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The Untold Story of Global Terrorism: Are You the Bow or the Arrow?
This powerful and life-changing women's Lag Baomer class, on why we shoot arrows on Lag Baomer, was presented on Tuesday, Lag Baomer, 5786, May 5, 2026.
It is a most perplexing and fascinating story—Hagar and Yishmael—and it is read every Rosh Hashanah.
Did you notice a very strange expression? As she walks away from her thirsty child, not to be with him at his moment of distress and not see his death, the Torah says, she sits down at a distance, “a bowshot away.” It is the only time such an expression is used in Tanach. What is it supposed to mean and symbolize? It could have just said, “she sat at a far distance”?!
And then a few verses later, we come back to the bow. Yishmael, her son, becomes an archer, “the master of the bow.” What’s the significance of this detail? He may have also taken on pickleball or yoga. Why is this important?
There is a profound message here, and it will teach you about our world today more than any website, newspaper, or book in the world. It will also teach us our mission today during turbulent times.
There are three ways to respond to tension, pressure, and anxiety. The Hagar away: You look away, or you run away. The Yishmael way: You become the master of tension, making the world panic as you smile.
Today we want to discover a third way. This is the Jewish way, and it’s the Jewish secret. We are the “masters of the arrow.” The secret of the arrow is: The deeper the tension, the more you apply the pressure, the further it strikes, with more impact and intensity. We are the Divine arrows of history. The more tension we experience, our “arrows,” our force and light, soar and reach the greatest of distances with the deepest might and power.
The story of Jacob, David, Joseph, Moses, and Esther—captures the powerful secret of Jewish history. Reb Akiva taught us how to take the bow of Yishmael and transform it into transformative growth, becoming G-d's arrows to transform the world from darkness to light, from exile to redemption.
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