Our prayers remind us that past is prologue

As we concluded the prayers of Yom Kippur and began the joyous task of building, decorating and ultimately residing in the sukkah, we’ve been able to reflect on some of the incredible tefillot of the Yamin Noraim.

Though many of us have recited these prayers hundreds of times, since last Oct. 7 they’ve resonated with an emotion that could not have been predicted.

I am sure many of you have had the same experience. Verses you may have recited (or mumbled) over the years, which seemed to be distant or not relevant in the past, now light up the page with a personal connection and immediacy.

Consider, for example, the paragraph said in the chazzan’s repetition for Musaf on Rosh Hashana and Shacharit and Musaf on Yom Kippur, right after Modim, the paragraph beginning “Avinu Malkenu.” We ask Hashem for mercy and compassion and list a series of calamities including “cherev, raav, shvi (bloodshed, famine, captivity,)” continuing with “every evil mishap … every sort of punishment” and then concluding with sinat chinam, baseless hatred.

That is the ultimate evil.

Given all that was going on in Israel for the year prior, how can you read this tefilla and not think of Oct. 7?

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As my rav, Rabbi Shmuel Ismach of the Young Israel of Great Neck, noted in his Yom Kippur drasha, we read the long list of the Avinu Malkenus that describe horrors that seem historical, from a distant time, and ask Avinu Malkenu, our Father, our King:

Take pity upon us, and upon our children and our infants. Act for the sake of those who were murdered for Your Holy Name. Act for the sake of those who were butchered for Your Oneness. Act for those who went into fire and water for the sanctification of Your Name. Avenge before our eyes the spilled blood of your servants.

But this is no longer are ancient history — it’s happened to us, our brothers and sisters, our loved ones, our fellow Jews, only a short 12 months ago! How can it not take on an immediacy?

And on a positive note, I remember sitting in shul on Rosh Hashana only a day after Iran fired 180 ballistic missiles at Israel. As we all know, it was a nes nigleh, and open miracle, that the barrage killed not a single Jew, with minimal structural damage. In fact, the only one killed was a Palestinian Arab.

Twenty-four hours later after the Iranian attack, I was davening, reciting a tefilla Shofarot in Musaf. The paragraph begins, “V’al yedei avadecha haneviim katuv leimor (and through your servants the prophets, the following is written: you shall see [that Israel has been ingathered] as if a banner were raised on mountaintops and you shall hear it as if a shofar were sounded).”

This is talking about Kibbutz Galiyot, the ingathering of all the exiles at the time of the Final Redemption. It continues, quoting two verses from Zechariah (9:14-15): “And it is said, And Hashem will appear to them and His arrow will go forth like a flash of lightning, and my L-rd will sound the shofar and shall go southward with storm winds. Hashem, Master of Legions, will shield them.”

But if you look at the Hebrew, the word for southward is not darom or negba, but teiman — the Hebrew name for Yemen.

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How can you read these pesukim in our tefilla and not see that is exactly what happened! Hashem sounded an alarm “as if a shofar was sounded” (the warning sirens in Israel). Then “His arrow will go forth like a flash of lightning.”

The Arrow missile interceptor system took out the missiles fired from where? from teiman, from Yemen! The videos we all saw show multiple interceptions taking out missiles and their fragments like “flashes of lightning” in the sky.”

Hashem went in “b’saarot teiman (like storm winds heading south)” to Yemen. And then the verse continues, “Hashem, Master of Legions, will shield them.” Isn’t that truly what happened? As we said, no Jew was killed, not one!

And finally the prayer ends with the plea, “So may You shield Your people with Your peace.” Isn’t that precisely what we need most right now?

How many times in the past have I read these verses in tefilla, understanding it perhaps as a metaphor, only now to be revealed by the power of hindsight granted to us by Hashem, that it is literally true.

My friends, if you want to truly understand what is happening, keep your eyes and ears open. Hashem is constantly broadcasting to us in real time. The frequency and platform is Tanach and tefilla.

Dr. Alan Mazurek is a retired neurologist, living in Great Neck, Jerusalem and Florida. He is a former chairman of the Zionist Organization of America. To reach him, write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com