{"id":89367,"date":"2021-02-23T19:00:59","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T17:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=89367"},"modified":"2021-02-23T19:00:59","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T17:00:59","slug":"this-is-the-lords-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/this-is-the-lords-doing\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is The Lord\u2019s Doing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On April 9, 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. The next night, Washington D.C. was ablaze with light. Every home and public building had a candle or gaslight burning in every window, and a 160-foot wide cloth transparency was draped over the west portico of the Capitol. The enormous banner was illuminated with gas-jet lights, allowing citizens to read its joyous proclamation from many blocks away:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the Lord\u2019s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes\u201d (118:23).<\/span><\/p>\n

Just a few weeks earlier, Abraham Lincoln had told the nation in his Second Inaugural Address:<\/span><\/p>\n

“If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said, ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.<\/span>\u2019”<\/span><\/p>\n

Lincoln had thus told the nation that the Civil War was a punishment to both North and South for the collective sin of slavery, a sin which had enriched both halves of the country. Victory over the South soon followed, thus eradicating slavery, but at a steep price measured in soldiers\u2019 lives. With the war over, many joined their president in accepting that God had willed both its beginning and end.<\/span><\/p>\n

Few events bear such a far-reaching impact as war. Religious conviction prospers during war (and plague?); perhaps the real challenge is to recognize that \u201cThis is the Lord\u2019s doing\u201d amidst more mundane events. Tougher still is to cultivate a sense that not only the highs of our humble strivings, but\u00a0<\/span>also the lows<\/span><\/em>,<\/span><\/i> are \u201cmarvelous in our eyes<\/span>\u201d because they are the Lord\u2019s doing, and thus a test given unto us <\/span>for a reason<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps this is why our Sages established Psalm 118 as the climax of the Hallel we recite on Festivals and New Months. Of course it\u2019s good and right to recite the next verse, \u201cThis is the day the LORD made\u2014 let us exult and rejoice on it!\u201d (Psalm 118:24), on a day of celebration. But can we recite it with equal conviction every day?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Saying so will go a long way to making it so.<\/span><\/p>\n

image:\u00a0The Room in the McLean House, at Appomattox C.H., in which Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. 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