Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This Jewish Inspiration Podcast is dedicated to learning, understanding and enhancing our relationship with Hashem by working on improving our G-d given soul traits and aspiring to reflect His holy name each and every day. The goal is for each listener to hear something inspirational with each episode that will enhance their life.
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
Welcome everybody. Good morning. It is so wonderful to be here this beautiful, magnificent Sunday morning here in Houston, Texas. I wanted to take some time before we get onto our regular programming of the Everyday Judaism podcast and talk a little bit about what's going on in the world. You know, the Torah tells us that there's a special blessing that should be recited
when one comes back from a dangerous place, if someone's stuck in the desert, or if someone is on a, in a medical challenge, someone's very ill, someone's in a prison, you're released. You should say, Hagom el hachayim chayavim tovot shegmala nikol tov. We're giving thanks to Hashem. We're giving praise to Hashem for His kindness, for His mercy, for His goodness that He has bestowed upon us. It's a very, very important thing that we need to do. We say this generally, people say it along with the Torah reading.
So when someone gets an aliyah and they experience something like I recently had in my synagogue, someone was ill. And when he came back, he's like, it's important for me to get an aliyah because I need to thank Hashem for healing me. I'm happy that I'm still alive. I want to just thank God. What is the, what is the blessing? Bless to you Hashem our God, King of the universe, who grants good things to the undeserving, who has granted every goodness to me.
And then the congregation responds, amen, may He who has granted goodness to you continue to grant every goodness to you forever. Such a beautiful blessing. What is, what is this blessing that we are, we are thanking Hashem? What is this blessing that we are thanking Hashem? So we need to recognize the mercy that Hashem has with us. I sat yesterday after Shabbos, I sat by my desk and I started asking my chat. I started asking, I asked the following question, how many missiles have been launched from
Iran to Israel in the past five years? So I have a total here that were recorded over a thousand ballistic missiles. Over a thousand ballistic missiles were shot, 1180 missiles, approximately 1180 missiles. Okay. Then I asked how many landed in populated areas in Israel and how many were intercepted? The answer was he gave in each one of the battles. Okay. How many landed on the first 150 that were sent in 2024, zero to one. Okay.
So 150 were sent and 99% were flicked out of the year by Hashem. In the October battle in 2024, 180 were sent and two to five landed in populated areas, landed but not necessarily populated areas. In 2025 in June 13, this past year, they sent 566 ballistic missiles of which 20 to 31 landed in Israel, which is 95% were intercepted. And now recently they sent 300 ballistic missiles and between five and 12 landed in Israel, some in populated areas and some in deserted areas.
And then I asked what's about the Houthis? And they sent approximately 180 missiles from Yemen all the way to Israel. And how many of them were intercepted? A total of 99% of them, 99%. Why is it important for me to go through all these numbers? Why like who cares about the numbers? Who cares about this? Is it a great miracle? Great. So I put everything together. Everything together in all of our teachings, you know, in our, in our prayer class, when
we talked about Hodu, we said, Hodu la Hashem, kiru bishmo, hodiu be amim al ilosav. Give thanks to Hashem, declare his name, make his acts known among the peoples. Shiru lo, zamru lo, sikhu bichol niflo osav. Sing to him, make music to Hashem, speak of all of his wonders. We shouldn't say, oh, it's in general, general rule, God has been good to the Jewish people. Here and there, a missile fell through the cracks. No, no, no, no, no, no.
Every single missile needs to be praised that Hashem intercepted it. Oh, Iron Dome, David's sling, it's nonsense. It's the hand of Hashem. The Iranians last week said that something supernatural is happening for the Israelis. The Iranian said that. Shouldn't we recognize the supernatural events that Hashem is performing in front of our eyes to stop and realize this is not normal? And we go about our day, and I don't see many people like, you know, here and there I hear
people telling me, you know, I too, by the way, I have children in Israel who want to come visit us for Pesach and can't leave Israel because their flights were all canceled. Oh, that's such a pain. It's such a heartache because we want our children to be back already to visit for Pesach and they can't. Do we realize the miracles that are going on? Do we realize the unbelievable magnitude of these miracles in front of our eyes? And when does it happen?
Right on the days of Purim, the days that precede Pesach. Who knows if it'll continue to Pesach? They say there was a talk of a ceasefire. Maybe, maybe not. We'll see what happens. But what happened when the Jewish people were in Egypt? They had the splitting of the sea, the splitting of the sea. What an amazing miracle. Everyone witnessed it. What happened just a few days later? 90 days later, they're serving the golden calf.
50 days till they receive the Torah at Mount Sinai from the splitting of the sea. And then 40 days after that, they have the golden calf. What's wrong with them? I mean, you just saw the splitting of the sea. You saw the miracles of the 10 plagues that transpired, that God demolished the Egyptians. And now you're serving a golden calf? What's wrong with you? You see, our nature is to just get busy with life.
Our nature is, and by the way, during this whole time, the Jewish people are benefiting from manna that descends from heaven every morning. They're living in miracles. And yet they don't realize the miracles. We are no different today, where we are living in miracles and not recognizing the miracles that we are experiencing. Combined, we have over here, what, 1,500 rockets, ballistic missiles? We're not talking about the ones from Hamas, 1,500. And what?
I mean, these things are 1,000 kilograms of explosives that can take out a city block. It's unbelievable. And yet people are just traveling around, going here, going there, in the United States, outside of Israel, in the Diaspora, and in Israel. People are just moving on with life. It's a little inconvenience, but we'll get through it. We have to stop and say, Hodu l'Hashem. We have to stop and we have to sing Hashem's praise. Wherever we go, it's the most miraculous thing in the world.
We're living in a world, they say that, you know, there are 2.5 billion Muslims. Not everyone is a terrorist, only 10% of them. Oh, sorry. So 250 million of them are. How many Jews are there in the world? 15, 17 million in the entire world. We're living in miracles. We have to say them. We said in our prayer class, we have to say it every day because if you stop saying the praises of Hashem, you start forgetting them. You stop recognizing them.
You stop seeing the goodness of Hashem. If you stop praising, every day, every day, pronounce it again. We wake up in the morning, say Hashem, thank you for saving the Jewish people. Thank you for protecting the land of Israel. Thank you for saving us. Whether it be the temple in Detroit, the terrorist, attempted terrorist attack or wherever else it may be. We have to declare this every day, vocally, pronounce it and thank you Hashem. Thank you Hashem. We're not running from anything.
I titled this, I ran, I ran, I ran. We don't know. We're not running. We ran till now. We're not running anymore. We're proud. We're proud to declare our Judaism. So Hashem wants from us. Hashem wants us to be proud. We don't take off the yarmulke. We don't take off the symbolism. We put out, pull out the high necklace. We pull out the Star of David. Wear it with pride. Not to hide our Judaism.
To embrace it and to declare Hashem's greatness every single day. It's unbelievable. It's unfathomable. The degree to which these miracles are clear in front of our eyes. They're clear in front of our eyes. I highly recommend, I have this, it's an alarm. It's called the Red Alert. Every time there's a rocket heading towards Israel, whether it be from Hezbollah, whether it be from the Iranians or from the Houthis, you get a notification. Just to feel it. So we don't feel numb.
And you'll realize that it's at every hour of the day. I think it was Thursday night. More than half of Israel was in the bomb shelters. All night. You know what that means? How many people can't go to work the next day? How many children are off schedule? How many kids are not going to be able to go to school? I mean the whole country, everything is turned over. Hashem is protecting us. Hashem is trying to wake us up.
Like what's the wake up call? Wake up. Wake up. Shake us out of bed. We're in a sleep. We're in a sleep, in a deep sleep. What I'd like to do is I'd like to encourage each and every one of us to declare every day. You read the news, you read these miracles, declare it. Say Hashem, thank you. Thank you for protecting us from those 13 missiles. Hashem, Thursday night, over a hundred rockets came from Hezbollah, from Lebanon. Minimal damage.
I mean minimal damage. Miracles. Maximum. Hashem is protecting us. Israeli technology is so advanced. Hashem's hand is so advanced. Creator of heaven and earth. Hashem is showing us every single day His miracles. We have to declare it. Declare it every day, the salvation that Hashem brings to us. We can't become numb to it. We have to recognize it every single day. We have to declare it every day. Share it every day. Thank you Hashem. Hashem should bless us all.
That we should all be uprooted from our comforts here in the United States, transported to Yerushalayim. We pray every day. Hashem, our eyes should see you return to Zion in our days, speedily in our days. With mercy. That Hashem's temple descend back onto the Temple Mount. That we be able to bring our offerings in the Temple. How important it is for us to realize, recognize, Hashem loves us. Hashem wants us. We have to desire. We have to, yeah, it's comfortable here in the United States.
It's comfortable, people in Europe, people wherever they are, till we get rattled. Oh, antisemitism. We have to wake up. We have to get ready. Prepare ourselves. My dear friends, we should continue to see the amazing, beautiful hand of Hashem every single day of our lives and declare it out in the open. Don't shy away. Don't run away. No I ran away. Run towards Hashem. Run towards Hashem, recognize His incredible miracles. We should continue to be blessed every single day. Amen.
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.