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As we follow the news from Israel, we hear mixed reports regarding the ceasefire.

Some officials report that the war will end in several days if all goes well; others say months. In the interim, suspicion on both sides continue to grow as Iranian and Hezbollah missiles and drones are poised to reign on Israeli population centers and as our IDF troops in Lebanon prepare to continue to engage in a relentless ground offensive. All the while, more and more innocent Israeli citizens and IDF troops are in harm’s way, and the trauma of war continues unabated.

We ask ourselves, when will the war finally end, how will it end, and at what cost?

As Israel engages in an existential war, we all pray to Hashem that the war will end soon and that Tehran and its proxies will be totally marginalized to the extent that their missiles and nuclear threats will be totally eliminated.

Last week, I heard a conversation between several news journalists and Israeli economists about a variety of theories and perspectives of what Israel and diaspora Jewish communities may experience once this war is over.

Although it was a fascinating conversation, it suggested daunting challenges unsurpassed in Israel’s history.

After listening to the conversation, I began thinking how insurmountable these challenges will be and how difficult it will be to rebuild our precious homeland to a state or to a condition that existed just prior to the war. It was beyond sad, daunting, and extremely frustrating.

With Hashem’s oversight, the ceasefire will remain in effect and war will end soon. But with this reality, the State of Israel in partnership with diaspora friends and partners, will be faced with a monumental imperative to rebuild Israel’s social, industrial, and economic infrastructure in ways never before required or imaginable.

As we know, this war has taken a tremendous toll on Israeli society. From Israeli families and IDF personnel in dire need of physical, medical, and mental health rehabilitation due to shock, trauma, and/or physical injury, let alone sheer exhaustion to major food markets unable to restock all of their goods or operate due to a lack of personnel and inventory; from apartment and office buildings requiring total physical rehabilitation due to infrastructure damage or destruction to Israel’s major high-tech industries that are losing an estimated 25% of their philanthropic investors including their biomedical research facilities that were forced to cease most of its operations.

These harsh realities do not include the closure of day care centers, elementary and high schools, as well as the emotional and psychological impact of the war on the psychological and emotional wellbeing of families, children, and community, especially those living in northern Israel.

Friends, these are just several of the daunting challenges and exigencies that Israel will be facing following the war.

Rebuilding, rehabilitation, and recovery will take time, resources, patience, and willpower. It will also require a major effort on the part of diaspora Jewish communities and their organizations to help raise desperately needed funds and to volunteer for Israel like never before in history. To be sure, it is not too soon to start planning for this daunting eventuality whether they be in the form of emergency fundraising campaigns, designated mega-gifts to Israeli institutions, or volunteering, if and when physically possible.

Although we are all currently preoccupied with the impact of war and with whether the pending ceasefire will actually hold for the long-term, we must at all costs begin planning for the “day after.” It is our obligation; it is our responsibility and our duty. And, above all, it’s about our bond and sacred commitment to ensure a strong, vibrant and healthy Eretz Yisrael.

It is important to note that most of our American school children currently attending Jewish day schools and yeshivot, never experienced a war in Eretz Yisrael of such intensity and magnitude. In fact, most of their parents and faculty never did as well.

As a result, it is imperative that our Jewish day schools and yeshivot engage in daily tefillot and Tehilim, in support of acheinu Bnei Yisrael currently living in Eretz Yisrael in the midst of the war and for those requiring a refuah sheleimah.

It is also essential that our schools, shuls, and Jewish communal institutions continue to engage in divrei chizuk and to move the current welfare of Eretz Yisrael to the top of their communal agenda. These critical moments must go hand-in-hand with increased Torah study, tzedakah, and other chesed projects.

Reality dictates that Israel will eventually recover from the war, it may never be exactly the same after the war, not unlike the manner in which October 7 changed Israeli society. We are nevertheless hopeful and mitpallel to Hashem that we will all experience and witness a stronger, more vibrant, and healthier Israel as it recovers from the war.

When the war finally ends, Israel will be in dire need of the following seven challenges, to name a few.

They include:

1. high-tech refocusing, realignment, and recalibration;

2. increased extensive mental health and social services (responding to trauma and increased training);

3. the reconstruction of infrastructure;

4. more extensive fiscal stability and economic recovery

5. increased and more sophisticated geopolitical global Security safeguards, and partnerships, and cyber-security protocols;

6. increasing Israeli military apparatus, equipment inventory as well as intensifying IDF recruitment and training; and,

7. the creation of a more sophisticated communications and public information and marketing effort in order to “present the true facts” regarding the Iranian threat to the world order and minimize false assumptions regarding the global Iranian threat in the future.

Critical to the success of rebuilding a stronger and more powerful, vibrant, and resilient Israel will be its capacity to encourage and promote a new wave of aliyah to Israel by diaspora Jewry—at least for those who are in a position to do so.

This war exacerbated by a significant rise of global antisemitism, offers an opportune time in our history to seriously consider yishuv Eretz Yisrael.

Will it be easy? Absolutely not. To be sure, it will be difficult, challenging, and demanding,

But, when in our history has it ever been easy for acheinu Bnei Yisrael to fulfill the dream and vision of living or settling in Israel?

What better time to make aliyah than at a time when Israel needs us the most?

This imperative is underscored as we witness a frightening firestorm of increased global antisemitism.

“Never again” meaning “never ever again” is a reality which world Jewry must confront head on.

The global support for Israel’s war with Iran and its proxies is just another example of how the pendulum swings both ways and how support for Israel can change on a dime.

Friends, we all know that the existential war with Iran and Hezbollah has had a profoundly difficult and destructive impact on Am Yisrael as never before imaginable. It is indeed scary, daunting, and frightening to say the least.

But just as we have survived, flourished, and lived through the ebb and flow of wars and threats, throughout history, so to, with Hashem’s oversight, we will continue to be resilient, strong, and robust following this war and for generations to come.

In the words of the great Lubavitcher Rebbe, “If you think positive, it will be positive.”

There is no reason to think otherwise.

Am Yisrael chai! 

Dr. Chaim Botwinick is a senior executive coach and an organizational consultant. He served as president and CEO of the central agency for Jewish education in Baltimore and in Miami, in addition to head of school and principal for several Jewish day schools and yeshivot. As an influencer, he has published and lectured on topics relating to education, resource development, strategic planning, and leadership development. Dr. Botwinick is co-founder of LEV Consulting Associates and producer/host of Chinuch Horizons podcast series. He is the author of Think Excellence, Brown Books, 2011.

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