The history of the Jewish people can be drawn by the junctions at which this nation needed to "recalculate its course." At each such juncture, we faced a crisis that threatened our continued existence, and we had to make new decisions whose courage signaled the future.
Today, after more than 70 years of the state's existence, cracks are opening in the unity of the people and questions arise regarding the righteousness of the path. This time, it is the internal disputes that threaten to dismantle us. How did this happen to us? It seems that the foundation lies in the fact that the "justice of the persecuted Jew" is replaced by the question of the nature of existence that will exist in the State of Israel. The watershed between these two directions began prominently after the Yom Kippur War.
On the one hand, a miraculous military success, and on the other hand, a terrible failure of the leadership and a loss of faith in it. For the first time, blatantly, it is not enough that we won – but that the space is occupied by much larger questions: for what? What kind of society will be here after the war? The crack that opened after that war is deepening. What is cracking is not Israel's military might or the security of our being an inseparable part of the region, but the confidence in the justice of the path and the way it is walked.
Today, 50 years after that terrible war, the bunkers on the Golan have become tourist sites and the black fields have been painted with green bloom, but it seems that the existential threat that was removed gave way to the questions of substance that began to emerge then. We may have reached the most dramatic crossroads of the last 2,000 years.
The theme that if we do not come to our senses, our enemies will immediately eliminate us is no longer the main muscle that shapes the identity of the children born in Israel today. As evidence, recruitment figures are declining. The children born today will not know Holocaust survivors, will not know Kippur fighters, and the reasons for the criticality of a national home for the Jewish people will be more distant history than an existential question.
It seems that this time, fully, we have the privilege of choosing which country will be here and what values will be here. On the table are questions such as human rights, state values, minority rights, the place of the individual, and other questions that have no place in times of emergency existential distress.
In the new reality, the order of priorities is changing, and the disagreements are over what is at the top – this is the main thing that causes today's social divide.
The response to the social chaos will not be to defeat one side against the other. We must abandon the pretension of "aligning the line for one answer" and understand that seeking unity through uniformity is not the right answer at our crossroads.
In contrast to times of existential emergency, when the answers are placed from above, in times of identity crisis of the kind we are currently experiencing, decisions must come from below, and since there are many opinions on the ground, neither side must "win" over the other.
In his wonderful book "Kol HaTor", the Vilna Gaon explained that in the third redemption, upon returning to Israel, we are guaranteed to succeed, because this time it will be "Ata'ara Delta" - an awakening that comes from below, from the people, and not from above.
It seems that the existential threat that was removed gave way to questions of the essence that began to emerge in the Yom Kippur War. We may have reached the most dramatic crossroads of the last 2,000 years
It seems that this time the political and military establishment will have to listen to the voices of the public, open dialogue and open dialogue, and look for joint solutions.
At the same time, all levels of society must function responsibly, and resolve conflicts through ways of dialogue and partnership. The leadership must not repeat the sin of arrogance of the Yom Kippur War, when it broke away from the people and sought solutions guided from heaven.
The decision required at our crossroads is precisely the ability not to seek a decision, but to create a reality in which there is room for different voices, by placing the value of unity above these questions.
How do we do that from now on? The choice is ours.
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us