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Off the Pulpit

Is Israel A Miracle?


It is not easy to demonstrate miracles, but here are three things about the modern state of Israel that make one wonder:

1. The people who created the state came almost entirely from dictatorships and autocracies and yet created a democratic system of government.

2. The official language, Hebrew, is a language that had not been spoken as an everyday tongue for some 2,000 years. Yet it has produced novelists and poets of world class standing, including two Nobel prize winners in literature.

3. The Jewish people had been without self-governance and without an army for 2,000 years. They were decimated by the Shoah and surrounded by enemy states. Nonetheless Israel won the War of Independence against 7 countries and two irregular armies. Since that time, despite the constant threat of surrounding states, Israel has become a powerhouse in the region. One could multiply the remarkable stories about Israel, a place smaller than the state of New Jersey. It stands among the tech leaders of the world, and is in the forefront of medical and other advances. Do any one of these facts actually point to Divine intervention? I will leave it more prophetic spirits to declare, but it seems fair to say that, taken together it is all pretty miraculous.