Question: Why
did Rachel Imenu save our soldiers during Operation Cast Lead but did not
during Operation Protective Edge?
Answer: A fool will believe
anything. There are two types of extremism:
one is to deny miracles, and the other is to believe someone who tells you
there was one. We need to check. It is possible that the person imagined
seeing something or someone. Sometimes even
a sane person imagines things, especially one who is under pressure, tired or
hungry. He thinks he sees something that
isn't there, and later fosters it in his memory. This is called FMS - False Memory
Syndrome. It may have been a non-Jewish
woman who was seen and mistaken for Rachel Imenu. There are also good Arab women. Or maybe someone dreamed up this idea to
strengthen faith, and to say: "You see?
There are people who go to war and there are people who don't go to war
but they pray, and Rachel Imenu came to save us on account of their
merit." But we need proof for such
matters. There were soldiers who fell in
battle and Rachel was not there. There
were also soldiers who won battles due to their great dedication and wisdom and
courageousness to fight, and Rachel was not there. This means that Rachel was not there in the
image of a woman guiding them and telling them go this way or that way, shoot
here or shoot there. But Rachel was
certainly there - in both Operation Cast Lead and Operation Protective Shield -
in the sense in which we explained: the inner power which sustains the Nation
of Israel and returns us to our Land.