Judge them Favorably! 

by Dovid Zaklikowski for Hasidic Archives

Before the 1991 Gulf War, the Rebbe encouraged the residents of Israel to remain in the land, and advised those who had planned trips to the country not to cancel them.

“There is no reason to worry at all,” the Rebbe told one family. To an elderly woman who asked if it was safe to move to Israel, the Rebbe responded, “If it is safe everywhere else, then certainly it is safe in the Land of Israel.” To a grandfather who asked if his children should return from the school they were studying at, the Rebbe said, “G-d forbid! It is G-d’s capital city. If they always needed to be there, then surely now.”

In Tel Aviv, there was a Chassidic Jew who was truly frightened by the situation, and he wrote a letter to the Rebbe. “We all are scared,” he wrote. “What will be?”

The Rebbe responded that saying “all” are scared is not fair to the many good people “who are complete in their faith” that G-d will watch over them.

To his question of “what will be,” the Rebbe responded by quoting the verse in Tehillim (Psalms 32:10): “The one who trusts in G-d is surrounded by kindness.”

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