Some Thoughts for Back to School Week by Aaron Hecht

This week, my two sons joined 2.6 million other Israeli children, and tens of millions more all over the world, in that most beloved (and hated) of childhood traditions, the first day of the new school year.

I know how blessed we are that both of my sons are in an educational framework that is WAY above the average for Israel. I won't say much more about that, but I've seen the evidence that the principal's at both my eldest son's high school and my youngest son's primary school cited to back up their claims to being among the best schools in the country and I was convinced by it.

However, I am also under no illusions that this is sufficient.

The test scores of Israeli high school graduates have been at the bottom of the barrel for OECD countries every year for a very long time, and it's no mystery why. A recent study was published showing that Israeli teachers have some of the lowest levels of professional skills in the OECD. If the teachers are barely able to read, write, and explain complex situations, we can't expect the students to have these skills.

The problems go beyond poor test scores and have also begun to show up on factory floors and board rooms, as older workers (many of whom were immigrants from the former Soviet Union, which for all its faults had an excellent education system) retire and companies struggle to find younger people who have the skills and knowledge necessary to replace them.

But Israel is not alone in having problems along these lines.

In the last few years, I have seen one news report after another about university freshman in America, Canada, Western Europe and Australia showing up on campus unable to read even basic passages out of their textbooks or take notes in class. Professors also report students being unable to hold serious discussions about many topics because they simply don't have the vocabulary and also have a hard time focusing on anything for any great length of time.

I am therefore "that dad" who takes away his kids' screens for at least two hours every evening after they come home from school and makes them read books, play educational games (often playing with them, because that makes it more fun for everyone) or going outside and burning off energy at the park by playing with our wonderful little dog.

I'm even "that dad" who downloads worksheets with math and science problems for my sons to work on if their teacher didn't give them enough homework. I'm "that dad" who pays for them to take karate lessons and signs them up for whatever summer school programs are available from the municipality, sends them to the camps provided by our church, or anything else I can think of to get them off the couch and off their screens.

I am also "that dad" who reads the daily portion from the One-Year Bible to my children at bedtime, and you better believe I'm "that dad" who prays for them every night as they're going to sleep, and also every morning as they're on their way to school.

Brothers and sisters, I'm not saying all this to brag on myself, but rather to give you some ideas about how you can invest in your own children.

The schools do their best to give our children what they need and their teachers and coaches are, for the most part, dedicated and sincere professionals who care about the children and want what's best for them. The same is true of the pastors and youth leaders at our churches.

But they simply can't do it all themselves. 

If we want our children to grow up to be happy, successful, high-functioning human beings who will make positive contributions to society and stay with the faith after they grow old enough to make their own decisions then we have to intentionally invest our time, effort, money and other resources into making sure that happens.

It's not enough to drop them off at school in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon and then let them do whatever they want in the evening. It's not even enough to take them to church once a week and make sure they go into the Sunday school.

That's important, but it's not sufficient.

We must do more than that, not only for the obvious reason that we want our children to have the skills and knowledge they will need to get a decent job when they're done with school. It's not just about them getting a good job; it's also about them NOT falling away from the Faith and/or turning into a zombie/barbarian.

Beyond your local congregation (which you can and MUST sow into with your time, effort and above all your prayers) I can recommend two parachurch organizations which have been a huge blessing to my own life, especially my parenting journey.

The first is Family Life Today and the second is Moms in Prayer.

Last but certainly not least, I can't end this blog without saying once again that getting a dog for my family was one of the best decisions I ever made, and I recommend it for everyone.

Some Thoughts on Doom, Gloom, Prepping and the Bible by Aaron Hecht

I have been a "prepper" for several years now.

Some people might prefer to call me a "doomer" since they don't think the future is anything to worry about and anyone who does worry is just being overly pessimistic and ridiculous.

I don't mind it when people call me a "doomer" because it says more about them then it says about me, and I also don't mind because there's a chance, they're correct, and that I'm worrying about the possibility bad things happening too much. 

But I doubt it.

For that matter, my own lived experience has already provided me with plenty of confirmation that I'm doing the right thing.

In the last three years that Israel has been at war I have had many occasions to use the supplies, tools, skills and knowledge I had acquired on my prepping journey before the war started to make life more manageable for my family and neighbors. A few days after the war started, a young woman who had made Aliyah from America less than a year previously turned to me one morning as we were sitting down in the building's bomb shelter during a rocket alert and said, "you're one of those survivalist nutcases my mother warned me to stay away from, and I'm SO GLAD you're here with us now!"

Aside from when my wife said yes to my proposal of marriage it's probably one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me.

The most important "prep" I had prior to the war was being in good physical condition. I had been doing aerobics and weight lifting six days a week for several years and when this war started I found myself running around a LOT to help people in my neighborhood with all kinds of physically demanding chores, from cleaning out bomb shelters and safe rooms (which involves going up and down stairs a lot) to helping people do long overdue cleaning and maintenance on their apartments and giving out loads of free advice to people about what foods and drink, sanitary items, etc. they should be getting extra supplies of in order to get them ready to shelter in place for long periods of time if they needed to. I got many more expressions of gratitude for all this, but no one else ever called me a "survivalist nutcase" which made me kind of sad.

In the course of the war, especially during the really intense times as we were being bombarded by Iranian missiles, I had many more opportunities to help my neighbors and advise people about how to get ready for problems I saw coming around the corner.

But even I have my blind spots.

This evening's adventure

As I am sitting here writing this blog in my Jerusalem apartment, I have just spent most of the last three hours doing a "flight of the bumblebee" maneuver to try and get my home as ready as possible for a potential water cutoff after the Gihon company, which is the national water company in Israel, issued a warning that the taps might be running dry in several neighborhoods sometime this evening. Water supplies were already cut off to farmers in southern Israel this morning, and although I have no way of being sure, I'm guessing that if Gihon was issuing a warning here in Jerusalem, they were also doing so in other cities.

The reason for this interruption of the regular supply of water is that five of Israel's six ocean-water desalinization plants, which supply 80% of the drinking water, are currently offline. I saw the article about that in the newspaper this morning, in which the reason Gihon was giving for what they said would be a "temporary shutdown" was "severe turbidity" in the ocean water. I had to look up the word "turbidity" because I had never seen that word before, and according to dictionary.com it means "a quality of cloudiness or murkiness, particularly of water."

The article also said that Gihon was denying this shutdown was caused by a cyberattack from Iran or anywhere else.

Candidly, I'm skeptical.

If Gihon were to tell us that "extreme turbidity" had shut down one, or even two, of the desalinization plants it operates, I might be willing to believe them. But five out of six, all at once? That's a little hard to believe.

However, when I saw the article in the newspaper this morning, I was not particularly alarmed, even though I thought it was highly likely that an Iranian cyberattack HAD caused the desalinization plants to go offline. I know Israel has some of the best cyber defenses in the world and I also knew that this country gets hit by millions of cyberattacks every single hour, and this has been going on for years, and they almost never cause any serious problems. So I figured this problem would get fixed quickly and there was no danger of any serious issues.

Then, around 3 PM, the alert came in from Gihon that water pressure would be falling in several Jerusalem neighborhoods sometime in the evening and urging the general public to limit water use to essential needs.

I have to admit; I was quite shocked by this.

As much as I've been paying attention and trying to stay ahead of so many problems and issues, I had NO IDEA that the water supply in Israel was so tight. I had no idea how dependent we have become on desalinization, and I had no idea how quickly the supply could run out if those desalinization plants were to stop working for whatever reason. I always thought there were reserves available for at least a few weeks, if not longer, but we started feeling the pinch in less than 24 hours.

So, like I said, after getting the warning on my phone from Gihon, I immediately ran to the grocery store and got a few extra bottles of water, milk, juice and a bunch of fresh fruit (we were down to our last two bananas so I'd planned on getting more fruit this evening anyway.)

Then I did a load of laundry and washed the dishes which were in the sink and did a few other water-intensive chores that needed to be done in any case, but I wanted to get them done as quickly as possible in case the water pressure dropped significantly.

In the event, later in the evening, even as I was writing this blog, the word came down that the desalinization plants were beginning to come back online and there was no immediate danger.

But I don't regret the flight of the bumblebee routine I did today. It was good practice, and I'll use all the extra water and juice and fruit I bought today in the course of time. For that matter, the desalinization plants could stop working again at literally any moment, and next time the problem might not get fixed quickly like it was this time.

In a more general sense, I advise EVERYONE to take prepping seriously because the world is not getting any more stable, politically, environmentally, economically, culturally, socially, or in any other way. Natural disasters keep coming faster and faster, social unrest is increasing in many countries all over the world, there are all kinds of issues with supply chains for all kinds of things, including basic necessities like food and fuel, electricity and much else. These problems feed off of and into each other, and they can escalate very quickly and in unexpected ways. At the same time, the infrastructure that we rely on to make our lives what we've become accustomed to them being is a lot more fragile than most people realize, and there are many potential points of failure.

It's important to build margin into our lives so we can absorb shocks when they come.

What does the Bible have to say about all this?

Every time this topic comes up, someone will point out that the Bible advises us in 365 separate verses "fear not" and in Luke 12:26-28, Yeshua specifically says "If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith?

Yes, brothers and sisters, Jesus DID say that, but as is so often the case, one must look to the context of the verse to get its true meaning.

Jesus wasn't telling people not to work and earn money so they could pay for the things they needed. He wasn't telling them to not take sensible precautions and avoid problems if possible.

In fact, in Luke Chapter 4, when the Devil is tempting Yeshua and trying to get Him to do stupid, careless things by reminding Him that God has promised to take care of His followers, Jesus responds by reminding the Devil what God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6:16, "do not put the Lord your God to the test."

Then in Mark 13:32-37 He says But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”

This passage is a warning about being complacent and not paying attention to what is happening around you and the times in which you live.

It is NOT a commandment to be obsessed with "doom and gloom" but it IS a commandment to not be careless or negligent in looking after the things God has given you responsibility to look after.

As with so many other things, one needs to find the "sweet spot" where you're not worrying too much about the bad things that might happen but you're also not ignoring the fact that bad things certainly WILL happen.

That's what I've got for you this week brothers and sisters, I hope it blessed someone.

Onkelos and Uziel: The Curse and Blessing of Work

The curse and blessing of work

In the opening chapters of the Bible, God curses humanity with work.

Cursed is the ground because of you

By the sweat of your brow will you eat food

Until you return to the ground

It's true work is a kind of curse. I often see people lamenting that we have to work. "I just want to stay home and do [leisure activity]." A viral post made the rounds a few weeks ago on X:

Genuinely, I DO NOT like the concept of capitalism. I don’t want to work my job every day. I want to make art. I want to be in my garden. I want to feel something.

— ‏ً (@omgsidewalks) July 26, 2026

Lots of people dunked on this guy for wanting to spend time in his garden instead of working; an antediluvian desire if there ever was one! Of course, capitalism isn't to blame for work. Stalin's Soviet Russia had plenty of work, comrade. 

But I get it. Work does suck sometimes and I would sure rather be hiking, fishing, watching movies, reading books, or playing video games.

But work is also a kind of blessing. How can a curse be a blessing?

I've found that lots of idleness and lack of productivity isn't great either, long-term. Work is a kind of blessing that keeps us occupied in productive pursuits that benefit society. Work allows us to provide for ourselves and our families. In that sense, the curse of work is really an alternative form of blessing.

This is not foreign to Biblical interpreters. 

In Torah portion Re'eh, Deuteronomy 11, God says to Israel,

See, I give before you today a blessing and a curse.

The blessing would come if Israel kept God's commandments. And a curse would come if they didn't follow God's commandments.

What does this have to do with work?

 Two famous scholars interpret Deuteronomy 11 differently.

Onkelos translates it as we do today: "a blessing and a curse."

But Yonatan ben Uziel translated it as "blessing and its alternative."

Why "alternative", when a curse is the opposite of a blessing?

Onkelos lived in a dark time: Babylonian captivity after the Temple was destroyed. He translated it as curse because it's how people felt. (And indeed, the Babylonian exile was a curse from God; a plain, literal, tangible fulfillment of God's words in Deuteronomy 11.)

In contrast, Ben Uziel lived in good times when the Temple was standing and Israel was secure. He translated curse as an alternative form of good. 

When it comes to work, I side with Ben Uziel: it's not just a curse, it's an alternative form of good. And like Ben Uziel, I live in a good time with a good job, so perhaps it colors my view. But I remain convinced from my own life experience: work is a net good for humanity.

How can a curse from God be good? Because God corrects those he loves. God's curse isn't intended to destroy us, but to bring us in line with good.

The curse of work in Genesis, then, is meant to bring us in line with good. 

How so?

By engaging humanity into creative and productive pursuits that improve humanity and strengthen our dominion over the world.

Work is a curse and a blessing.

And if you're one of the few who love your work, well, you found the blessing inside the curse.