Do Not Despise the Day of Small Things

It was not just in the United States, that the failed assassination attempt of the former president Donald Trump, created conversation as to whether the hand of God protected him from certain death that day. Politics aside, the discussion in Israel had a different and more nuanced edge.

“2000 years ago Rabbi Akiva determined that “All is foreseen, yet we have free will.””

Drawing on the ancient rabbinical discussion of numerous pages devoted to the place of Divine Providence in the life of individuals and nations, around 2000 years ago Rabbi Akiva determined that “All is foreseen, yet we have free will.”  This Hebraic thinking does not sit well with the Western mind, in that it creates an unsatisfactory resolution to which we would seek clear-cut answers. Salvation for one at the expense of the death of another raises questions as to the unfairness of God, hence much of Judaism leans towards simply being thankful for an extension of life with a deep resolve to live our lives with better dedication and purpose: meaning, while the bullet missed Trump by a few millimetres, with or without divine intervention, we can marvel at the rapid change of events.

The impact of such tiny things changing the course of history is not new to the Jewish nation or to the world itself. The prophet Zechariah was the first to scold the returning Jewish refugees from Babylon, who upon seeing the first structure of the Second Temple in progress, complained it was not as glamorous as the first: it was far too small.

“Do not despise the day of small things” warned Zechariah. He knew that feelings of inadequacy and disappointments were because we did not have the future perspective.

Such is the case with all the small things in life.

Who would have thought that a microchip smaller than a finger nail could send a man to the moon, or fears of an unseen and unknown virus, would shut down the world?

Truth be told, we are surrounded by small miracles every day but mostly blind to see them as such.

“Yet it is the small things that save our lives”

Reading a page of someone else’s writings, can lift us out of ourselves and help change our minds. It is a well-known yet underrated cliche that with no guarantee of tomorrow, every breath that we take is a gift from Heaven. We give lip service to the miracles of the Master of the Universe, but are often unable to grasp them.

Yet it is the small things that save our lives. Little acts of kindness have a life-changing impact. A good word can often lift our spirits more powerfully than many a pill. A kind deed remembered is to be remembered and remains in our memories lifting us out of darkness like a spring in the desert.

Such was my experience, this last month when I travelled to Ukraine with three other Holocaust educators, a blood-soaked land where more people have been murdered than on any other place in history.

For a country that has not really memorialized its own genocide of the 1930’s committed by Stalin, it seemed, and was, too much to expect monuments erected for the murdered Jews. We travelled for days on the dusty roads surrounded by wheat fields and sunflowers, finding a few here and there, but feeling more forlorn as the time went by.

Hence, we could hardly believe it when in the forests outside of a small town where thousands of Jews were slaughtered, we came across a monument. We were even astounded to see under the Ukrainian inscription, that the monument was erected with the help of Christians for Israel.

For us, four Jewish Israeli historians, who like the rest of our people since 7th October have felt isolated and increasingly lonely, this was a tiny yet enormous moment where great things happened in our hearts.

Our gratitude to our Christian friends, gave us new hope. The deed connected us with our past, present and future. Although we could not answer the questions in life of suffering, that act of love and memorial reminded us, that whoever we are, it is our mission to engage in acts of kindness, because from these “day of small things” always comes great hope.

*) The photo is from the Murovani Kurylivtsi Holocaust Memorial. The monument, which was unveiled on 7 December 2018 by Christians for Israel, is located on a third mass grave, next to an old Jewish cemetery in Murovani Kurylivtsi.
See: https://www.c4israel.org/news/%E2%80%A8opening-of-a-holocaust-memorial-in-murovani-kurylivtsi/ for more information about this Holocaust Memorial. And also on www.yadvashem.org for information about Murovani Kurylivtsi.