Danielle is the youngest of our tight-knit circle of friends, but she is often the most perceptive.
Our group was talking the other day (as we do every day since that Black Shabbat) about the events of October 7, and she so perfectly summed up the stunned feeling we are all recovering from when she commented that the problem was “We all thought we beat Jewish history.” With those seven words, she encapsulated all the shock and trauma that has infused every waking day and sleepless night.
She gave expression to the constant pit we feel in our stomachs that has made us realize that more than anything else in this world, we are Jews.
We never beat Jewish history
I am no messianist, and although I never quite expressed it like Danielle, I too believed that with the State of Israel and all of its successes, “we did it”; that “we beat Jewish history.” We felt it without even thinking about it. This triumphalism is infused into every aspect of our culture. From the music we make, the dances we perform, the literature we read and write, and even the Torah we study. It is embodied in the use of the menorah surrounded by two olive branches as the chosen symbol of the state. It just “was.”
There is no difference between us and the fish, which are ignorant of the fact that they are surrounded by water. The redemption had begun, and even if decades were still ahead of us until the final redemption, we were in a forward motion toward the house of tomorrow, except that house had already become our home.
I had always looked askance upon assimilationists for thinking that by opting out of Jewish peoplehood they could beat Jewish history. But it seems that I too was guilty; that my embrace of my Judaism and Zionism was also a way of beating Jewish history. By beating Jewish history, I don’t mean that we believed we escaped Jewish history but that we had won the game.
We believed that we were the generation that made it through the vicissitudes and came out victorious. That we were the culmination of the legacy of Abraham and that, after 4,000 years and the Holocaust right behind us, we really thought we had finally won. The success of the Start-Up Nation, the sheer wealth that Israel enjoys, and the Iron Dome along with Israel’s other military victories made the world realize that Israel is here to stay – and that achievement was what laid the groundwork for the Abraham Accords.
We were the generation that would collect on the promises made in all of those biblical covenants. We were on the verge of a real peace agreement with the House of Saud, but that medieval massacre by Hamas, coupled with the equally medieval blood libel accusation of genocide, threw us back to the Middle Ages.
Every Passover Haggadah includes a small paragraph warning us of this very thing. We recite and even celebrate it with a raised glass of wine, but it starts with an interesting turn of phrase: vahi she’amda (“that is that stood”). For our ancestors and for us, not just one enemy alone stood to destroy us, but in every generation they stand to destroy us, and the Holy One Blessed be He saves us from their hands.
I had always thought that this was an unsubtle message to our non-religious guests joining us at the Seder, reminding them that they cannot escape their Jewish identity. I now realize that the intended audience included me as well.
The rabbis have applied much ink in trying to identify the “vahi,” the “that is.” Most identify it as the Torah or God, but I now realize that it is the very principle itself. What has stood for us in every generation is the fact that an enemy arises that tries to destroy us.
It’s been 80 years since the Shoah, and there are still over 245,000 survivors left in more than 90 countries. If that number surprises you as it did me, it only goes to prove that the Holocaust is not yet really over.
What, then, is Israel? To see Israel as a safe haven alone is like seeing the Hope Diamond as a paperweight. Sure, it’ll do the job, but you completely underestimate its true value. To think that the return of the Jews home to their ancestral land will yield anything less than a spectacular metaphysical jolt in the structure of the universe means you still don’t get who we are. To expect Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel to remain silent after resurrecting their language is a simple denial of prophecy.
Every day I doubt God. Sometimes for just a few seconds, sometimes for a few minutes. But what I have never doubted even for a moment is my belief in the Jewish people.
Am hanetzach lo m’fached m’derech aruka. “The eternal people does not fear a long journey.”
Our fault in thinking that we beat Jewish history is actually an echo of the sin of idolatry.
Instead of lending a form or image to God, we gave Jewish history a form, or at the very least made God’s plan “conform” to our human three-dimensional notions of time and space. We thought it was a game of Snakes and Ladders, ups and downs toward an eventual messianic destination instead of a game of four-dimensional chess.
Deuteronomy 29 tells us that one day utter destruction will visit the land and concludes that warning with the following words: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.” In other words, even after loss, God has His reasons, and our job is to continue the mission.
What’s left now is for us to remain humbled by the fact that we really don’t know how this all works, but the covenant made with us still stands. For me, Jewish particularism and exceptionalism are the twin pillars of my own belief in all of this.
I am here. My wife and children are here. We have pledged our wealth and ourselves to the Zionist endeavor and still have full, even if humbled, faith in it. The charge I give to my children is threefold: “The people of Israel in the Land of Israel according to the Torah of Israel.” We will remain here until handcuffs and chains tear us away. And even then, we will whisper to our progeny that same charge until God gives us another opportunity to come back here and try yet again.
We have no promises that this beautiful “third temple” that we have built here is the final redemption. We only know that Eretz Yisrael is the final destination. And if we did not stick the landing this time around, we will eventually come back again.
Until then, I invite you to join us to work our hardest to make this the last stop on the long road. If you do come along, I cannot promise it will be easy, but I swear it will be worth it. And if you don’t come and want to continue to ride out the Diaspora, well then, it’ll just be more work for the rest of us! ■
The writer holds a doctorate in Jewish philosophy and teaches in post-high-school yeshivot and midrashot in Jerusalem.