is near to the Dead Sea.

    It greatly disturbed him that the Jewish Gaza communities he had visited were destroyed. While in Arad, Yochanan on a certain night placed before his beloved G-d, his desire to visit the renewed emerging community of Beit El located in the Binyamin region north of Jerusalem. Did Rabbi Tvi Yehudah Cohen Kook have it correct when in 1977 he sent wise students to establish a new Yishuv with a yeshiva on what he believed was the location of the ancient Hebrew

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town of Beit El? Was this the place that our father Jacob had his dream of a ladder to heaven?

    So, Yochanan awoke early in the morning and prepared himself to go. However, he saw that there was torrential rain coming down. He was disturbed by this heavy rain that appeared to be a great obstacle to his long trip. "Was Hashem saying that I should not go?" he thought to himself. However, he reasoned that he had not asked if he should go or not, but rather he placed his intent to go on this journey. Therefore, wanting to keep his word and having a great desire to go there and believing Hashem will watch out for him, therefore he set out toward his destination.

    Yochanan in the early morning darkness loaded his car with his needs and set out in the torrential rain. He could see very little even with his car lights on. He drove very slowly as he descended more than one thousand meters from Arad down to the Dead Sea highway. The road going down was narrow, steep and streams of water were rushing down between the hills with him as he slowly inched his way down. He reached the bottom and turned north on the road. The water was rushing down the side of the mountain ridge on the left side of the road and sporadically boulders and rocks fell onto the road as he drove slowly and tried to avoid being hit by them.

Send Your Light and Truth

"Send Your light and Your truth, that they may lead me; they shall bring

me to Your Holy Mount and to Your dwellings" Tehillim 43:3

שלח אורך ואמתך המה ינחוני יביאוני אל הר קדשך ואל משכנותיך:

    A short time later the rain began to become calmer. By the time Yochanan had reached the half-way point going up the Dead Sea on Highway 90, the rain had stopped but the clouds had remained dark and very thick. There was no wind. With a little further driving he noticed above the mountains on the north west side of the highway, in

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the very far off distance, a glow in a spot in the clouds. "What could this be?" he thought to himself. He knew that if Hashem goes with him, any divine orchestrated anomaly could come about. Could that be approximately where Beit El is, and is Hashem pointing the way for me, he thought to himself. He continued to drive on Highway 90. He kept his eye constantly on this glow of light in the clouds. As he approached the turnoff onto Jerusalem, he saw that the glow in the clouds was actually a narrow beam of light and although still very far off he thought that it pointed approximately to the place he was going although he had never been there. After ascending about two thirds of the way up toward Jerusalem on Highway 1 he turned onto road 437 going northwest. It is a few kilometers after the north turnoff to Kfar Adumim. Continuing the drive, he approached Highway 60, going north. The road extends from Mount Gerizim at Sh'chem in the north going south to Be'er Sheva. It is the ancient Holy Path (Derech Avot) that Avraham took when he came from Haran into the land when he first camped at Sh'chem at Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval. Jacob also camped and settled before Sh'chem and he purchased a plot of land there.

At Sh'chem Joshua brought the entire camp of Israel to his location with the women and children after crossing the Jordan River. Here they affirmed the covenant of Torah and vowed to be one people and one to Hashem and keep His Torah on this land. Here Joshua buried the bones of Joseph on the plot of land Jacob had purchased. Joseph's tomb remains there until this very day, located between the two holy mountains. It is an enduring witness to the life of Joseph.

An Ethical People

    It also happened here when Jacob returned from Haran, that there was a violent encounter when two of Jacob's sons killed the men of the city of Sh'chem because it was there that their beloved sister Dina was defiled by its leader. Shimon and Levi executed the man of

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Sh'khem. From that point on the people of Canaan were put on notice that an ethical people had come into the land. Many in the land feared Jacob's family would not tolerate their debased actions and would execute on them their moral indignation. This brought great fear in the people. Such an idea had never been introduced in such a way. However, for the righteous Jacob the mild man, the actions of his sons were wrong and too extreme. Jacob departed with his family and continued on the holy path. Hashem said to him,

"Arise and go up to Beit El and abide there, and make there an altar to the G-d who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau." Beresheet 35:1

"And Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan that is Beit El and all the people who were with him. He built an altar there, and he called the place El Beit El, for there G-d had been revealed to him when he fled from before his brother Esau."  Beresheet 35: 8-9

Hashem appeared to him again there and said among other things.

"Your name is Jacob. Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name." And He named him Israel. Beresheet 35 10

Beam of Light

   After connecting with Highway 60, Yochanan travelled north about thirteen kilometers until the road that turns off going west at a small Jewish outpost Yishuv called Givat Asaf. He was still watching the beam of light. The clouds were still very thick and there was no wind. That road soon came to an end at another road. The sign said Ramallah with an arrow pointed south and Beit El with an arrow pointing north. Turning north Yochanan could see the top of the hill where the Beit El yishuv is located. He also could see the precise spot that the beam of light was touching at the top of the hill. He drove up the eastern side of the hill to Beit El. At the precise moment he reached the top he drove into the beam of light at the spot where there was a kikar (traffic circle). The trajectory of the light was on an angle

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going from the earth up and a bit toward the south up into the clouds angled toward Jerusalem. On the ground the diameter of the light beam may have been about three hundred meters or so. Yochanan felt the warmth of the light on his face from the driver's side window. He instantly recognized that G-d was affirming to him that this was the place where Jacob had his dream of a latter to heaven. In that dream G-d said,

"And behold, Hashem was standing over him, and He said, "I am Hashem, the G-d of Avraham your father, and the G-d of Isaac; the land upon which you are lying, to you I will give it and to your offspring. And your offspring shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shall gain strength westward and eastward and northward and southward; and through you shall be blessed all the families of the earth and through your offspring. Beresheet 28: 13-14

Was G-d not telling Jacob that the mission of his children was to elevate the nations of the world?

"....I will give you as a light of nations, to be My salvation until the end of the earth" Isaiah 49: 6

ונתתיך לאור גוים להיות ישועתי עד קצה הארץ

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