In the beginning

On Friday, the UN's Human Rights Council continued its long history of condeming Israel for defending its citizens from eight years of rockets and bombings from Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This continues a long history of the UN attacking the rights of Israel to be a Jewish State and defending itself against attacks from Arab states and terrorists.

However, this criticism of the rights of the Jewish People in regard to Israel is not new. Yesterday, we read the first sedra of the year, Bereshit, about the creation of the world. Writing approximately a thousand years ago, Rashi who is still today the most important of the commentators on the Torah and Talmud; asked why the Torah begins with Bereshit (Genesis) and does not start with Shemot (Exodus) with the start of the laws given to the Jewish people.

His answer is that throughout history, the Jewish people's right to Israel will be questioned. However, through the story of creation the Jewish people will be able to show to all people (or at least people that believe in G-d) that the world was created by G-d, and G-d chose that the land of Israel should be for the Jewish people, therefore we can point-out to our critics that the creator of the world supports the rights of the Jewish people to have a soverign State of Israel.

Lets hope, a thousand years after Rashi, wrote this idea, people that question the right of the State of Israel to exist will think again, allowing the Jews to live without fear, so that we no longer have to defend ourselves against our enemies.