Be grateful for the good that abounds everywhere

Edna Freinkel, Johannesburg

How many thanked Hashem when reading this recent headline in the SA Jewish Report? “UN report calls BDS ‘fundamentally anti-Semitic’”. To quote the report further, “As Israel’s ambassador to South Africa, Lior Keinan, says this is hugely significant because for the first time in the organisation’s history, it has acknowledged that BDS is anti-Semitic and problematic.”

The more gratitude we express for the abundant good all round us daily, the more we will experience it, and make a reality of the love being expressed. For instance, there are thousands and thousands of Christian Zionists here in South Africa and internationally working for Israel, sending love and money. Whenever I’m with my Christian Zionist friends, I’m inspired. Their loving awe of Judaism and Israel fills me with humble gratitude that I was blessed to be born Jewish. The more we see love, the more we bring it into the world.

The following is part of an extract from a letter written by King Faisal to American-Jewish Judge Felix Frankfurter on 3 March 1919 quoted in Ten Days Ten Ways – Paths to the Divine Presence, a booklet edited by then Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks:

“We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in race, having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of powers stronger than themselves, and by a happy coincidence, have been able to take the first step towards the attainment of their national ideals together.

“We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through: we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.

“I look forward, and my people with me look forward, to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their places in the community of civilised peoples of the world.”

More good news: it was recently announced that gas from the Leviathan gas fields will soon be exported to Egypt and Jordan, and lead to Israel’s energy independence.

Let us all consciously, continually look for, rejoice in, and concentrate on the abundant good that abounds everywhere. Perhaps there could be a special corner in the SA Jewish Report for readers to send brief, good-news items others may have missed.