by Rabbi Dov Fischer in The American Spectator

It was a haughty, arrogant, and deeply vicious moment. On his way through the aisle to deliver his final State of the Union message, President Joe Biden shook hands of senators and House representatives in the traditional manner. As he came to Sen. Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, Bennet sycophantically brown-nosed Biden, complimenting him on “what you doing on the humanitarian stuff” amid Israel’s desperate and existential war to get back their hostages and defeat murderous Hamas terrorism permanently. Biden, crowing in his glory on the cusp of delivering the SOTU, did not merely say “thanks” but bragged: “I told him, Bibi — (and don’t repeat this) — but you and I are going to have a  ‘Come to Jesus’ meeting.” Bennet further “tukhus-lecked” (Yiddish for “brown noseing”) Biden, raising his eyebrows in great awe. Someone then told Biden that he was being heard “on a hot mike” — and Biden replied “Good. That’s good.”

(For the benefit of my non-Jewish readers who do not know the “BiBi” reference, that is the Hebrew nickname for men named “Binyamin” — i.e., Benjamin.  For the benefit of my Jewish readers (including me), I looked up “Come to Jesus.” Merriam-Webster says it means “a moment of sudden realization, comprehension, or recognition that often precipitates a major change.”)

Ever since President Trump was targeted that Shabbat day in Butler, Pennsylvania, there has been a great deal of talk about miracles and G-d’s role in our lives. I, too, recently wrote on that subject here. I cannot say why these things are happening or what G-d’s plan is. This sense of miraculous times all began with the unnatural survival of President Trump, who was a clear shot from that unguarded roof, and would be gone if he had not turned at that moment toward that chart tabulating illegal immigration under Biden–Harris. But there is more:

1. The worst human massacre against Jewish people since the Shoah occurred on Shabbat Shmini Atzeret, Oct. 7, 2023. Arab murderers — whether we call them “Hamas” or we call the non-Hamas butchers “Arab murderers” or “innocent Gaza civilians” — slaughtered 1,200 Israelis hailing from almost 50 countries, including the United States. The vast majority of those murdered were Israeli secularist leftists who hate Binyamin Netanyahu and the freely elected conservative Israeli government. Many were celebrating a pagan-like “Nova festival” on a night that observant Jews were gathered joyously in synagogues in Israel and throughout the world, celebrating the end of Sh’mini Atzeret and the beginning of Simchat Torah. Other massacre victims, primarily — but not at all exclusively — were Israeli secularist leftists who lived in kibbutz communities on Israel’s side of the Gaza border because they quixotically wanted to “advance peace” and believed in the inner goodness of the innocent Arab civilians, their comparative neighbors. Israel — you know, that genocidal apartheid country — maintained a policy of allowing thousands of Gaza Arabs to come into Israel every day, and these peace-focused Jewish leftists (think: Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, George Soros) welcomed the “innocent Arab civilians” from Gaza into their homes regularly. When the “innocent Arab civilians” had medical crises, they crossed the border, and their “Peace Now” dear Israel friends ambulanced them to hospitals. Those leftists were the ones who mostly were slaughtered. I mourn their loss, and hundreds of Orthodox Jews have been among the Israeli Defense Forces who have given their lives in Gaza for them. I mention the Leftist-Orthodox factor only to share at least two miracles:

There are incredible stories you have not heard in the American media, not even on Fox. At one kibbutz, a secularist wife later had become religious, observing Orthodox Judaism. Because the kibbutz was populated exclusively by leftist secular Jews who do not observe Shabbat according to its laws, she began to feel socially isolated on Saturdays. Therefore, she pressed her secular husband to agree to go away from the kibbutz with her every Shabbat (Friday sunset to Saturday nightfall) and to spend it in another community, a distance away, where Shabbat is observed. The husband resisted, but he finally gave in to his insistent wife. Accordingly, they were not home on Oct. 7. Today, the husband is more Orthodox than the wife. Did you know that? Praise the L-rd.

Case Two: Another such couple in another such secularist kibbutz near Gaza likewise had become religious over time and already had assumed the practice of going away every Shabbat to a place a distance away where Shabbat is observed. However, the weekend of Oct. 7, the wife got sick, and the couple stayed home at the kibbutz. That Saturday, as Arabs rampaged, slaughtering Jews, cutting off heads, putting live babies in ovens and baking them alive, raping living and dead women, and even worse, virtually every family at the kibbutz was murdered. But not the Orthodox couple with the sick wife. Why? Because the entire Oct. 7 slaughter had been coordinated by Hamas with hundreds of “innocent Gaza civilians” who regularly had been hosted and befriended by Jews in kibbutzim (plural of “kibbutz”) like that one near Gaza. For months, these “innocent Gaza civilians” had been preparing for Hamas sophisticated reports and diagrams, listing every address, every name of every person in every home in the kibbutzim, the number of each household’s children, whether there were dogs in the home, and any miscellaneous notes. For that newly Sabbath-observant couple where the wife got sick that weekend, the notes reported that Hamas should not waste time by attacking that home because that couple go away every Saturday for their Sabbath. So their home was skipped. Did you know that? Praise the L-rd.

There are many such accounts. I regard these as miracles. Others may regard them as coincidences. To each his own.

2. Joe Biden arrogantly bragged on March 7, 2024 that he had told the prime minister of Israel: “[Y]ou and I are going to have a  ‘Come to Jesus’ meeting.” This man showed an arrogance that should stir all of us to retain a core of humility. If you have to discipline an employee, do it. Be tough and strict if you must. If you must negotiate a contract with intensity, do it. If you are a head of government and believe that circumstances require you to talk down in an arrogant manner to another head of government, go ahead and do it. But don’t brag about it arrogantly to others when there is no need to do so except for personal arrogance. Go ahead and dress down Putin or Kim Jong Un, but don’t tell others in a way that they will be unnecessarily insulted, and do not give G-d reason to set you in place. If a “Come to Jesus” encounter means “a moment of sudden realization, comprehension, or recognition that often precipitates a major change,” then who on all earth has had a more “Come to Jesus” moment as Biden has only four months later? Nancy Pelosi, Obama, and a host of other Democrat leaders, and the leftist mainstream media that are a wing of the Democrat Party, have been pounding into Biden since his debate debacle of June 27 that he must realize, comprehend, and recognize that the moment has come, precipitating a major change. I just saw his 11-minute quasi-farewell. It seems it is he who has come to Jesus.

3. On the very same day — the exact same day — that Biden came to Jesus, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Congress. The very same day. Praise the L-rd. When Netanyahu scheduled with House Speaker Mike Johnson his day to speak to a joint session of Congress, neither could have imagined what else would be happening later that day. And yet, it was the arrogant Biden who came to Jesus, and Bibi to Congress.

4. As bad as the American Woke left is, the Israeli Left is 10 times more despicable. The good news is that they represent only 10 percent of their public, some 12 seats in the 120-seat Knesset (parliament). Since they cannot win elections anymore, they run for office, get wiped out at the polls each and every time, and then spend the next four years gathering 20,000 of them to the city center of Tel Aviv every single Saturday night (except when Iran, Hamas, or the Houthis of Yemen rain bombs on them). How bad is the Israeli leftist media? On the day that their prime minister was leaving for America to plead his nation’s case —their case — in our Congress, their equivalents of MSNBC and CNN were reporting, hoping to create a scandal, that the Netanyahus were traveling with nine pieces of luggage! Take that, Rachel Maddow! So I felt this speech would not be a successful matter. It further would be marred by Democrat legislators boycotting and Iran’s “useful idiots” rioting outside and inside the Capitol.

5. Bibi knocked the ball out of the park — and not just any park but Yankee Stadium (out of which no baseball ever has been hit, though Mickey Mantle twice came within 18 inches). It was a brilliant, forceful, magnificent speech that hit every point needed. It was elegant and bipartisan, effusively thanking President Biden for a lifetime of support, the Democrats for decades of backing Israel, deeply thanking Speaker Johnson and the Republicans for their overwhelming support, and President Trump for several remarkable ways he made history with Israel (moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, forging the Abraham Accords, and more). He addressed the corrupt United Nations “International Court of Justice” in defiant terms more elegant than they deserve. He exposed the Iran funding of international terror from Hamas to the “Palestine Authority” in Judea and Samaria to the Houthis of Yemen. He recalled Americans who have been murdered by Iran and their Arab Muslim proxies from American soldiers they have murdered and maimed with IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Iraq to the 241 American Marines they murdered in Lebanon to American ambassadors they have murdered around the world. He linked the “useful idiots” who rioted at American campuses with their Iran funding, and he excoriated the anti-Semitism of university deans like the three from Harvard, Yale, and Penn whom Rep. Stefanik took down in Congress. He made a passionate plea for the hostages whom Hamas still holds, including five Americans, and he introduced Congress to four IDF soldiers in the gallery: one, a hero from Ethiopia with no car at home, who ran 8 miles to defend the kibbutzim when word of the attack hit the news; another, a Bedouin hero who lost an arm in Gaza fighting and will be returning to the front; another, who lost a leg in Gaza, and will be returning. He continued speaking of the American–Israel alliance. It was a great speech. Larry Kudlow summed it up perfectly here

6. Notably, the reception in Congress was amazing. Republicans jumped to their feet, applauding robustly after almost every sentence Mr. Netanyahu spoke. The much-hyped Democrat boycott fizzled. Even Rashid Tlaib attended, with a little protest sign, a circle attached to the kind of wooden spoon you get when you buy a cup of ice cream, that could be seen only on MSNBC. The usual Israel haters — Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, and Bernie Sanders — were absent. Big deal. Kamala was absent, a violation of protocol, since the vice president presides over the Senate at moments like this. It won’t be her last protocol botch, and her antagonism toward Israel already is well known from her own statements.

7. A few hours later, a significantly diminished Biden, his face colored no less than President Trump ever has done, said his good-byes. It was appropriate that he had his opportunity to address the nation on the same day that Bibi had. The strength and determination — the leadership — of each was simple to compare and differentiate. Mr. Netanyahu had come to Washington. Mr. Biden had come to Jesus.

Originally published in The American Spectator

Photo Credit: U.S. Embassy Jerusalem on Flickr