I have always loved words and language. As a young child, I was a voracious reader, often of books beyond my understanding, but I read them all the same because I loved the language.
As a high school student, my favorite subjects were languages and I was privileged to learn French, German, Latin, and English. (So why did I study sciences and become a doctor? That’s another story for another day...)
Even now, I gain immense pleasure when I read well-written works, like those of the late great Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt”l, whose writings are like being caressed with fine silk.
This past week, while preparing one of my shiurim (Torah classes), I came across an expression that ignited my thought processes and touched my soul.
Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo, a Dutch-born philosopher, teacher, and deep thinker, writes passionately about the spiritual and physical danger he calls “existential dullness.”
It is not the threat of war, antisemitism, or political strife that most endangers the Jewish people, he suggests, but rather the quiet, creeping erosion of wonder. When we lose our capacity to marvel at the miracle of Jewish survival, the return to our ancestral homeland, and the thriving of a people once nearly extinguished, we risk losing our very soul.
The danger is normalizing the extraordinary
Existential dullness is not about laziness or apathy – it is a spiritual deadening. It is what happens when we normalize the extraordinary. When Tel Aviv becomes just another tech hub, when Jerusalem becomes just another capital, when the Jewish people see themselves as just another nation among nations, we have forgotten who we are.
This danger is not new; it is as old as the Bible itself. In the first book of Samuel, the Israelites come to the prophet Samuel with what seems like a logical, even modern-sounding request: “Appoint for us a king to judge us, like all the other nations” (I Samuel 8:5). But this request enrages the prophet. He sees through the veneer of normalcy and hears, at its core, a betrayal of the Jewish mission. God affirms his intuition: “It is not you they have rejected,” He tells Samuel, “but they have rejected Me as their king.”
Why was this request so problematic? After all, isn’t it natural for a people to desire political structure, leadership, and stability?
The issue wasn’t the concept of monarchy itself – it was the yearning to be “like all the other nations.” That desire undermined the essential truth of Jewish identity: We are not like other nations. Our survival, our mission, our homeland – all of it is rooted in the transcendent, the sacred, the covenantal. To forget that is to trade away the very essence of our peoplehood.
As the beloved children’s author Dr. Seuss once wrote, “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” This quote, simple yet profound, captures the heart of the Jewish mission. The Jewish people were never meant to blend in, to disappear into the background of history. We were born to be a light unto the nations, a people whose very existence testifies to the presence of God and the power of covenant. To seek sameness is to betray our destiny.
This is precisely what Rabbi Cardozo warns us against in our time. After nearly two thousand years of exile, persecution, and dispersion, we have returned to our land – not as colonialists, not as newcomers, but as an ancient people reclaiming its birthplace.
The soil of Israel is not just real estate. It is the ground where Abraham pitched his tent, where Jacob dreamed of angels, where David played his harp, and where prophets cried out for justice. Samson’s strength, Deborah’s courage, Gideon’s faith – all played out on this land. Our history is etched into every hill and valley.
Yet it is so easy to grow dull to the wonder of it all. The start-up culture, the modern amenities, the political debates, the ordinary bus ride in Jerusalem – all of it can numb us to the miracle. When we treat Israel as just another nation, its cities as just urban sprawl, its issues as merely political or economic, we lose the inner fire that sustains our purpose. Israel is not simply a state – it is a calling. It is meant to be the embodiment of the values of the Torah and the dreams of the prophets.
Rabbi Sacks echoed this idea when he wrote that “Israel was not born to be like other nations. It was born to be different: to serve as a living example of a society built on justice, compassion, the dignity of the individual, and the sanctity of human life.” But that difference can only be preserved if we remember that it exists – and that it matters.
This is the antidote to existential dullness: abiding astonishment. The kind that marvels at the rebirth of Hebrew on the streets of Tel Aviv, that is moved to tears by the sight of IDF soldiers dancing with Torah scrolls, that stands in awe before the Western Wall and senses not just stones, but the heartbeat of a people’s return. It is the wonder of a nation whose ancient texts speak of the very cities we now walk in, whose prayers longed for a return we now live within.
To cultivate this wonder is not to retreat into naivete or ignore Israel’s many challenges. On the contrary, it is to engage them with a sense of sacred responsibility. It is to say: We care because this is holy ground. We fight for justice here not just because it is right, but because this land has always been a testing ground for the covenant between God and His people.
The danger of existential dullness is that it leads to spiritual amnesia. It makes us forget who we are, where we came from, and why we matter. It tempts us to become what we were never meant to be: just another nation, in just another land, with just another flag. And when that happens, we lose not only our uniqueness but our very justification for existence.
Let us, then, resist the temptation to be like all the other nations. Let us preserve our sense of wonder, our abiding astonishment at the miracle of Israel and the eternity of the Jewish people. Let us see our homeland not with the eyes of routine, but with the soul of memory and the fire of prophecy. For as long as we remain amazed, we remain alive.
The writer is a rabbi and physician who lives in Ramat Poleg, Netanya. He is a co-founder of Techelet-Inspiring Judaism.