Yom Ha’atzmaut, which we just celebrated, is the 60th anniversary of a marriage that has lasted more than 3,500 years. This may sound like a paradox but it is a truism about the Land of Israel and the Jews. No marriage has been so long, so deep in its commitment and so overwhelming in its love as the one between the Jews and their homeland.
At the same time, no marriage has been so painful nor so tragic, for the partners were forced apart by the Roman Empire nearly 2000 years ago.
Yet the Jews metaphorically lifted the Land of Israel from its native soil and transformed it into a portable homeland, taking it with them to the four corners of the earth. Only in 1948 were the land and its people physically reunited.
Renewal of Vows
The founding of the State of Israel then is not the beginning of the marriage between the land and the people of Israel, but rather, a reaffirmation of nuptials that took place thousands of years ago between God and Abraham the Hebrew. The modern State of Israel was not established in 1948 but rather in the year 70, on the day after the Romans exiled the Jews.
But no marriage can be taken for granted, not even after 3,500 years. When a bridegroom offers his new wife a ring as a sign of commitment, he knows that this is only the first installment of an ongoing pledge. No marriage can endure if both partners do not constantly re-invest in their relationship. And only a mission – a common dream – can sustain a marriage; only something greater than itself will allow it to succeed. Marriage is a single soul dwelling in two bodies, but a soul that has lost its purpose loses itself.
Ironically, the people of Israel today are struggling to stay spiritually wed to their land. Rampant materialism and militant secularism have eroded Israel’s sense of Jewish identity and the historical consciousness that gives meaning to its national existence. Growing numbers of its residents lack Jewish self-understanding and question why they should live in this country at all. How long will Israeli soldiers be ready to sacrifice their lives for just a country? People are willing to die only for that by which they have lived. And human beings can live meaningful lives only when they know that there is something eternal worth dying for.
What bound the partners together for thousands of years is the mission to be “a light unto the nations,” as pronounced by the prophet Isaiah. The marriage was created to give birth to a wellspring of religious and moral teachings that will suffuse mankind with the knowledge that life is holy and that God awaits man in order to redeem His world.
Connecting Heaven and Earth
This, then, is the mandate of the land and the people of Israel: To elevate the human race so that it becomes a link between the divine and the earthly. For life is a trust, a privilege – not a game or a triviality. The Jewish people married the land in order to create a model society to be emulated by all of mankind.
It is the rabbis who consecrate a marriage. But that is only part of their task. As pastors, they are responsibile to ensure the marriage’s success and to tend to it if it flounders or gets bogged down. The hour requires strong, resolute religious and moral guidance.
Israel’s religious leaders must work to renew the Jewish people and restore their sense of historic-national identity. They must inspire a feeling of longing for the unique mission of the Jewish People in order to strengthen the marriage and enable it to achieve its full potential after the long and difficult separation.
To do that, the religious leadership must extricate itself from the morass in which it is stagnated. In an unprecedented initiative, it must steer the ship of an inspiring, rejuvenated Judaism in full sail right into the heart of Israeli society, causing shockwaves that impact on every aspect of life.
Like the prophets of old, the religious leaders must generate a spiritual revolution, triggering an ethical-religious uproar that will shake the very foundations of the State. Their failure to do so is nothing less than a tragic dereliction of duty. Israelis are waiting for such a move and will respond overwhelmingly.
Only then will the Jewish people re-engage with its land. Only then can the Jewish people stay eternally married to its land. This is Israel’s hope and future.
May God bless Israel!
Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo is the founder and dean of the David Cardozo Academy in Jerusalem. His latest book For the Love of Israel and the Jewish People was just published by Urim.