We are the best generation of Jews ever and we chose to forgive God out of love - opinion

For nearly a thousand years, in the great universities of Europe, defending a doctoral thesis was a grueling ordeal – filled with anxiety, rigorous questioning, and, often, disappointment.

Thankfully, today’s process is quite different. The truly difficult work – the meticulous research, the rewrites, and the countless back-and-forth exchanges – happens long before the defense. By the time the defense occurs, it is largely ceremonial, a celebration of what has already been achieved through years of diligent preparation.

I would like to suggest that this past holiday season was much like a modern thesis defense – a ceremonial occasion, or, dare I say, a victory lap. It marks the culmination of a year we already, through extraordinary circumstances, spent defending a simple but powerful thesis: that we, the Jewish people, are amazing!

One year since the Simchat Torah massacre and 3,330 years after Sinai, we had more men putting on tefillin this morning and women who went to the mikveh last night – than anything King David or Rabbi Akiva could have ever imagined. 

These past holidays, there were more Jews in synagogues listening to the shofar, fasting, shaking their lulavim, singing, and rejoicing with the Torah than ever before in Jewish history.

Let me be very frank as I dig deep into my thesis.

While we spent Yom Kippur seeking atonement for our sins, as a people, we have nothing more to atone to God for that we haven’t already atoned for this year! 

The precious 1,700 civilians, soldiers, men, women, and babies who lost their lives in this war are atonement enough. Not to mention the merit of the brave men and women of the IDF who are literally standing on guard today, engaged in combat right now fighting the very same war we have fought since Amalek attacked us when we left Egypt 3,300 years ago.

Instead of reciting the close to 100,000 words of the Yom Kippur machzor, shouldn’t it have been enough to say the name of any one of those heroes who were killed or perhaps just one of the names of any of the hostages that are held by Hamas? Case closed! Atonement achieved?

This country is filled with people who actively chose to make this land their home to take an active role in the building of a Jewish state. I think the real difference between a Jew and a Zionist is that a Zionist makes the physical well-being of the Jewish people and state his or her own personal responsibility. 

Some people like to eat salami and eggs for breakfast. This meal requires both a chicken and a cow. The chicken is involved, the cow is committed. We Zionists are the ones who come here to create children and grandchildren while building both generations and homes.

The people of Israel have clearly demonstrated this year that we are the greatest generation of Jews EVER. And before you start complaining to me about the maidservant at Mount Sinai who saw more than the prophet Ezekiel, let me remind you that her entire generation died in the desert and did not enter the Promised Land. And yet we are the ones living in Eretz Yisrael! 

And if you want to tell me about the generation of the Tannaim (the great sages) of the Mishna, perhaps you don’t realize that there were only about 120 Tannaim and they were spread out over five different generations. The Ammoraim of the Gemara? Probably only 1,000-2,000 of them, also over five generations. This year alone, there are 10,000 students studying in the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem! 

Yes, other generations had more brilliant individual lights, but our generation has lit up an entire globe!

Our thesis to God

So, this is our thesis to God: We have been abundantly faithful to you and our covenant. You allowed us to be made into lampshades, and instead of assimilating and abandoning the covenant, we dug into our Jewish identity. We turned around and created a Jewish state. Can you fathom it? “A kingdom of kings alone”!

Did you know that 2/3 of the IDF in 1948 were Holocaust survivors?

You allowed our sons and daughters, mothers and fathers to be burned alive, raped, beheaded, and taken captive; and one year later, 50,000 of us went to the Western Wall asking YOU to forgive US! You showed us hester panim, a concealment of the divine face, and we showed you remarkable resilience, renewal, and faith! You turned away and we leaned in!

This is who we are; we are superstars, “as numerous as the stars of the heavens”! 

We are the sons and daughters of kings and queens, holy converts, and righteous saints. We are descendants of men of letters, women of valor, warriors, scholars, and heroes.

The blood of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Rachel, and Leah flow through our veins.

Walking among us now, we have actual kohanim and Levites? Do you realize that just 48 generations separate them from their fathers who served in the holy Temple in Jerusalem?

The Jewish population in the world is but a rounding error in the Chinese census – we are .2% of the world and have won 22% of the Nobels. It is our stubborn refusal as Jews to accept the world as it is that has forced us to try to change it and thereby win more than 210 of those prizes.

Now that the holidays are over, our task is to remind ourselves just how remarkable and truly incredible we really are. I think at the beginning of this war, some of us forgot ourselves. At the beginning of this war, many of us sinned. Not against God, but sinned against ourselves when we lost ourselves and started questioning the Zionist enterprise.

It is also a time to continue healing our relationship with God. Just because we are not bouncing from holiday to ritual back to holiday anymore, that doesn’t mean we have finished the work that needs to be done.

It reminds me of the famous legend of the Jews who put God on trial in Auschwitz for his abandonment of the Jewish people. After spending all day deliberating, God was found guilty! At which point someone reminded everyone that it was getting late and was time to daven mincha. So having found God guilty of abandonment of the Jewish people, they klopped on their wooden barracks and started reciting the Hebrew words that begin the prayer, “Ashrei yoshvei veysecha, od yehalelucha seleh,” “Happy are those who dwell in Your House, for they shall praise you ever more.”

In the ancient past, we sinned against God, and God, out of love for us, did not cast us away but forgave us. This year, we forgive God because we too love Him too much to end this story. 

‘Ani L’Dodi V’Dodi Li’ – I am to my beloved as my beloved is to me... ■

The writer holds a doctorate in Jewish philosophy and teaches in post-high-school yeshivot and midrashot in Jerusalem.