The Jewish state is fast approaching its 77th birthday. For Israel and its supporters, it is a day to give thanks, to joyfully salute all those who came before, who made Jewish independence and Israeli freedom a reality against impossible odds, despite the legions of enemies who have tried, and failed, to snuff this miracle out of existence.
As Israel still fights on many fronts, having survived too many genocidal foes throughout its history, it looks forward. Since October 7, 2023, Zionism breathes with new life. For the first time in nearly eight decades, the Jewish nation has shed the illusion of “normalcy.” It will never be a normal nation. It is a unique people with a special mission – far greater than survival alone. To thrive now means to fully embrace its exceptional status as the sole guardian of Hebraic civilization.
There will be many articles (as there should be) that will point out how, despite all its suffering and isolation since that black Sabbath of October 7, Israel remains among the top 10 happiest nations on earth. Others will recount the long list of gifts bequeathed to the world by this besieged state. Still others will gravitate toward the hopeful future of a people tested in the fires of an 18-month war, emerging with a new generation of warriors ready to meet the challenges ahead.
This author, however, will be more precise.
What can Israel do to be greater?
Despite four previous generations of Israeli mainstream culture largely untroubled by the gap between Israeliness and Jewishness, the fifth generation is decisively different. It represents the budding of a Hebraic revival.
More than any other outcome of October 7, this is the true harbinger of an Israel that will no longer be reckoned with by the old standards.
The pursuit of normalcy is no longer Israel’s goal. It now seeks to build a guardianship over a rebirthed Hebraic civilization that will endure. This is the greatest gift Israel could receive on its 77th birthday: a movement no longer reactive, but reaching toward something greater.
As Rav Soloveitchik taught, the difference between fate and destiny is profound. Fate is what happens to you; destiny is what you choose to become. Middle Israel, after the trauma of October 7 and the outrage at the world’s reaction on October 8 and beyond, has made that pivot assured.
Still awash in war, inflation, political dysfunction, and secular-religious dislocation, we, the Israeli people, have made up their minds: We are in this together. We are here for a reason beyond survival. However defined, we are one Jewish family. The road ahead will not be clear. There is no comparable example from which Israel can draw lessons. A people exiled for millennia, surviving pogroms and Holocaust, jihad and Inquisition, only to re-birth a nation-state, this is not merely exceptional.
It is miraculous.
The beginning must be to reconcile with our history: to remember that we stand on the shoulders of giants. If we are to be the guardians of a deep Hebraic tradition, we must honor the giants of earlier epochs.
This week, with the jihadi takeover of Syria beginning to take root, reports have emerged that Islamist hordes have vandalized and desecrated the resting place of one of Judaism’s great mystics: Rabbi Chaim Vital.
Born in Safed in the 16th century, Vital became the foremost disciple of Rabbi Isaac Luria (known as the Holy Ari), one of the founders of modern Kabbalah. Rabbi Vital’s writings Etz Chaim (“Tree of Life”) and Shaar HaGilgulim (“The Gate of Reincarnations”), remain foundational texts of Jewish mysticism. In his later years, Vital settled in Damascus, where he led the Jewish community until his death in 1620. For centuries, his grave was a site of reverence – until now.
Lessons must be learned. A revival of the Jewish national soul begins by protecting the memory of our national figures, even those buried in the Diaspora. Whether through active maintenance or, when necessary, Entebbe-like operations to bring our Hebrew heroes home, Israel must act. Who else remains in Syria, awaiting our guardianship? Two of the 12 Tribes of Israel, Naftali and Asher; King David’s chief of staff, Yoav ben Tzeruyah; the prophets Elisha and Eliyahu. These are not minor footnotes, they are pillars of our civilization.
Yes, it is crucial that the IDF hold the military high ground in Syria. But bringing back our heroes and safeguarding their memory is no less important. This is the language of civilizational revival. It begins with protecting our historic legacy, and honoring those who built it in the earliest stages of our national life.
The road to reconciliation and revival is surely untread, without precedent, and not for the faint-hearted. But we must take lessons from our youth on Israel’s 77th birthday: to be daring and courageous for the sake of our elders whose bones deserve to return to Zion.
Especially when their resting places are desecrated by death cults.
This is the first step of an old-new Zionism: a Zionism moving beyond survival alone and toward the destiny of Jewish national revival and the reconciliation of a long-dormant Hebraic civilization.
The writer is a co-founder of the Jewish National Initiative and a hi-tech executive.