2.7 Million Children United
A few weeks ago, a special large celebration took place at the Kotel (wailing wall) in Jerusalem, the completion of the ninth Children's Torah scroll—a milestone representing 304,805 Jewish children from communities across the globe, each of whom owns a single letter in a shared scroll. And now, the tenth has begun.
To understand why this campaign matters so deeply, we have to go back to a remarkable moment in history.
Israel’s Secret Weapon
Six F-15 escorts and eight F-16 fighter bombers roared off the runway from Etzion Air Force Base in southern Israel. The air was thick and tense. Prior to take-off, Lt. General Rafael Eitan briefed the pilots. "The alternative is our destruction," he said, displaying unusual emotion.
Israel's intelligence had recently confirmed that Iraq had intentions of producing weapons in their Osirak nuclear facility. The atomic bombs which the Iraqi reactor would be capable of producing from enriched uranium or plutonium could be as fatal as the one that landed on Hiroshima. Realizing the mortal danger facing the people of Israel, the Israeli government decided to attack. At 3:55 PM, while the country innocently bustled about its daily activities, the fighter jets secretly took off.
The Butterfly Effect
On December 29, 1972, American meteorologist Edward Lorenz presented a talk entitled "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set a Tornado in Texas?"
The Butterfly Effect concept, highlighting the possibility that small causes may have momentous effects, eventually became a metaphor used in very diverse contexts, many of them outside the realm of science.
A Soldier on the Ukrainian Front
In Nikolayev, Ukraine, a city where streets are nearly empty due to the precarious security situation, over 200 people of all ages joined the Rosh Hashanah prayers and heard shofar.
Local Chabad emissary, Rabbi Shalom Gottlieb, said that the turnout was “beyond expectations” since “the city is embedded in battle and bombings and the streets are empty. People stay barricaded in their homes and don't venture out. We couldn't have dreamed of this.”