We’re witnessing a biblical moment, not just a historical one.

Biblical times don’t demand fearlessness. They demand the courage to step forward anyway. To witness God’s greatness, and to dare to see our own.

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This is a guest essay written by Mijal Bitton, a spiritual leader, sociologist, and scholar.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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Like so many of you, I’ve been feeling it all since last Thursday — terror, awe, dread, gratitude — after Israel decided to preemptively attack the Iranian regime’s rogue nuclear program and military infrastructure.

I cried with fear when I first heard the news: Israel had struck Iran, launching an all-out war. Hours later, I was glued to my screen, stunned by the audacity and precision of the IDF, the Israeli Air Force, and the Mossad. Who are these people? I kept asking. How do they dare?

Then came messages from friends and family in Israel under fire. Exhausted, anxious, heartbroken. Yet still, steady. Determined. United. WhatsApp chats lit up with Israelis offering each other help and support. 

I felt humbled.

One phrase kept running through my mind: We are living in biblical times.

I’m not alone. Friends say the same on WhatsApp. I see it all over my feed on X. There’s something ancient and electric in the air.

Even the name of this operation — Am KeLavi, Hebrew for “A Nation Like a Lion” — is drawn straight from the Torah. Fittingly, a secular Israeli news anchor put on a kippah mid-broadcast and recited Psalms of thanksgiving.

My brother shared a photo in our family WhatsApp chat: missiles intercepted over Tel Aviv. One of the key defense systems at work, he noted, is aptly named Kela David, Hebrew for David’s Sling. He wondered what King David would think, knowing that one day his descendants would protect themselves with a weapon named for the sling he used to bring down Goliath.

Something is happening. Something big. It doesn’t just feel like history unfolding; it feels like history roaring.

I want to unpack why so many of us feel we’re living in biblical times. Because what we’re witnessing is not just a historical moment; it’s a biblical one. A time when divine greatness moves openly through the world, and human greatness rises to meet it. When miracles unfold and people step forward, even when they’re afraid. When they choose to live like lions.

This week’s Torah portion tells the opposite story. Called Shelach, it marks a turning point in the Book of Numbers. Until now, the Israelites have been marching steadily toward the Promised Land.

But what should have been a moment of arrival becomes a moment of collapse.

Moses sends 12 tribal leaders to scout the land. Ten return with fear — and slander. They describe the land as one that “devours its inhabitants.” They insist the nations living there are too strong to conquer.

Then they utter a line that echoes across generations: “We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we were in theirs.” Panic spreads. The people cry, rebel, and plead to return to Egypt.

The consequence is devastating: This generation will not enter the land. They will die in the wilderness. Only their children will inherit the future.

For centuries, commentators have asked: How could this happen? These weren’t fringe figures; they were leaders. They had seen the Red Sea split, stood at Mount Sinai, lived daily inside miracles. How could they fall so far, so fast?

Here’s one answer I’ve been reflecting on: Some commentators believe the spies didn’t want to enter the land because they preferred the spiritual safety of the desert, a life of protected holiness, without the burdens of nation-building and war.

Rabbi Isaac ben Moses Arama, writing in 15th-century Spain, suggested that the spies rejected the “limitations” of the land. They chose a life of open miracles and manna (the food miraculously provided to the Israelites in the desert) from the heavens (a spiritual oasis) over the responsibility of politics, agriculture, and power.

But this year, I think this commentary pushes us even further. What if the 10 spies’ preference for “spiritual safety” simply reflected how small they saw themselves?

Instead of thinking, “We can do hard things because God is with us.” they thought, “We should let God do everything — because we’re too small to even try.” When they saw giants, they could have been inspired to grow taller. Instead, they chose to become grasshoppers.

The tragedy of Shelach isn’t fear; it’s smallness. It’s the refusal to step into a kind of life that demands everything of us — and, in doing so, can elevate us. Biblical times don’t demand fearlessness. They demand the courage to step forward anyway. To witness God’s greatness, and to dare to see our own.

I think the reason this moment feels so intoxicating, so magnetically biblical, is because of how far it is from our daily reality. Here in the West, we live in a world of commentary and consumption, of protests and pixels, of outrage on demand. A kind of virtual reality: safe, performative, optional.

And I can’t help but wonder if our virtual reality is training us to be grasshoppers. To believe our voices matter more than our actions. That retweeting courage is the same as showing up. That we’re no longer capable of real risk or real sacrifice.

We are, in many ways, the children of Fukuyama’s “end of history” — citizens of a world where the great ideological battles are supposedly behind us, where everything is flattened into lifestyle choices and social capital. We perform urgency while floating in a sea of comfort. We scroll through crises but rarely step into them.

That’s why the dissonance is so sharp.

Because what we’re seeing in Israel right now isn’t virtual; it’s biblical. It’s the return of real history, capital H History. A society mobilized. A nation that recognizes miracles. A people fighting for its future, willing to pay a high price for the sake of life itself.

I’ll be honest: I’m still deeply afraid for our people. Even with all the pride in Israel’s accomplishments and the miracles we’re witnessing, we do not know what the coming days will bring. And yet, in the midst of it all, I feel the ache of being a spectator to sacred history, the pain of being far from a people living in biblical times.

I think of my Israeli relatives racing to the safe rooms, children in their arms and fear in their chests. I think of their anxiety, their uncertainty. But I also think — deeply, admiringly — about what they are doing. They are not just living through this moment; they are shaping it. They didn’t choose this arena, but they’re in it, showing the world what resilience looks like. They know they’ll endure.

What I’m feeling isn’t just admiration; it’s an invitation, a call. A reminder that we, too, can choose to see ourselves not as grasshoppers, but as lions. That we can step into our own arenas, carry our own burdens, and live our own biblical moments.

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