16 Comments
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Solstice  Sunset's avatar

Shabbat Shalom, Mijal. Your writing was so beautiful and the analogies and metaphors in your parsha and story truly touched my heart and soul. Thank you!

Mijal Bitton's avatar

thank you so much

Richard Diamond's avatar

A beautifully grounded reflection on emunah as moral resolve—the courage to keep choosing what’s right and necessary, even when it’s hard, uncertain, and costly. It captures faith not as comfort, but as action.

Mijal Bitton's avatar

I love how you put it - faith as action. Faith as comfort is very seductive, but faith as action is what allows us to grow and move forward.

Tovia Ben Dovid's avatar

Thank you Mijal for writing this so beautifully! It is a wonder that a people and a nation who are the close descendants of those who survived the Holocaust, and suffered so much war, score at or near the top of the world's happiest! It must be emuna with a sense of purpose, values, the need to survive and all of it due to and with the help of Hashem!

ברוך השם, עם ישראל חי ושבת שלום

Mijal Bitton's avatar

Yes. I think we take it for granted that our people suffered so much and still created so much. But it is amazing and miraculous. Am Israel Chai indeed!

Kid Charlemagne's avatar

שבת שלום

עם ישראל חי 🇮🇱

Bazzy's avatar

As always, inspiring, topical, and beautifully written. Your work is a gift.

Mijal Bitton's avatar

This means a lot to me - thank you so much !

Michael Loren's avatar

It takes hard work to search for the impossible. B”H the impossible can be possible. Thanks for your beautiful piece walking on broken glass….Ouch!

Mijal Bitton's avatar

Thank you! Your words remind me of Ben Gurion's famous phrase, "In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles"!

Dany Guindi's avatar

When we ask for proof of G-d’s existence in this hard times, miracles happen which erase any doubts! To have all the hostages back home is truly a miracle

Mijal Bitton's avatar

Mamash. I keep comparing our times to a year or two ago when there was daily agony just thinking of them suffering. BH BH that they are home.

Amy's avatar

So evocative Mijal! Through sharing Rachel Goldberg-Polins piece about her internal life now that all hostages are returned, you have provided me with an unforgettable image that gives this narrative teeth. I now see the ground in-between the parted sea as broken glass. Its a narrow harrowing place inspite of the wondrous miracle of passage.

These days are fraught with a heightened sense of suffering but the wonder of the unknown draws us forward. Heschel surely understood Wonder as Emunah, the most potent answer to suffering. As you say, It implies Trust in the unknown, that we limited humans are not fortune tellers. We do sense there is according to Heschel" meaning beyond absurdity".

May the Song of the Sea propel us forward and blessed is Rachel who finds a measure of peace through Emunah.

Mijal Bitton's avatar

Thank you, Amy! Interesting, I didn't put together Heschel's idea of wonder with this idea of Emunah - but you are right, they are related. There's determination and transcendance in each. And it makes sense that you'd like Rachel Goldberg-Polin's metaphor - you always bring poetry in the way you think of Torah and life :)