After 9/11, America went to war. It was a war that we knew was inevitable, but the American public was told to go about its business while Operation Shock and Awe, as the White House described it, took place in the background. We were only ordered to watch from the sidelines and bear its consequences without participating in its needs and investing in its outcome. Similarly, war with Iran, dubbed Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion by America and Israel, was inevitable. It wasn’t inevitable just because of 10/7. It was inevitable because Iran was the menacing root of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis that launched 10/7, and the source of terrorism against Jews in America and Europe, let alone the Middle East and western democracies and its leaders. So, Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion was a surprise to Americans but not Israelis, because Americans have been lulled into complacency by distance, ignorance, and distraction.

In recent weeks, I wrote, “War in the Middle East can feel far away, but globalization makes it closer than we might be ready to admit. Globalization is about more than markets and the internet. It’s also about closing the distance between faraway places through information, data, and influence. What used to be exotic because it was distant and unknown is now instantly available and familiar, whether it’s goods and products or antisemitism and terror.”

Now it’s critical to understand that war with Iran is a necessary evil that will lead us to an inevitable good. But we need and deserve more than a daily game plan subject to the impulses of one or two leaders, and a strategy that will assure the world and the global economy. As it was with Operation Shock and Awe, the American people are less attuned to Iran’s global reach and are in need of much more truth and information to support a war that is also aimed at securing the West and its democratic institutions.

My Shabbat message of March 6, 2026, goes to the heart of the matter. It addresses the moral imperative that urges America and Israel to war, and the local work that should continue to build necessary bridges between fragile relationships in Houston and major cities like it. Please take a few minutes to listen to my message and then respond to the call to action that I present at the end of my remarks.

As we prepare for what comes next, let’s learn well from Yitzhak Rabin who said in 1993, “We only make peace with our enemies, that’s why it’s called making peace.”

Oseh Shalom Bimromav, Hu Ya’aseh Shalom Aleinu…
עשה שלום במרומיו הוא יעשה שלום עלינו
May the One who creates peace above, bring peace to all on earth.
May the One, Creator of us all, transform our need for war into our greater love of peace.

L’Shalom,