For too long, we as Jews were concerned with one thing: survival. And who could blame us? Pogroms, expulsions, crusades, blood libels, a Holocaust that murdered one out of every three of us.. our entire national reflex was simply to stay alive.
Even after 1948, after returning to our homeland in a way the prophets themselves described, the survival mindset stayed with us. Not because we were weak, but because the trauma of centuries doesn’t disappear in one generation. We built a state, but the instinct to explain ourselves, to ask permission from the nations of the world, lingered.
And here’s the incredible part: We still accomplished more than any nation in modern history.
We built a country the world studies.
We built a military that changed the face of warfare.
We built an innovation empire that reshaped medicine, agriculture, cybersecurity, energy, and global tech.
We sparked a Torah revival that our ancestors in Europe and Babylon could only dream of.
We did all of this with a survival mentality. Watching our backs, apologizing for our existence, shrinking ourselves to avoid provoking anger, measuring every move by how it might look to Paris, London, or Washington. We grew, but cautiously. We led, but quietly. We created, but with one foot still chained to the past.
That is the tragedy, and the miracle, of the Jewish people as a whole and the land of Israel in specific.
The tragedy is that survival mode keeps a nation alive, but it keeps a nation small.
The miracle is that even from that smallness, we created greatness.
And here’s the question that should shake us awake: If this is what we achieved while operating from fear… imagine what we could build if we finally embraced our destiny.
Imagine a Jewish posture not shaped by trauma, but by purpose.
Not by explaining ourselves, but by owning our story.
Not by shrinking, but by rising.
Not by surviving, but by building with confidence in who we are and why we are here.
We are not a weak people pretending to be strong.
We are a strong people pretending to be small.
Look around Israel today.
A global powerhouse of innovation.
The spiritual center of the Jewish world.
A reborn nation producing more Torah, more creativity, more breakthroughs than almost any era in our history.
A society that rebuilt itself from ashes and exile into a living, breathing fulfillment of prophecy.
And we did all of that while still looking over our shoulder at what the world might say.
Now imagine what happens when we stop apologizing.
When we stop diluting our identity to make others comfortable.
When we stop acting as if our legitimacy depends on anyone’s approval but God’s.
Imagine what happens when we step out of survival mode and into destiny mode.
We didn’t return after two thousand years just to keep existing.
We returned to build a civilization, moral, spiritual, innovative, proud. Rooted in the promises given to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov by the Creator of The World.
We’re already doing extraordinary things.
Now it’s time to do them unapologetically.
Boldly.
Loudly.
Fully.
Because if this is what the Jewish people built with one hand tied behind our backs… just imagine what we’ll build with our spirit unleashed.
Survival got us here.
Destiny will take us forward.