Following the election results, a heated debate is underway in Israel about who we really are.
Does the 'Tel Aviv state', which sets the tone in the media and cultural discourse, faithfully represent the mood among the people of Israel, or is it nothing more than a bubble disconnected from the majority of the people?.
How shallow are the attempts to explain the roots of the dispute as a struggle between reason and emotion, as if one side is acting rationally while the majority of the people are pursuing emotional tribal loyalty.
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These statements indicate that those people have learned nothing, and they continue the tone of empty arrogance that erupted in the contemptuous statements against 'those who prostrate themselves at graves and kiss amulets.'.
Who abandoned?
At the root of the matter is the same debate that has accompanied us since the beginning of Zionism and throughout the years of the state's existence: Are we a people like all other peoples or a 'people who will dwell alone'? Are the components of our identity the national symbols – state, territory, language – or the Torah and its commandments, which we have faithfully observed for more than three thousand years?
The most interesting process that has happened over the years is that it was precisely the sanctuaries of nationalism that were quick to abandon it.
Ostensibly, these should have been the greatest zealots for the integrity of the homeland, for the Hebrew language, for the uniqueness of Israeli culture. But it turns out that it was among them that nationalism became a dirty word – 'nationalism.'.
The land is no longer dear to them. They boast of foreign names and advocate assimilation into global culture.
And in front of them, who clings with their claws to every inch of the soil of the Land of Israel – Jews who reject nationalism as a substitute for Judaism, and believe in the uniqueness of the Torah, in "a people alone shall dwell," and in the holiness of the Land of Israel.
One piece
Because that's who we are.
In other nations, nationalism is indeed the glue that unites, but the factor that unites us is fundamentally different. There is nothing that binds people from Russia and Morocco, from Yemen and Australia, from South Africa and France – but the Torah and Jewish tradition.
There is no logic in a people being tied to a homeland they left two thousand years ago, unless they believed it was theirs by virtue of a divine promise.
Once the true basis of Jewish identity is omitted, one quickly discovers that the substitute does not fill the void. The disengagement from the Torah gradually becomes a disengagement from Jewish nationalism and love of the land.
The struggle within Israeli society has been abandoned today, and it turns out that the vast majority of the people reject the spiritual disengagement and believe in the unique status of the people of Israel.
This is the same community that sanctifies the Sabbath and kosher observance, respects the graves of their ancestors, kisses mezuzahs and puts on tefillin.
It turns out that everything is one piece. Whoever distances himself from the Sabbath and from kosher observance will also distance himself from his connection to the Land of Israel, and will also lose the basic instincts that allow the people to exist in the hostile environment, where they are surrounded by enemies who seek to destroy them.
And those who thought that the problems of the Jewish people could be solved without the Messiah understand today how much we need him.
