Thoughts for the last candle of Hannukah 2023

Thoughts for the last candle of Hannukah 2023

Tonight is the last night of Hannukah, when we will light the 8^th candle in our homes and place them outside – a symbol of the light overcoming the darkness. As we do so, we remember the Jews in many nations who are afraid to light the chanukiah this year, as antisemitism is rearing its ugly head on a global level that is deeply reminiscent of the years leading up to 1939 when the Nazis took power in Europe.

A number of years ago I had a recurring dream of being in Covent Garden in London and having to hide from Islamic militants with my mother and sister, fearing that we would be raped or murdered.  The dream was so vivid that at that time I begged them to stay away from London.  Watching the images on international news networks in recent weeks, of pro-Palestinian protests in London and Amsterdam and seeing Islamic prayers on the streets of major capital cities and even on the grounds of Westminster Abbey, I wonder if that dream will soon become reality, as they become emboldened in their rampage against the Jewish community.  My husband has family in London who are afraid and considering moving to Israel.  In the Land, we are hearing predictions of a wave of Aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel from the nations) that could reach one million. 

Jeremiah 16: 16 says: “Behold, I will send for many fishers,” says Adonai, “and they will fish for them. After that, I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down from every mountain and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. This would seem to be a new season of the hunters.

In the Nations they are proclaiming from the river to the sea Palestine will be free, but

Zacharia 9 v 10 says: “He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.”

This rise in antisemitism seemed to be a trigger response to what took place on the day that has become known as black sabbath; the day our nation will not forget quickly, the day that in a sense will define who we are going forwards from this moment, a day that some have referred to as worse than the Holocaust or Shoa, because it took place in our own land.  It has taken time to understand more fully and to digest the pain, horror, and agony our nation has gone through since October 7^th.

• The massacre of 1200 men, women, children, and babies; may their memory be a blessing.
• The rape of children, young people, and the elderly, and the desecration of the dead in unspeakable ways.
• The burning alive of babies in ovens in front of their parents,
• The taking of more than 240 hostages, including men, women, the elderly, children, and babies.
• Entire kibbutzim razed to the ground by fire, homes riddled with bullet holes as well as impacted by grenades and RPG’s.
• The borders of our nations aggressively breeched by air land and sea by thousands of would-be assailants and those who came seeking plunder from our homes, 
• The seeming threat of attempts to do this on other borders, to the east, from within Judea and Samaria, and the initial intensive air infiltrations and rocket attacks from the north,
• To date, from October 7^th to December 14^th, 2023, we have lost 444 soldiers, 444 of our finest men, may their memory be a blessing.

It has been as though our entire nation went into a state of shock, trauma and initial paralysis, followed by a wave of adrenalin that came from this existential threat to our nation. After this came the questions: How could this happen?  Why did this happen? And more practical questions – How do we get our hostages back? How do we ensure that this can never happen again?

1 Chronicles 12: 33 says this: “from the sons of Issachar—men who know how to interpret the signs of the times to determine what Israel should do—200 chiefs with all their kinsmen under their command;” This was a very small number of men within an army of more than 200,000 men. I.e. less that 1%.
This 1% was clearly very important because they carried the necessary insights to give direction to the Nation.

To understand the times that Israel is currently in, it could help to ask the following question:
What was happening before October 7^th?

There are three specific things that I would like to touch on in this regard:

1. The level of disunity in our nation,
2. The sins of Israel and the rave that took place in Reim,
3. The planned expansion of the Abraham Accords with the inclusion of Saudi Arabia,

The level of disunity in our nation.

Before October 7^th, there was a very pronounced level of disunity in Israel, ostensibly because of a proposed judicial reform that was being pushed by Netanyahu.  This reform was designed to address in undeniable imbalance that gave our rather left-wing supreme court the lions share of power in the country.  Those who were opposed to this reform were afraid that it would be used for personal gain and that it could turn our country into a dictatorship.  The passions ran so high on this subject that on occasion it erupted into violence on the streets.  There were fears that this situation could degenerate to the level of civil war, or even a military coup.  It was so serious that thousands of reservists were refusing to serve, endangering the security of the country.

It reminded me of the situation in Jerusalem before the Roman destruction of AD 70, when Israel faced a formidable enemy in the Roman occupation of their land but could not agree on how to deal with this threat.  This led to violence between brothers, with the Eliezar ben Yair writing at the time that the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem itself, as well as the expulsion of the people was the result of the sin of the people and their treatment of one another. I was deeply concerned, understanding that since God is the same, yesterday, today and forever, then there will be serious consequences for this level of disunity among our people.

In AD 70 the disunity created a literal breach in the wall of Jerusalem.  In 2023, we suffered a breach in the wall of our security that prior to October 7^th was already noted by our enemies. They were publicly gloating  in the international media, seeing that we were weak and vulnerable:

“Following the Knesset vote, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah described the passage of the bill as “the worst day” in Israeli history. “Israeli society — which thought that its army would not be defeated and that the state must stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates, and that Israel is a regional power — began to deteriorate in terms of its faith, its consciousness, its self-confidence and its confidence. … This is what puts it on the road to collapse, fragmentation and disappearance, God willing,” the Iran-backed militia chief said in a televised speech.”

“Similar sentiments are voiced in Iran. “Netanyahu at the service of the Islamic Republic! The Islamic Republic cannot destroy Israel, but Netanyahu can, and that’s exactly what he’s doing right now,” wrote journalist Ahmed Zeid-Abadi in the Iranian newspaper Kayhan.”

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/07/israels-enemies-gloat-friends-concerned-over-judicial-overhaul-chaos#ixzz8Ll8TZfH0

It is interesting that our enemies instinctively understood something that we had forgotten; that when our nation was unified historically, and when we were walking in right relationship with God, but when we were disunified and not walking with God, our borders shrank, or the Kingdom was divided, or worse still, God Himself expelled us from the land, as he did in 586 BC and 70 &135 AD.

By now we are all aware that on October 7^th the security fence was literally breached in tens of places in a seemingly unprecedented failure of intelligence that arguably exceeds the Yom Kippur War in its scope. In 1973 Israel knew that  an attack was being planned but were complacent and didn’t act on the information that they had.  Jonathan Cahn speaks about the significance of this 50-year time frame and the parallels are certainly striking.  Hamas deliberately chose this date, to put the “Palestinian struggle back in the limelight and identify with the Muslim world in its struggle against the existence of Israel.

If we dig into the meaning of Hamas in Hebrew and where it is found in scripture, and then examine the name that Hamas gave to this horrific “operation” – Al Aksa flood, some interesting observations can be made:

In Hebrew, Hamas means violence.  One of the places in scripture where it is found is in

Genesis 6:13 – Here God is going to judge the earth with a flood because He says:

va’timale ha’aretz hamas or in English “The earth was filled with violence.” It is fascinating that here we have violence or Hamas and flood in the same context because the name that was chosen by Hamas for one of the most violent operations seen in this land was the Al Aksa Flood.  Selah!  Here we seem to have three elements: violence, a flood, and judgement.  Historically God has often chosen to use Israel’s enemies to execute His judgement on her. Yes, His judgements are redemptive; He does not delight in this. Rather His desire is that His beloved nation repents and returns to Him.

The sins of Israel and the rave at Reim:

After October 7^th,  I went through a period of several weeks where it seemed to me that the Father wanted to show me the weight of the sins of my nation before Him.   It was a new experience for me and a very heavy one.  When I prayed, I would literally hide under my tallit because of a sense of grief and of the fear of the Lord.  I found myself crying out repeatedly – in judgement remember mercy, in judgement remember mercy.  During this period we recorded the song Rachamim with three generations of ladies and girls. This beautiful song is a cry for mercy and a prayer for the land and people of Israel.

He showed me many sins, I have written them all down and sometimes in recent weeks a small group have gone to sites connected with specific sins, in order to repent and ask Him for forgiveness as per
2 Chronicles 7:14 “IF My people, over whom My Name is called, humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Just days before October 7^th I had been teaching about how God protects this land and how the real iron dome is the hand of God and the angels that He sends to protect the land.  I had shared that it is documented scientifically that Israel could not exist if she were not protected by God due to the number of enemies she is surrounded by and the degree to which she is outnumbered.

Many in Israel have been asking:

• How was it that the army didn’t come for so many hours?
  Why was there such a massive failure of intelligence, or worse still failure to act on intelligence, the likes of which are strikingly similar to the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
• How could so many hostages have been taken with seemingly no resistance?
• How could the fence have been breached in so many places and by so many means?
• Where were our helicopters?
• Why did 500 of our soldiers stand outside one of the Kibbutzim for hours, doing nothing?
• Was there a stand down order?
• If so why?
• Are we not truly sovereign over our own affairs, rather being beholden to the international community for our response?

These a very important questions in the natural, and they deserve answers. However, there is a more important question.  If we acknowledge that God is sovereign and that He is the real protector of this land, then we also need to ask –

• Why did He lift His hand that day? 
• Why did He allow this to happen?
• What needs to happen in order for Him to return His hand of protection?

My overwhelming sense at that time was that the only thing way to repair this breach, and for God to return His hand of protection, is repentance from our people as we cry out to Him for mercy, with prayer and fasting.

These questions are on a similar magnitude to ones that needed to be asked after the Shoa, that are not politically correct to ask.  However, the heart from which these questions are asked is crucial.  Because otherwise they will heap condemnation upon a broken, and wounded people who are in mourning.  I am asking those questions from the place of a broken heart, and from fasting, tears, and prayers, as a Jewess and Israeli living in the land who loves and cares deeply for my people.  I am not asking them as an outsider and using them to point the finger and blame and condemn Israel.  I hope this difference is clear. I was “the worst of sinners” and it is only by His grace and compassion that I know Him today.  I was no different than those at the rave of Reim 25 years ago.

Just a few days after October 7^th, a friend of mine who has two sons serving in the army showed me a picture that shocked me to the core: It was a picture from the by now famous rave at Reim where so many were slaughtered.  The picture showed a statue that the people were dancing under, and above terrorists were paragliding into Gaza.  As people would discuss this statue, they referred to it as a Budha.  But when I looked at it, my immediate reaction was this is not a Budha.  This is shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.  After doing some research, I discovered this was in fact the truth and that not only was it depicted as a shiva on the advertising of the rave, but that there are those in the Land who worship shiva on a regular basis.

We need to understand that this rave was on Simchat Torah, the day when we celebrate the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, the day on which 3000 died because of the sin of worshipping the golden calf.  So, on this shabbat, the last day of the feast of sukkot, our people were at a rave in the morning, watching the sun rise, dancing in front of a shiva statue, with much alcohol and drugs and then – horror and sudden destruction came upon them. I was reading Isaiah 5 a few days, and was stunned to see these verses:

Isaiah 5:11 “Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks,
who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine.”

Isaiah 5:5  “Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge,

and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled.”

Isaiah 5:13 “Therefore My people are in captivity for lack of knowledge.”

On this day of the celebration of the giving of the Torah, God’s commandments to His people, almost every one of the Ten Commandments were broken.  This is very sobering. If it is correct that the statue worshipped was a shiva, we literally invited destruction to come on our land. Father, forgive us. Many have since prayed that God will close this door and declared that we do not want nor invite destruction into our land.

Leviticus 26 v 1-2 says:‘You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the Lord your God.² You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord.¹⁴ ‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments,¹⁵ and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant,¹⁶ I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you.” 

Surely on that day, we broke almost every one of the ten commandments. As much as Hamas terrified our people, we need to first fear God. 
Proverbs 9:10 says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

To date, 1200 died that day and it has taken weeks to identify the bodies because, so little was left of them.  In addition, 444 soldiers have died, both on that day and fighting in Gaza. One of the hostages who was recently released from Gaza had a tattoo placed on her arm – we will dance again.  This may remind us of the build back better slogan.  To me this is terrifying, because there is no sign of repentance, despite the absolute horrors that she has lived through.

It is also deeply sobering that the kibbutzim in the area known as the Gaza envelope are known as being among the most liberal “peaceniks” in the country, who employed many Gazan workers and believers that we could live in peace with them.  These same Gazans betrayed them by using their freedom to spy and to map out the settlements in detail, even to the number of people living in each home, so that they would know how many to kill.  This is a painful reminder of the Nazis who number the Jewish people in each European nation to eliminate every man woman and child.

However, on the walls of the one of the Kibbutzim, someone has written the following Biblical phrase ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.”  This is an indication that someone has understood.  Record numbers of soldiers have been requesting Prayer shawls and beautiful videos have been circulating of soldiers praying and singing before going into battle.  Several weeks ago, as we were driving to a particular site near Reim to ask God for forgiveness for what took place there, I was reminded of how when the ark was taken into the temple of Dagon, that Dagon fell prostate before the presence of God.  We are praying that this will happen at this time.  That as we worship and intercede, that the idols will fall before His presence. In fact, after we began to pray in this way two statues of Yasser Arafat were destroyed and fell in northern Samaria.

The planned expansion of the Abraham Accords with the inclusion of Saudi Arabia.

On the 26/10/2023 it struck me that on the day before October 6^th, Israel was about to sign a peace agreement with Saudi planning to join the Abraham Accords. Our Foreign minister was pictured there with his lulav and etrog celebrating sukkot! This is very interesting if we consider that the Israelites were encamped in Saudi where the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, and the Israelites would have been in this area during the first sukkot after the Exodus from Egypt.  It is fascinating to consider that the religion that most opposes the Torah and both Judaism and Christianity, Islam, arose from the sands of the same desert where the Torah came from!

A little over three years before this, The Abraham Accords was signed in Washington DC, on September 15^th 2020.  The next day, I felt that the Father wanted me to go to the Temple Mount and to film up there with my family, which I did.  On that day I sensed that he wanted me to speak this verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:3^“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”

My strong sense was that the peace part related to the Abraham Accords, the Peace to Prosperity Plan and the Deal of the Century, and that the safety was the catchphrase “safe and effective” that we heard repeated ad nauseum during the covid season.  I did not know what the sudden destruction was, but what happened on October 7^th can certainly be described as a devastating and sudden destruction that came one day after Israel was attempting to push forwards with the peace process.

The Abraham Accords, The Peace to Prosperity Plan and the Deal of the Century all include the  dividing of the land, the two-state solution and the making peace with Islamic countries. What kind of peace can this possibly be? It is surely not the true peace that comes through the Prince of Peace, Yeshua the Messiah. It is possible that if Saudi becomes more open and modernised, that there could be a new gateway for the Gospel into that land. (Some say that the church in Saudi is growing even faster than in Iran, although this is difficult to verify.)

It is now very clear that we do have any possible partner to make peace with in Gaza or the West Bank, my family witnessed first hand as our neighbouring villages (ruled by fatah – the ones that the international community is suggesting should rule Gaza) celebrated what Hamas had “accomplished”.  There are statistics circulating that show that an overwhelming majority of the West Bank support what Hamas did on October 7^th. 

Shockingly, one of the things that President Biden immediately started pushing for, even before he landed in Israel, right after October 7^th was a two-state solution – how can anyone possibly think that this is viable after seeing what we have just walked through? Even my 16-year son understands that this is a ridiculous notion, unless you want to outright destroy Israel as the only Jewish State.

As I quote what Netanyahu said about the potential deal with Saudi,  please remember that on March 10^th 2023 Saudi signed a pact with Iran, our sworn enemies, that was brokered by China, agreeing to bilateral diplomatic ties.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Friday that Israel is at the cusp of a “dramatic breakthrough”: a historic peace deal between his country and Saudi Arabia.

Israel on the cusp of historic peace with Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu announces at UN | UN News

“Such a peace will go a long way in ending Arab-Israeli conflict and will encourage other Arab States to normalize their relations with Israel,” he said, adding that it will also enhance prospects of peace with the Palestinians. The agreement, he emphasized will “encourage a broader reconciliation between Judaism and Islam, between Jerusalem and Mecca, between the descendants of Isaac and the descendants of Ishmael.”  Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East, the Prime Minster continued, noting that as the circle of peace expands, a real path towards “genuine peace” with Palestinians can finally be achieved. However, there is a caveat: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas “must stop spreading the horrible anti-Semitic conspiracies” against the Jewish people, and that the Palestinian Authority must stop supporting and glorifying terrorists. 

In his address, Prime Minister Netanyahu also said that a corridor stretching across the Arabian Peninsula and Israel, connecting India with Europe was announced by US President Biden, Indian Prime Minister Modi and European and Arab leaders at the recently held G20 Summit. The “visionary corridor” would facilitate trade, communication and energy connectivity for the benefit of over two billion people, he said.

For centuries, Israel was invaded by empires passing through it in their campaigns of plunder and conquest elsewhere, “but today, as we tear down the walls of enmity, Israel can become a bridge of  peace and prosperity between these continents,” Mr. Netanyahu added. 

The Israeli Prime Minister went on to note that there is a “fly in the ointment … the fanatics ruling Iran will do everything they can to thwart this historic peace.” He denounced Iran for its terrorist acts, including through proxies, threatening international shipping, holding foreign nationals as hostages, killing and arresting many of its own citizens, and supplying drones and missiles that “bring death and destruction to innocent people in the Ukraine.” “Yet the regime’s aggression is largely met by indifference in the international community,” he said, stressing: “To stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions. This policy must change. Sanctions must be snapped back.”

In his address, Prime Minister Netanyahu also highlighted the development of artificial intelligence (AI), noting that while it offered immense benefits for humanity, it also posed grave dangers. The world’s leading nations, however competitive, must address these dangers collectively and quickly, he urged, emphasizing that “we must ensure that the promise of an AI utopia does not turn into an AI dystopia.” He also noted his country’s role, “just as Israel’s technological revolution provided the world with breathtaking innovations, I’m confident that AI developed by Israel will once again help all humanity.”

 Prime Minister Netanyahu concluded his remarks, stating “bring forth the blessings of a new Middle East that will transform lands once written with conflict and chaos, into fields of prosperity and peace.” 

There are many things that are striking about this speech and I will try to pick them out one by one.

1. It is almost Messianic in scope in its desire for peace: To “bring forth the blessings of a new Middle East that will transform lands once written with conflict and chaos, into fields of prosperity and peace.”    We need to ask ourselves an important question:  Can peace be made between an Islamic nation and nations founded on Judeo Christian values? I would argue that peace with an Islamic nation can only be a false peace.  We should understand that many of the leaders of this region, as well as being outwardly Jewish or Muslim, are also very high up freemasons, so this potential peace may not be quite what we think. Perhaps it is rather preparing the way for the false peace and the man of peace who will demand the worship of all the nations, first eliminating all other religions. The solution is for the Middle east to come to Yeshua and for the believers in the Arabic speaking world who believe to recognize that they are part of the Israel of God. Isaiah 19 can then be fulfilled!

• The mention of Empires. Historically and biblically, Israel always sought to make alliances either with the empires of Egypt or with Assyria for her protection.    Today we are also making many alliances with modern day empires for our protection against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Houtis and so on.  We are aligned with America, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco though The Abraham Accords, and we have other extensive agreements with the UK and China.   Biblically, God saw this – as a betrayal because He wanted to be the One to protect us.   Israel had to pay taxes in oil and so on, as basically protection money.  Today, in the early stages of the war, in the votes of the UN against us, and in the constant demands for ceasefires, it has seemed that we are not truly sovereign and that others are dictating what we can and cannot do to make our borders safe again and to return our hostages. Who are we bowing to? There are some leaked documents that have come out that suggest that Saudi and the UAE may be involved in the rebuilding of Gaza after Hamas has been eliminated.
  
  
• Netanyahu also invokes the issue of Iran which is interesting as he takes a very clear stand against Iran, while wanting to make peace with Saudi who six months ago entered an historic deal with Iran?
  
  
• He highlights the potential dangers of AI. Is it possible that there could be a connection between AI and the IMAGE that will be set up that will demand the worship of all the nations??

Revelation 13:14-18  ^14 “And he deceives those who dwell on the earth through the signs he is permitted to perform, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image in honor of the beast who has the sword wound yet lived. ¹⁵ The second beast was permitted to give life to the image of the first beast, so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause all who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. ¹⁶ He also causes all—the small and the great, the rich and the poor, the free and the slave—to receive a mark on their right hand or upon their forehead. ¹⁷ And so no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark—either the name of the beast or the number of his name.¹⁸ Here is wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is a number of a man, and his number is 666.”

In my mind, there are many events occurring that are hinting as to how it will be before the rise of this imposter. This is good news, because it means that there is not much time left before the return of our glorious Messiah King! The Jewish people Jews had a wrong expectation at the time of His first coming, and so did not recognize Him.  They expected a conquering King who would restore the Kingdom to Israel and instead got a King who rode a donkey and died on a cross.  The second time will be the same – so we need to pray that this time the deception will be minimised to the greatest degree possible. This time, more than anything we long for peace, and this is how the man of perdition with manifest.

In conclusion: How can we pray and partner with God’s purposes in this?

• For men of Issachar to rise up in the Land, who understand the times and know what Israel should do.
• For Israel to become unified and return to God.  
• For salvation for the Muslims of Gaza.
• For Aliyah of the Jewish people from the ends of the earth back to Israel in fulfillment of His Word.
• For the unmasking of Hamas and Islam itself on an international level, even to the Muslims themselves.  Some of the Hamas terrorists who have been caught and interrogated have stated – even Islam does not permit these things.
• For the destruction of the terrorist entity that has ruled Gaza, ending the great repression even their own people.
• That the removal of Hamas from the Gaza Strip could also represent the removal of an oppressive Islamic spirit that has heavily restricted the sharing of the Gospel and persecuted the Jews.
• That as we worship and intercede, that the idols will fall before His presence.

We can continue to declare Jeremiah 31 whichsays “Only if this fixed order departs from before Me”—it is a declaration of Adonai— “then also might Israel’s offspring cease from being a nation before Me—for all time.”

36 Thus says Adonai: “Only if heaven above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then also I will cast off the offspring of Israel—for all they have done.”

It is a declaration of Adonai.