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From Tears Of Joy To Years Of Despair

The TikTok video was a masterpiece of the genre. There was Timothy, a 17-year-old from a suburb so quiet it hummed, staring at a laptop screen with the intensity of a bomb technician. When the digital confetti burst across the screen, Timothy didn’t just cheer; he underwent a physical transformation. He collapsed into a puddle of salt water and ambition, sobbing so violently his mother had to check if his lungs were still attached.

"I’m going to Cambridge!" he choked out, clutching his Harvard sweatshirt like a holy relic. "My life is finally beginning! The dream is real!"

It was, indeed, the last time Timothy would feel a genuine dopamine hit for the next decade.

Fast forward three months. The "Harvard Dream" had evolved from a golden sunset into a damp, gray Tuesday in a basement library that smelled like centuries of repressed anxiety and spilled oat milk. Timothy sat surrounded by four hundred pages of "Deconstructing the Post-Colonial Hegemony," realizing that his "divine selection" into the 4.5% acceptance club mainly earned him the privilege of competing with 1,600 other people who were also the "best" at everything.

The tears were still there, but they were different now. Instead of tears of joy, they were the "Lamont Library 4:00 AM" tears—the kind that come when you realize your entire personality is a GPA and your only friend is a bottle of extra-strength Zoloft. The prestige he’d wept for was now a heavy, invisible rucksack filled with the crushing weight of $320,000 in projected debt—a small price to pay, he told himself, for a degree that would eventually allow him to work 100 hours a week at Goldman Sachs just to pay off the interest.

But the real "intellectual awakening" happened in Harvard Yard. Timothy had expected the "marketplace of ideas"; instead, he found a marketplace of very loud, very specific slogans.

As he tried to navigate to his "Introduction to Ethics" seminar, he found himself caught in a human chain of classmates wearing $500 designer parkas and Keffiyehs. His roommate, a boy named Caleb who grew up in a Greenwich mansion with a heated driveway, was currently screaming through a megaphone about the necessity of a global Intifada and the total dismantling of the West.

"Caleb?" Timothy whispered, ducking a "Free the Land" placard. "I thought we were going to go to the dining hall for taco night?"

"Tacos are a distraction from the liberation struggle, Timothy!" Caleb roared back, his eyes wild with the fervor of someone who had discovered geopolitical nuance forty-eight hours ago on a radical subreddit. "The administration hasn't divested from the military-industrial complex yet! Check your privilege or join the picket line!"

Timothy watched as a visiting professor was chased into a Starbucks for the crime of suggesting that history might be complicated. He looked at the posters plastered over the statues—glory to the "resistance," lists of demands that read like a fever dream of 1970s campus radicalism, and the occasional flyer for a "Cry-In" held in a safe space for students traumatized by seeing a flag they didn't like.

The campus had become a bizarre theatrical production where the world’s future billionaire overlords spent their afternoons cosplaying as Marxist revolutionaries. Timothy realized with a jolt of cold clarity that his "dream" was actually a very expensive subscription to a four-year protest march where the only thing being liberated was his parents’ retirement fund.

He sat on a bench, ignored by the screaming activists and the depressed geniuses scuttling past him. He pulled out his phone and looked at that old TikTok video of himself crying with joy.

"You poor, stupid idiot," he whispered to his past self.

He then checked his bank account—it was $80,000 in the red. He checked his heart rate—it was 110 bpm while sitting still. He looked at the "Glory to the Martyrs" banner hanging from the window of a dorm that cost more than a midwestern mansion.

Timothy sighed, pulled his hood up, and started to cry again. At least at Harvard, the tears were Ivy-League certified. 

Point And Counterpoint - Technology In The Service Of Torah

Be a Partner in the Pulse of Beis Mevakesh Lev - For almost 20 years, B’chasdei Hashem, this space has been a home for seekers—a place where Torah is accessible to everyone, everywhere, without a paywall. We’ve shared over thousands and thousands of pages of learning together. But to keep the lights on and ensure this library remains free and growing for the next generation of Mevakshei Lev, I need your partnership.

Your contribution isn't just a donation; it's the fuel that keeps these shiurim reaching hearts across the globe. Whether it’s the cost of a coffee or a monthly sponsorship, you are making this Torah possible.

[Donate via PayPal/Zelle: alchehrm@gmail.com] Thank you to my beloved friends for standing with me.

We recently reached the milestone of 14,000 shiurim. Of course that means 14,000 expressions of thanks to Hashem who is Everything while we are just conduits. 

Also - thanks to all those who helped me be a conduit.

The Divine Algorithm: The Lubavitcher Rebbe and the Metaphysics of Technology

The Lubavitcher Rebbe was surprisingly optimistic—some might even say radically unperturbed—regarding the use of technology for holy purposes. To the youth of a previous generation, the Rebbe’s approval of broadcasting Tanya (the foundational text of Chabad Chassidus) over the radio seemed almost banal. The logic appeared simple: if technology can be used for a positive end, why not harness it? This pragmatic embrace extended to cartoons, international satellite broadcasts, and the early frontiers of the internet.

However, over the last fifteen years—marked by the "anti-social-media" fervor, the pathologizing of "dopamine loops," and a structural anxiety regarding "the algorithm"—the vast majority of religious thinkers have turned technophobic. As Marshall McLuhan famously warned, “We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.” Today’s religious critics fear that the tools have finally begun to win.

The Battle Lines: Liberalism vs. Pessimism

To understand the Rebbe’s unique stance, we must look at the two dominant frameworks of tech criticism.

First, there is the Liberal Enlightened view. This perspective centers on the "sovereign individual"—a self-contained agent who uses tools as neutral instruments. Here, technology is what we make of it because the human will is the primary mover. As the philosopher John Dewey might suggest, the tool is merely an extension of human intent. The individual is not subject to the limitations of his tools; he transcends them.

Then come the Religious Pessimists. They argue that the liberal view is a dangerous fantasy. Drawing on Neil Postman and others, they assert that every medium has an inherent nature—a "bias"—that dictates its use. Heidegger noted in The Question Concerning Technology: “The essence of technology is by no means anything technological.” It is, rather, a way of "enframing" reality that turns the world (and the human soul) into mere "standing reserve" or raw material.

The pessimist argues that if you allow religious teaching to be conveyed exclusively through the "scroll" of social media, you will inevitably get a "scroll religion"—shallow, performative, and fleeting. They fear it may be impossible to salvage "pure human existence" as G-d intended—a life they view as essentially pre-technological—under the weight of modern digital constraints.

The Third Way: Chassidic Metaphysics

The Rebbe’s optimism does not stem from a naive liberal view of "neutral tools." Rather, it is grounded in the metaphysics of Chassidus. To understand the Rebbe, one must understand the Chassidic concept of Tzurah (Form).

The religious pessimist is an instinctual essentialist. He believes that in a world ordered by G-d, every creation is defined by its "form." To the pessimist, the "form" of the internet is so corrupted—or so inherently distracting—that the "matter" of Torah cannot survive the transition.

Chassidus agrees that forms are real; indeed, the Tanya teaches that the "constantly spoken word of G-d" is the indwelling nature of every creature. However, the Rebbe points to a deeper truth found in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah: the four elements are not static; they convert into one another. This implies a fundamental physical unity—that beneath the surface of pluralistic "forms," there is a single, underlying reality.

The Vindications of Science

In the medieval mind, the difference between fire and water was irreducible. Nature was a "manyness." But modern science has vindicated the Rambam by demolishing formal essentialism from within. We now know that matter and energy are one. We know that electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force are unified.

As the Rebbe often noted, this scientific shift mirrors a spiritual one: the dominant intellectual framework of our age has moved from seeing natural forces as independent entities to seeking a single operative unity. In the Rebbe's view, the radio is not a "secular" form that happens to carry a "holy" message. Rather, the radio’s very existence—which allows a voice to transcend space and time—is a physical manifestation of G-dliness.

The Medium is Not the Master

The Rebbe’s perspective offers a sophisticated synthesis. He acknowledges the pessimist’s point: the radio does have a nature that shapes the message. But he rejects the idea that this form is "sovereign."

When the Rebbe was challenged on using modern media, he did not argue that technology was neutral. He argued it was teleological—created by G-d specifically for this holy purpose. He frequently cited the Midrash: “Gold was only created for use in the Mishkan (the Tabernacle).” Though gold was first used by man to build a Golden Calf, that was a perversion of its true "form." Its ultimate purpose was to house the Divine.

The Rebbe once remarked:

"Every thing in this world was created by G-d for a purpose... If you use a technology to spread the knowledge of G-d, you are not merely 'using' it; you are redeeming it, revealing why it was brought into existence in the first place."

The Speaker vs. The Speech

In the final analysis, the debate is not about the technology, but about the "valence" of the speaker. Are we witnessing the "Prophecy of the Chariot," where the form of the "ox" or the "eagle" is a vehicle for the Divine? Or are we building a "Golden Calf"—an attempt to trap G-d within a human-made container?

The "technology of the Golden Calf" is abhorrent not because of the gold, but because it is a unilateral attempt to make the medium the master. The Lubavitcher Rebbe only appears to hold a liberal view because he recognizes a truth the traditionalist often misses: there is a quality to a thing that runs deeper than its distinct self.

Forms are real, but they are not ultimate. As the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot (6:11) concludes: “All that the Holy One, blessed be He, created in His world, He created solely for His glory.” In the Rebbe’s view, if the "algorithm" exists, it exists to lead us back to the One. No medium can exist without eventually accepting this message.

----

The Chasm of the Screen: A Rebuttal to Technological Optimism

The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s vision of a "unified" reality—where even the most mundane or modern tool is merely a hidden vessel for the Divine—is undeniably poetic. It is a high-level "Metaphysics of Redemption." However, this optimism borders on a dangerous "over-spiritualization." By focusing on what technology could be in a perfected world, we risk losing the battle for the human soul in this world.

1. The Fallacy of the "Gold for the Mishkan" Analogy

The argument that "gold was created for the Temple" is often used to justify the use of modern tools. But this ignores the historical reality: though gold’s ultimate purpose was the Tabernacle, the Jewish people first used it to build the Golden Calf, an act that nearly led to their total annihilation.

While the elements of technology may be neutral in the abstract, the vessels we are handed today are not "raw gold." They are pre-formed "Calves." A smartphone is not a neutral piece of plastic and silicon; it is a meticulously engineered delivery system for Lashon Hara (gossip), Nivul Peh (obscenity), Bittul Torah (the wasting of time) and endless quantities of znus. To suggest we can simply "pour" Torah into these vessels without the vessels contaminating the Torah is to ignore the Chassidic concept of Kli (vessel) itself. A polluted vessel makes the water undrinkable.

2. The Erosion of Havdala (Separation)

The foundation of Jewish life is not "Unity" in the sense of blurring boundaries, but Havdala—distinction. We distinguish between the holy and the profane, the light and the dark. The Rebbe’s optimism suggests that the "profane" nature of the medium is a surface manifestation that can be bypassed.

One can argue the opposite: the medium is the environment. If you study Torah on the same device used to watch mindless entertainment or engage in political vitriol, the Torah itself becomes "flattened." It becomes just another notification in a stream of digital noise. As the Kotzker Rebbe might have suggested, G-d does not reside where He is "let in" if the door is also left open to the Sitra Achra (the Other Side). 

3. The Psychology of the "Animal Soul"

The Chassidic analysis of the "Unity of Forces" is a discourse for the Neshama. But the Torah was given to human beings who possess an Nefesh HaBehamis (Animal Soul). This lower soul is not moved by the "fundamental unity of electromagnetism"; it is moved by dopamine, instant gratification, and the "lust of the eyes."

The "pessimist" recognizes that we are not angels. We are creatures of habit and biology. The algorithm is not a "neutral tool"; it is a predator designed by the world's most brilliant minds to bypass our free will. To tell a person they can "redeem" the internet is like telling a person they can find G-dliness in a house of ill-repute. While theoretically true in the highest Kabbalistic realms, it is a spiritual death sentence for the average person.

4. The Medium Does Change the Message

The Rebbe’s view suggests that Tanya on the radio is still Tanya. But the "form" of the radio (or the internet) changes the nature of the thought itself. Torah is meant to be studied with Ameilus—toiling, requiring deep concentration, presence, and a connection between teacher and student.

The internet demands brevity, "shareability," and "likes." When Torah is adapted to these forms, it inevitably becomes "Torah-Lite." We lose the capacity for the "thick" existence of the Beis Medrash and replace it with a "thin" digital simulation. We are not "conveying the Speaker"; we are turning the Speaker into a soundbite.

5. The Danger of "Everything is Holy"

Finally, there is a profound communal danger in the "optimistic" view. When we say that "everything was created for G-d's glory," we risk legitimizing the very tools that are dismantling our communities. The Charedi world’s insistence on "kosher phones" and "internet filters" is not a denial of G-d’s unity; it is a recognition of G-d’s command to "Guard yourselves/your souls exceedingly."

If we believe technology is essentially "redeemable," we lower our guard. The religious pessimist’s "No" to technology is not a "No" to G-d’s creation; it is a "Yes" to the sanctity of the Jewish home.

Conclusion

The Rebbe’s view is the view of a Tzaddik who sees the world as it will be in the Messianic era—a world where "the occupation of the entire world will be only to know G-d." But we live in the "Night of Exile." In the dark, one does not go exploring the woods because "the woods are also G-d's creation." One stays inside, lights a small candle, and keeps the doors locked. The "pessimism" of the Charedi world is actually a profound realism: it is the realization that to keep the flame of Torah alive, we must sometimes protect it from the winds of "progress," no matter how "unified" that wind claims to be.

The Long War: Why the West Misunderstands the Nature of Conflict

The escalating conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies has forced a necessary reckoning with our understanding of conflict. For decades, the West has operated under a definition of war that has been obsolete for at least a century. By clinging to an outdated binary, we have blinded ourselves to the reality of the adversaries we face.

The Clausewitzian Mirage

Our modern framework traces back to the early nineteenth century. Following the Napoleonic Wars, Carl von Clausewitz famously observed, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” For Clausewitz, war was a discrete tool—a violent instrument used to achieve a specific political objective, after which the "normal" state of politics would resume.

The West took this insight and constructed a rigid binary: a nation is either at war or it is at peace. In this worldview, war is the tragic exception—violent, costly, and abnormal. Peace is the default state that all rational actors naturally prefer. As Clausewitz noted, “The conqueror is always a lover of peace; he would like to make his entry into our state unopposed.”

Everything in our international order flows from this assumption. The UN Charter treats war as a discrete event with defined triggers; the Geneva Conventions regulate its conduct; the Rome Statute criminalizes its abuses. Beneath this legal architecture lies a foundational hope: that wars have a clear beginning and a definitive end, and that rules exist to manage the transition between the two.

The Revolutionary Inversion

Revolutionary theorists looked at this Western definition and saw a target. They realized that if the West only fights in "episodes," it can be defeated through "permanence."

Karl Marx שר"י began this shift by reframing history not as a series of states at peace, but as an unbroken timeline of conflict. In The Communist Manifesto, he argued: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Struggle was not the exception; it was the engine of existence.

Vladimir Lenin שר"י extended this into geopolitics, famously inverting Clausewitz to argue that “Peace is a respite for war.” To a revolutionary, "peace" is simply a period of rearmament and subversion.

Mao Zedong שר"י formalized this into explicit military doctrine. While the West viewed Mao’s 1938 dictum—“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”—as a comment on civil war, Mao intended it as a total philosophy. In On Protracted War, he engaged Clausewitz directly, accepting the continuity of war and politics but drawing the opposite conclusion. For Mao, the struggle never ends. When military conditions favor fighting, you fight; when they do not, you organize, propagandize, and negotiate. As Mao wrote: “War is politics with bloodshed; politics is war without bloodshed.”

How far was Mao willing to take this? In 1957, speaking in Moscow, he displayed a chilling indifference to the Western concept of survival: “I’m not afraid of nuclear war... If the worst came to the worst and half of mankind died, the other half would remain while imperialism would be razed to the ground.” For the revolutionary, the cause outweighs any calculation of human life.

The Institutional Battlefield

In the 1930s, Antonio Gramsci identified the next front from a fascist prison. He argued that Western institutions—law, culture, and civil society—were not neutral spaces but battlefields for what he called a “war of position.” He wrote: “Every relationship of 'hegemony' is necessarily an educational relationship.” To Gramsci, capturing the narrative was as vital as capturing a fort.

Together, these thinkers built a complete inversion of the Western order. War is not a temporary interruption of politics; rather, politics is the continuation of a war that never ends until total victory is achieved. What the West reads as "not-war," the revolutionary reads as "war by other means."

The Architecture of Lawfare

Crucially, the institutions the West built to manage conflict have been turned into weapons against it. An organization that embeds fighters in hospitals or under schools is not merely "violating" the Geneva Conventions—it is exploiting their architecture.

This is the essence of "Lawfare": the manipulation of humanitarian and legal language to constrain an adversary’s military response. As the revolutionary sees it, the West’s commitment to the "rules-based order" is a psychological vulnerability to be harvested. Using UN agencies for political warfare or using human shields to trigger international condemnation isn’t a corruption of the system—it is a precise execution of revolutionary doctrine.

The Jihadist Synthesis

Islamist revolutionary movements have absorbed this Marxist-Leninist framework and fused it with theology. Continuous war became Jihad—a multi-generational struggle conducted across military, legal, and demographic fronts.

Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Republic of Iran are not conventional actors pursuing bounded territorial goals. They operate under an explicit continuous-war doctrine. We see this language in the modern activist slogans: when it is claimed that “the war didn’t start on October 7” or that “genocide is ongoing” even during a ceasefire, they are stating plainly that the war is permanent, regardless of the facts on the ground.

The Soviet Exception

The West’s current confusion stems from a misunderstanding of the Cold War. By the 1950s, Soviet leaders had ceased to be true revolutionaries; they had become a bureaucratic "New Class" with material interests in survival. Nikita Khrushchev’s doctrine of “peaceful coexistence” was a significant ideological retreat—an admission that survival mattered more than victory.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) worked because the Soviets had become a conventional power with conventional survival instincts. The ideology had become a costume. But the West mistook this Soviet exception for the rule. We assumed everyone, eventually, would choose stability over the cause.

The Trap of "Stability"

When the West says it wants "peace," it actually means it wants stability—the absence of visible conflict. Revolutionary doctrine exploits this desire with surgical precision. It offers a "tactic of the pause"—a ceasefire or a negotiation—which the West accepts as progress because our framework has no tool to distinguish a tactical lull from a genuine resolution.

While the West views a pause in hostilities as a step toward permanent peace, the revolutionary uses it to rebuild, rearm, and reposition. As Lenin once put it: “The movement of the enemy... is sometimes a retreat for the purpose of a more successful attack.”

This is why ceasefires in the Middle East so reliably produce more intense wars. This is why international pressure falls hardest on the party that actually wants resolution, rather than the party that uses the resolution to prepare for the next round.

Conclusion: Redefining Victory

The West persists in treating Iran as a conventional state that can be "deterred" or "brought to the table." But the Islamic Republic remains a revolutionary entity. Its nuclear program and its "Ring of Fire" proxies are not tools for defense; they are instruments of a war against the West that has not stopped since 1979.

In a revolutionary mindset, military defeat is always temporary so long as the ideological leadership remains intact. If we continue to mistake temporary stability for peace, we are not preventing deaths—we are merely subsidizing the next slaughter.

Victory against a revolutionary movement cannot mean "restoring stability." It must mean ending the revolutionary regime itself. As long as the regime remains, the war has not ended; it has merely changed form. To survive, the West must finally learn to see the war that is actually being fought, rather than the one we wish to see.

Be a Partner in the Pulse of Beis Mevakesh Lev - For almost 20 years, B’chasdei Hashem, this space has been a home for seekers—a place where Torah is accessible to everyone, everywhere, without a paywall. We’ve shared over thousands and thousands of pages of learning together. But to keep the lights on and ensure this library remains free and growing for the next generation of Mevakshei Lev, I need your partnership.

Your contribution isn't just a donation; it's the fuel that keeps these shiurim reaching hearts across the globe. Whether it’s the cost of a coffee or a monthly sponsorship, you are making this Torah possible.

[Donate via PayPal/Zelle: alchehrm@gmail.com] Thank you to my beloved friends for standing with me.

We recently reached the milestone of 14,000 shiurim. Of course that means 14,000 expressions of thanks to Hashem who is Everything while we are just conduits. 

Also - thanks to all those who helped me be a conduit.

Stories Teach Good Vs. Evil

Stories are everything to me. There was a time when they served a singular, vital purpose—whether in film, television, books, or video games. They taught us the difference between good and evil.

As G.K. Chesterton famously noted: “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

For decades, that difference was unmistakable. Mario had to save the Princess. John McClane had to stop Hans Gruber. James Bond had to save the world. Indiana Jones had to bring down the Nazis. Link had to defeat Ganon. Whether it was a lawman at High Noon or a space pilot in Star Wars, the lines were drawn: black hats and white hats.

That didn’t mean the heroes were perfect. John McClane was a mess; Indiana Jones was a rogue; Jack Bauer broke rules that made civil libertarians soil their Lululemons. But at their core, they were still heroes. They were brave. They sacrificed. They protected the innocent. From Luke Skywalker to Captain America, the message was clear: these are the qualities you should aspire to. Courage. Integrity. Responsibility. Hope.

We understood the point. We were not meant to be perfect, but we were meant to know in which direction perfection pointed.

The Great Inversion

Fast-forward to the cultural output that shaped the generation currently marching through college campuses screaming about “resistance.” Who did they grow up watching?

Tony Soprano. Walter White. Don Draper. Frank Underwood. Dexter Morgan. Arthur Fleck. These are not the villains of the story; they are the protagonists. They are the people we are meant to root for, even as they lie, cheat, murder, and destroy.

We didn’t just watch them; we deified them. We turned Tony Soprano into a cultural icon. We marketed Walter White as the face of entrepreneurial grit. Today, Hollywood routinely takes our most iconic villains and “reimagines” them as misunderstood victims—Cruella de Vil, Maleficent, and soon, Cinderella’s stepsisters.

In the Jewish tradition, there is a central concept called Havdalah. It literally means "separation" or "distinction." We recite a prayer at the end of the Sabbath to distinguish between the holy and the profane, between light and dark. Without the ability to make distinctions, the world dissolves into chaos. To be a Jew is to be a master of the art of making distinctions. When we lose the ability to name things correctly—to say ‘this is good’ and ‘this is evil’—we lose our moral compass and, eventually, our freedom.

For this generation, the art of Havdalah is dead. All morality is a jump ball.

The Generation of the Anti-Hero

What happens after twenty years of feeding an entire generation stories where the bad guy is the hero and the hero is a "colonizer" or a "hypocrite"? The audience stops recognizing evil altogether.

How else do we explain an entire generation marching in support of Hamas—an organization whose ideology revolves around slaughtering civilians, silencing women, and theocratic dictatorship? How do we get candlelight vigils for the Ayatollah Khamenei? How do millions of young people listen to the "New Right" or the "Far Left" spewing ancient blood libels about Jewish control and respond by hitting "like"?

Part of the answer is propaganda. Part of it is the algorithmic lobotomy of social media. But the foundational piece of the puzzle is cultural programming. They were never taught to identify villains; they were taught to sympathize with them.

In their stories, the system is always evil. Institutions are always corrupt. The villain simply needed a better "backstory" to justify his body count. Eventually, that lens is applied to real life. Terrorists become “freedom fighters.” Jihadists become “the resistance.” Authoritarian movements become “liberation.” Good and evil dissolve into "vibes" and "aesthetics."

The Meme-ification of Morality

This confusion reached a surreal peak recently when the White House social media team released a video regarding the campaign against Iran’s regime. The message was correct: the IRGC is a cancer. But the execution was a disaster.

The montage featured characters like Jimmy McGill (a con artist), Walter White (a meth kingpin), and Kylo Ren (a mass murderer). The person who made it—likely a Gen Z staffer—was trying to say “America is tough",” but they used the language of villains to do it.

They understand memes. They do not understand good and evil.

That chills me to my bones. Instead of Spider-Man, they reach for The Punisher. Instead of Samwise Gamgee, they reach for Littlefinger. They understand internet irony, but they have no concept of moral clarity.

The Cost of Erasure

For thousands of years, human societies used stories to transmit moral frameworks. Mythology, religion, and folklore told young people who to admire—and more importantly, who to stop.

The tragedy here is not merely that young people are confused. The tragedy is that the adults who should have known better deliberately dismantled the idea that objective evil exists.

Now, we see the results: students tearing down posters of kidnapped children, activists waving the flags of regimes that hang people from cranes, and "intellectuals" reframing World War II to make Churchill the villain.

When you erase the hero, you eventually produce a generation that cannot recognize the villain. And as history has shown us time and again, when a society can no longer name its enemies, it is only a matter of time before it is consumed by them.

Be a Partner in the Pulse of Beis Mevakesh Lev - For almost 20 years, B’chasdei Hashem, this space has been a home for seekers—a place where Torah is accessible to everyone, everywhere, without a paywall. We’ve shared over thousands and thousands of pages of learning together. But to keep the lights on and ensure this library remains free and growing for the next generation of Mevakshei Lev, I need your partnership.

Your contribution isn't just a donation; it's the fuel that keeps these shiurim reaching hearts across the globe. Whether it’s the cost of a coffee or a monthly sponsorship, you are making this Torah possible.

[Donate via PayPal/Zelle: alchehrm@gmail.com] Thank you to my beloved friends for standing with me.

We recently reached the milestone of 14,000 shiurim. Of course that means 14,000 expressions of thanks to Hashem who is Everything while we are just conduits. 

Also - thanks to all those who helped me be a conduit.

The Unbearable Lightness of Academic Anti-Zionism: From Settler-Colonialism to Shtetler-Colonialism

In the contemporary academy, few analytical frames carry the moral finality of “settler colonialism.” For two decades, the paradigm forged by the late Patrick Wolfe has functioned as a master key for interpreting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, transforming a messy national dispute into a tidy morality play: exogenous European intruders versus rooted indigenous victims. In his influential 2006 essay, Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native, Wolfe distilled the logic into a single, haunting formulation: “settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure, not an event.”

The settler project, he argued, is defined by a “logic of elimination”—not merely episodic violence, but a continuous, structural drive to replace native societies so that the newcomers may “erect a new colonial society on the expropriated land base.” Wolfe’s framework, elegant and portable, found its most prominent Palestinian application in Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine (2020). Khalidi recasts the modern history of the land as six successive “declarations of war” by external powers on behalf of a project that systematically denies Palestinian national rights.

Yet, when this Wolfean lens is trained on the empirical record of the Hebrew return to their ancestral homeland, it begins to resemble a Procrustean bed—lopping off the inconvenient limbs of Jewish statelessness, continuous indigeneity, and the absence of any sovereign metropole. As I argue in The Unbearable Lightness of Academic Anti-Zionism, the settler-colonial model is less an explanatory tool than a rhetorical “retcon”—a retroactive continuity adjustment that resolves historical anomalies into a predetermined moral verdict. The framework’s lightness is precisely its appeal: it relieves the observer of complexity.

The Foreignness Fallacy: Who Counts as the Settler?

At the heart of the settler-colonial paradigm lies a deceptively simple claim: the settlers are foreign. In the classic cases—British convicts in Australia or French pieds-noirs in Algeria—this is uncontroversial. For Israel, however, the theorists must perform a conceptual somersault.

Wolfe and Khalidi dismiss Jewish claims of indigeneity as romantic myths or irrelevant "ancient ties," arguing that the modern movement was carried out by European Jews in the age of imperialism. This creates an arbitrary temporal cutoff that is never applied to other displaced peoples. As the Sephardic Zionist thinker Albert Memmi—himself a native of Tunisia—once noted, the Jewish return was not an act of colonial expansion but a "revolt of the colonized," a movement of a people who had been "colonized" in exile for two millennia.

Jewish indigeneity is not a modern invention; it is a lived continuity. For twenty centuries, the Jewish orientation remained stubbornly Levantine. In the daily Amidah prayer, Jews three times a day plead for the "return to Zion" and the "rebuilding of Jerusalem." As Ahad Ha'am, the philosopher of Cultural Zionism, argued, the land was never "foreign" to the Jew; it was the "center of the soul."

The logic of the academy applies "indigenous" status to individuals rather than peoples. This is a category error. If a member of the Mohawk tribe buys land in their ancestral Mohawk Valley after a century of displacement, we do not label them a "colonial settler." Why is this logic applied selectively to Jews alone? Genetic studies by Doron Behar and Harry Ostrer confirm what the liturgy always claimed: Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jews share a Middle Eastern genetic core. They are a "remnant" returning, not a "metropole" expanding.

The Mirage of the Metropole

The structural failure of the Wolfean model is most glaring at its core: the metropole. Classic settler colonialism is an extension of imperial state power. To resolve the fact that Zionists lacked a state, Wolfe performed a startling conceptual substitution in his 2012 essay Purchase by Other Means, identifying “World Jewry” as a “diffuse metropole.”

This drains the concept of "metropole" of all analytical content. In colonial studies, a metropole is a sovereign center that extracts wealth. To equate the voluntary charitable pennies of the pushke—the blue collection boxes of the Jewish National Fund, often filled by impoverished refugees—with the coercive machinery of the British or Spanish Empires is an academic absurdity.

Khalidi attempts to fix this by fingering Britain as the "metropole-by-proxy." Yet the historical record reveals a British administration that systematically sabotaged the Zionist project. From the 1922 partitioning of Transjordan (77% of the Mandate) to the 1939 White Paper that trapped Jews in Europe on the eve of the Holocaust, the British acted as a barrier, not a sponsor. As Anita Shapira notes in Israel: A History, the Zionists had to fight a war of national liberation against the British "metropole" to achieve independence. A colony that fights its own mother country for the right to exist is not a colony; it is a state in the making.

The "Elimination" That Wasn't

If settler colonialism were a rigorous academic framework rather than an ideological one, it would be falsifiable. Wolfe’s model predicts native decline. Yet, the historical record of Palestine offers the opposite.

Between 1922 and 1947, the Arab population did not decline; it doubled. Under Israeli administration post-1967, life expectancy in the West Bank and Gaza rose from 48 to 74 years. Unlike the residential schools of Canada or the "Stolen Generations" of Australia, there has been no program of forced Hebrew assimilation. Arabic remains a protected language with its own robust educational and cultural institutions.

If the “logic of elimination” is the core of the structure, it is a structure that has produced the exact opposite of its intended result. Even the 1948 war—the Nakba—defies the template. While tragic, it was a war of "musical chairs" rather than liquidation. The vast majority of refugees remained within the original Mandatory borders. Furthermore, the 156,000 Arabs who remained inside Israel in 1948 were invited to become citizens. Today, their descendants number two million—20% of the population. A settler-colonial enterprise does not grant the "native" the right to vote in its parliament during the moment of its "invasion."

Refugee vs. Reactionary: A New Paradigm

The conflict is not "settler vs. native," but Refugee vs. Reactionary.

The Refugee Society: Defined by the absence of a secure territorial base. Its behavior is defensive consolidation: prioritizing secure borders and institution-building. It treats sovereignty as protection, not entitlement. It is willing to bargain for permanence, which explains Israel's repeated offers of statehood (2000, 2008) on over 90% of the West Bank.

The Reactionary Society: A polity whose energy arises from the perceived loss of inherited primacy. Its imagination is restorative: it seeks to reverse a demographic transformation it views as a violation of the natural order. Because the dispute is about status (Arab/Islamic supremacy) as much as land, compromise is seen as humiliation.

This explains why, in 2000 at Camp David, the Palestinian leadership walked away from a sovereign state without a counter-offer. It explains the "Ramallah Lynching" of 2001, where an orgiastic crowd celebrated the intimate butchery of two lost Israelis. This was not a tactical strike for land; it was a ritual of restoration—the assertion of dominance over a perceived "dhimmi" (a protected but inferior minority) who dared to claim equality.

Kinocide and the Psychology of the Reactionary Mind

Since October 7th, we have a new category: Kinocide.

Kinocide is the intentional destruction of kinship structures. In Kibbutz Be’eri and Kfar Aza, Hamas did not merely kill; they targeted the family unit as the primary instrument of torture. Executing parents in front of children, and then using the victims’ own phones to livestream the carnage to their grandmothers, is the ultimate expression of reactionary eliminatory intent.

This violence follows the family into their most intimate digital spaces. For the Marciano family, the horror arrived via Telegram, as they watched their 19-year-old daughter Noa move from a terrified captive to a corpse on screen. This is "eliminatory" in a way the Wolfean model cannot grasp. It is not about the "logic of the land"; it is about the "logic of the soul"—the desire to erase the very memory and lineage of the Jewish people from the landscape.

Conclusion: The Evasion of Complexity

The "unbearable lightness" of academic anti-Zionism lies in its refusal to grapple with Zionism’s uniqueness: a national liberation movement of a stateless, exiled indigenous people reclaiming their homeland. To label this "colonialism" is not analysis; it is a rhetorical retcon.

If we apply Wolfe's framework to Israel, we must ignore the demographic flourishing of the "native," the absence of a metropole, the repeated offers of sovereignty, and the indigeneity of the "settler." The theory survives only by eating its own exceptions.

Peace will not arrive through the "decolonization" of a people who have nowhere else to go. It will arrive when we deconstruct the frameworks that refuse to let them stay. The "wolf" in academic sheep’s clothing has had its run. It is time to call it by its proper name: not insight, but evasion. Zionism was the emancipation of the Jewish people from both White and Arab supremacy. They are the only minority to have escaped the cage of the Middle Eastern status order, and they are still fighting to stay free. In the end, this is not a story of expansion, but of a refugee people seeking the "permanence" that the rest of the world takes for granted.

Be a Partner in the Pulse of Beis Mevakesh Lev - For almost 20 years, B’chasdei Hashem, this space has been a home for seekers—a place where Torah is accessible to everyone, everywhere, without a paywall. We’ve shared over thousands and thousands of pages of learning together. But to keep the lights on and ensure this library remains free and growing for the next generation of Mevakshei Lev, I need your partnership.

Your contribution isn't just a donation; it's the fuel that keeps these shiurim reaching hearts across the globe. Whether it’s the cost of a coffee or a monthly sponsorship, you are making this Torah possible.

[Donate via PayPal/Zelle: alchehrm@gmail.com] Thank you to my beloved friends for standing with me.

We recently reached the milestone of 14,000 shiurim. Of course that means 14,000 expressions of thanks to Hashem who is Everything while we are just conduits. 

Also - thanks to all those who helped me be a conduit.

The Price of Silence

NIS 5,000,000 per hostage.

That was the offer Benjamin Netanyahu made in November 2024. Roughly $1.3 million per person. In Gaza, where the average annual income before the war was $3,000, that sum represents four centuries of labor. It is enough to change a family’s lineage forever. Enough to buy a way out. Enough to start over anywhere on earth.

The promise included safe passage for the informant and their entire family. No names published. No consequences. No retribution.

"To those who want to get out of this situation, I say to you: Whoever brings us a hostage will find a safe way out for himself and his family. We will also give a reward of $5 million for each hostage. The choice is yours, but the result will be the same. We will bring them all home." — Benjamin Netanyahu, November 19, 2024.

The hostages were not all in tunnels. Some were in living rooms. Mia Schem was held in the home of a Hamas gunman, living alongside his wife and children. Noa Argamani was kept in a private apartment in Nuseirat. Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv were held by Abdallah Aljamal—a "journalist" and physician—and his family, in a home on a busy residential street.

Not a bunker. A home.

Not a hidden facility. A neighborhood.

Yet, not one person came forward. Not for $1.3 million. Not for a new life. Not for the 251 human beings being held in the dark.

The silence is the subject of this piece.

In 2014, a law student named Sabab Ahmed stood up at a Benghazi panel and asked Brigitte Gabriel about moderate Muslims. Her question was sincere. She wanted to know why the conversation always seemed to focus on the radical minority rather than the peaceful majority.

Gabriel’s response has since been viewed over 50 million times. Her thesis was simple: The peaceful majority is irrelevant.

"The peaceful majority were irrelevant. Most Germans were peaceful, yet the Nazis drove the agenda and as a result, sixty million people died... The peaceful majority were irrelevant. When you look at all the lessons of history, most Chinese were peaceful, most Russians were peaceful... and yet they were able to take over." — Brigitte Gabriel, 2014.

The peaceful majority did not stop the Nazis from industrializing murder. It did not stop Stalin’s purges or Mao’s Great Leap Forward. It did not stop Imperial Japan from bayoneting its way across Southeast Asia.

Nineteen hijackers brought America to its knees on September 11, 2001. There were 2.3 million Arab Muslims living in the United States at the time. The peaceful majority was irrelevant to the outcome.

I want to push Gabriel’s argument further. She was describing a pattern; I have been living inside that pattern my entire life. Gaza has simply provided the clearest proof of it I have ever seen.

My grandfather, Olek, survived the Nazi camps and the death marches. His mother, Rosa Singer, did not. She was murdered at Auschwitz.

Most Germans were peaceful.

My father, Eddie, grew up as a "hidden child" in occupied Poland. He spent his youth listening for the knock on the door, watching for the neighbor who might inform, and clutching forged papers. He carried that trauma in his marrow until he died in 1996. He never stopped looking for the exits.

Most Germans were peaceful.

I grew up in Tel Aviv. During the 1991 Gulf War, my family sat in sealed rooms wearing gas masks. The question wasn’t whether Saddam Hussein would fire missiles at us, but whether the warheads contained nerve gas. I was twelve. I remember the frantic, rubbery smell of the mask and the terror of wondering if the seal was tight enough.

Most Iraqis were peaceful.

During the Second Intifada, I learned to read a city street the way a scout reads a ridgeline. I looked for the heavy bag, the nervous sweat, the specific quality of stillness that precedes a blast. I narrowly missed the bombing at "My Coffee Shop" on Allenby Street. I was not at Mike’s Place the night a suicide bomber killed three people I knew.

Most Palestinians were peaceful.

The peaceful majority did not stop any of it. They weren’t designed to. The majority is not the mechanism. The mechanism is the radical minority and the ideology that fuels them. That ideology is indifferent to the "peaceful" people surrounding it. It only requires enough people willing to act—and a majority willing to watch.

This is where the Gaza silence becomes an indictment.

$1.3 million is a King’s ransom. In a territory decimated by war, it is the only exit ticket on the market. And the hostages were not abstract. Mia Schem heard the wife of her captor moving in the kitchen. She was a guest in a house of horrors.

"There are no innocent civilians. It's families under Hamas... I experienced hell. Everyone there is a terrorist. They are families owned by Hamas." — Mia Schem, December 2023.

People knew. Neighbors saw. Families shared meals in the next room. Not one person spoke.

This is not a comment on the "innate" nature of Gazans. It is a clinical observation of what three generations of deliberate ideological saturation produces. It is what happens when radicalism is not just a fringe movement, but a state-sponsored curriculum installed into every classroom.

The United Nations ran the schools.

UNRWA educated more than half of Gaza’s children using textbooks produced by the Palestinian Authority. Those books have been flagged by international watchdogs for decades. The findings are not subtle.

Israel was erased from every map. The Holocaust was purged from history. Terrorists who massacred civilians were presented as role models. A fifth-grade textbook glorified Dalal Mughrabi, who led a massacre of 38 civilians, including 13 children.

"The curriculum... encourages students to see themselves as part of a struggle against an existential enemy and promotes 'martyrdom' as a key value." — IMPACT-se Report on UNRWA Education, 2023.

The indoctrination was total. An UNRWA teacher at Deir al-Balah was simultaneously a member of Hamas’s Central Camps Brigade. On October 7, he called his friend to brag about capturing a female hostage, using the word sabaya—the jihadi term for a sex slave.

He was a schoolteacher.

At least 100 Hamas members who participated in the October 7 massacre were graduates of the UNRWA system. In 2019, the UN’s own Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination flagged "hate speech in school curricula... which at times also fuels antisemitism."

The UN condemned its own curriculum. And then the UN continued to teach it.

This is why the silence held. This is why $1.3 million went unclaimed.

The peaceful majority was not silent because they were indifferent. They were silent because the ideology had done its work. In an environment of total ideological capture, dissent is not a "difference of opinion."

It is death.

My grandfather lived inside the Nazi version of this. The ideology was installed through the schools, the press, and the state until the culture was saturated. Most Germans were peaceful, but they had been rendered incapable of action—or had been converted without realizing it.

The result was Rosa Singer on a cattle car to Auschwitz.

In the West, a smaller version of this mechanism is now accelerating.

On college campuses, we see the "Red-Green alliance"—the convergence of far-left academic theory and Islamist energy. It is producing the exact dynamic Brigitte Gabriel identified: a loud, organized, ideologically committed minority operating while the peaceful majority watches from the sidelines, paralyzed by the fear of being called "Islamophobic."

The blocked entrances. The "baby killer" chants. The 84 percent increase in campus antisemitism. The Jewish students hiding their Star of David necklaces.

"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." — Albert Einstein

The Germans who watched in 1933 did not know what 1945 would look like. But we have no such excuse. We have the photographs. We have the names. We have Olek’s memories, Rosa’s absence, and my father’s lifetime of checking for the exits.

The peaceful majority is irrelevant only if we allow ourselves to be. Brigitte Gabriel was right about the mechanism. I watched it through a gas mask at age twelve, and I am watching it now in the silence of Gaza.

The radical minority acts. The peaceful majority watches. The ideology does the rest.

Stop watching.

Be a Partner in the Pulse of Beis Mevakesh Lev - For almost 20 years, B’chasdei Hashem, this space has been a home for seekers—a place where Torah is accessible to everyone, everywhere, without a paywall. We’ve shared over thousands and thousands of pages of learning together. But to keep the lights on and ensure this library remains free and growing for the next generation of Mevakshei Lev, I need your partnership.

Your contribution isn't just a donation; it's the fuel that keeps these shiurim reaching hearts across the globe. Whether it’s the cost of a coffee or a monthly sponsorship, you are making this Torah possible.

[Donate via PayPal/Zelle: alchehrm@gmail.com] Thank you to my beloved friends for standing with me.

We recently reached the milestone of 14,000 shiurim. Of course that means 14,000 expressions of thanks to Hashem who is Everything while we are just conduits. 

Also - thanks to all those who helped me be a conduit.

A Tale Of Woe From A Cafe

 I went to my favorite cafe today to write poetry. I was doing well until a girl at the next table started filming "content." She spent ten minutes recording the same line: “I’ve opted for the almond croissant and the pain au chocolat... let’s find out!”

By her seventh attempt at "rehearsed spontaneity," my patience evaporated. If she was going to ruin my poem, I was going to ruin her video. I pulled out my phone and shouted at my camera: “I’ve opted to deploy a subtle half-rhyme in the next line to elevate the stanza… LET’S FIND OUT!”

She looked at me with pure incredulity. I did it again, louder. She asked me to be quiet; I shouted the line a third time. She tried to record over me, but I was committed. I bellowed about my half-rhyme until the manager marched over and kicked us both out. Apparently, we were both in violation of the cafe's "no influencers" policy. The indignity of being grouped in with the croissant-filmer is something my literary ego may never recover from.

Be a Partner in the Pulse of Beis Mevakesh Lev - For almost 20 years, B’chasdei Hashem, this space has been a home for seekers—a place where Torah is accessible to everyone, everywhere, without a paywall. We’ve shared over thousands and thousands of pages of learning together. But to keep the lights on and ensure this library remains free and growing for the next generation of Mevakshei Lev, I need your partnership.

Your contribution isn't just a donation; it's the fuel that keeps these shiurim reaching hearts across the globe. Whether it’s the cost of a coffee or a monthly sponsorship, you are making this Torah possible.

[Donate via PayPal/Zelle: alchehrm@gmail.com] Thank you to my beloved friends for standing with me.

We recently reached the milestone of 14,000 shiurim. Of course that means 14,000 expressions of thanks to Hashem who is Everything while we are just conduits. 

Also - thanks to all those who helped me be a conduit.

Point And Counterpoint: The Diaspora

Last week I spoke with a Jewish American woman in the United States. We began talking about the war in Israel, and how the Iranians were expected to try to disrupt the Passover Seder (their major barrage was about an hour before the seder, rather than during).

It was just a few seconds of a longer conversation, but tears appeared in her eyes immediately. This is not an unusual reaction from American Jews when the topic arises.

Since October 7, 2023, something has shifted among Jews everywhere — a heightened, almost primal sense of shared fate. The level of identification with Israel has been unprecedented, even among those long accustomed to supporting the Jewish state.

Those who stood by Israel in its most difficult moments were, first and foremost, Jews. Synagogues were turned into command centers for hostage campaigns and fundraising efforts; communities mobilized tirelessly for public advocacy. They donated vast sums. Many traveled repeatedly to Israel during the war, joined solidarity missions to the south, brought friends, while others continued to send their children to serve in the IDF.

At the same time, Jews sensed hostility toward Israel within their own societies — and soon faced a wave of antisemitism unlike anything seen in recent decades. Unlike the period before October 7, antisemitism and the plight of Jewish communities have become central to Israeli discourse. The solidarity has flowed both ways.

As noted here before, the Jewish people have arrived at a historic crossroads: a significant threat in the diaspora — from the far right, the far left, and radical Islam. And with it, a severe security and political threat to Jewish flourishing in Israel.

Now more than ever, Israelis are bound by a shared fate to Jews in the diaspora. This moment demands a reassessment: a renewed relationship with the notion of the Galut, and a recognition of the diaspora’s intrinsic worth. Jewish communities abroad are not waystations en route to Israel, nor auxiliaries of the state, but integral to the fullness of Jewish life. To many reading this in English, it may seem self-evident.

In the Israeli narrative, it is not.

I am not writing this to diminish the remarkable story of Jewish national revival, nor out of skepticism about the future of Israel - my country. This essay is not a call to glorify the current phenomenon of emigration from Israel. On the contrary, it is an attempt to focus on what we Israelis could — and should — have learned from life in the diaspora.

Anyone who fails to grasp that the spiritual, political, and historical character of the Jewish people was also shaped — in modern times primarily — in the diaspora, will not understand its significance to the Jewish experience at all.

Moreover, they will fail to understand its critical importance to the survival of the State of Israel — physically and morally.

Israel’s Declaration of Independence opens as follows:

“Eretz Yisrael was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.”

Most of the text is correct. And yet, it contains a claim that is historically problematic: that in the Land of Israel the spiritual, religious and political identity of the Jews was shaped.

The signatories opened their declaration with this sentence because they were trying to establish the Jewish people’s right to the land. For their own reasons, they were not satisfied with accurate claims about the Jewish people’s origins: that Jewish sovereignty was realized only in the Land of Israel, or that it is the land of the Bible. They insisted on claiming that the most essential parts of Jewish history happened in the land, and essentially only in the Land.

This is simply not true.

In classical Zionist thought, the story is simple: the Jewish people, all or nearly all, lived in Eretz Yisrael. They created their entire worldview and heritage there. Then the Romans destroyed the Temple and exiled them. The Jews preserved their longing to return to their only homeland, wandering in the meantime as a people alien and persecuted. Zionism came and redeemed them.

The real story is more nuanced. Even before the destruction of the Temple, and certainly before the final destruction following the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 132 AD, most Jews already lived outside the Land of Israel. Some did so as a result of an earlier exile — the Babylonian Exile — but most chose to live throughout the Roman Empire, and before that, the Hellenistic world.

The Land of Israel was, of course, a spiritual and political capital, and Jews came there from all over the world — for example, on the three pilgrimage festivals. But the choice to live outside the Land of Israel was not rare, did not stem only from hardship or historical circumstances.

Philo of Alexandria, who died well before the Temple’s destruction (probably by 45 AD), mentions a range of reasons for the existence of diaspora Jewry: the land was too small to contain its inhabitants, the convenience of those already born elsewhere, and personal identification with one’s “homeland” — and by “homeland,” he did not mean Judea. The historian Aryeh Kasher explains that “Jews called the cities of their residence [in exile] by the term ‘homeland.’” Again, this dual Jewish identity preceded the destruction of the Second Temple and the Roman exile. As Philo wrote (In Flaccus 46) about 2,000 years ago:

“They look indeed upon the holy city (of Jerusalem) as their metropolis in which is erected the sacred temple of the most high God, but accounting those regions which have been occupied by their fathers, and grandfathers, and great grandfathers, and still more remote ancestors, in which they have been born and brought up, as their country”

This sounds remarkably similar to the self-description of Jewish communities around the world today — without, of course, the Temple that no longer exists.

Philo Judæus of Alexandria, born in 20 BCE. Portrait by the French painter André Thévet, 1584.

Even before the destruction, then, the Jewish people — while maintaining Jerusalem as its spiritual center — had already developed a parallel life in the wider world. This became fully entrenched after the Roman occupation.

The Talmud that dictated Jewish existence is, of course, the Babylonian Talmud, not the Jerusalem Talmud; Maimonides lived and worked mainly outside the Land of Israel and under the influence of Aristotelian philosophy; the exile and the loss of the Temple transformed the worship of God, from animal sacrifices to a three-times-daily prayers.

This, contrary to Israel’s Declaration of Independence, was a central element in shaping the Jewish people’s “religious character,” in which every synagogue became a “small Temple.” Daily religious life was transformed with the end of the sacrificial service.

The Declaration of Independence separates the “religious” from the “spiritual,” reflecting the secular outlook of most of its signatories and the largely secular — often anti-religious — character of mainstream Zionist movements. By “spiritual character,” the intention was to refer to the national-cultural dimension, not only the religious one.

But here, too, the Jewish people’s spiritual world was shaped over millennia of exile — in the works of writers like Shalom Aleichem, in the writings of thinkers such as Rabbi Yehudah Halevi, and even in the Zionist movement itself, which drew on European ideas of nationalism and self-determination.

None of this diminishes in the slightest the aspiration of the generations — which never wavered — to return to Eretz Yisrael. But even when most of Judea and the Galilee were under Jewish sovereignty, and the Levites sang in the Temple, many Jews lived in the diaspora. They too believed, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand fall lame.”

But it was a long-distance love. Jewish identity was not preserved despite the exile. It was, in large measure, created within it. All while preserving the yearning for Zion.

The Two Kinds of Exile

A central principle of classical Zionism is the total rejection of exile — the Galut. The life out of Eretz Yisrael — again, a normal state for most Jews before the Second Temple’s destruction, and a matter of choice — became the source of all evil. In Zionist thought, the diaspora existence is considered a flawed, abnormal, degraded and degrading condition.

“Purging the shame of exile” became a central Zionist goal. David Ben-Gurion, the founding father, devoted much energy to this line of thinking: “The bearers of the Jewish (Zionist) revolution in our time said: refusing to submit to fate is not enough; we must take control of our fate… not merely refusing the galut, but abolishing it—uprooting it altogether.”

The reasons were entirely understandable. Theodor Herzl discovered that dreams of emancipation and Jewish integration in Europe were destined to shatter against the rocks of antisemitism. In the end, he came to see that even a patriotic, secular French Jew like Alfred Dreyfus could meet the same fate as an orthodox Jew in the shtetl abused by Cossacks — or a Jew expelled from Rome.

Exile meant humiliation. It was the special tax imposed on Jews in the Roman Empire (used to fund the Temple of Jupiter), or the jizya in the Muslim world; endless persecutions, expulsions and blood libels; restrictions on professions and estrangement from agricultural labor; poverty that born out of oppression.

And even when a new era arrived, and an apparent age of enlightenment, it ended in the Holocaust that nearly annihilated the entire European Jewry. Even before, Zionism felt that the Jewish people were trapped between the control of rabbis and functionaries in the wretched, poor East European towns — rabbis who largely opposed Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael — and antisemites who would not let them flourish unless they abandoned their identity.

The result, many Jewish revolutionaries believed — Zionists, but also socialists and communists — was a people that had adapted itself to life inside a cage built by others, adjusting to it, even internalizing it.

Yitzhak Gruenbaum, one of the founders of the State of Israel and a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, went further. In early 1943, he blamed the “diaspora character” for the catastrophe of European Jewry, saying that Jews had preferred “the life of a beaten dog to an honorable death,” and that he felt a “burning sense of shame” that they waited “in a kind of calm, in a terrible indifference, and no leader arose to rouse them to die in resistance.”

It was a cruel — and totally wrong — judgment. But it reflects the complex, often fraught attitude of Zionist leaders toward the world they themselves came from. Gruenbaum was born in Warsaw, Poland.

Most — but not all — Zionist leaders did not distinguish between two kinds of life outside Eretz Israel: one in which Jews still had political independence and could return at any time to their ancient homeland, to live under a sovereign Jewish political order; and actual exile, after the destruction of the Second Temple, when all Jewish sovereignty vanished.

These were, in fact, two entirely different conditions of diaspora.

The first was a matter of choice. The Jews were already a global people, many of whom lived outside the Land of Israel by decision, not compulsion, while maintaining a deep attachment to Zion — a historical and religious homeland.

The second was exile in the full sense of the word. It shaped much of the Jewish people’s spiritual and historical character, and it was not chosen. It unfolded under constraint, marked by extraordinary religious, economic, and cultural achievements, but also by degradation, persecution, pogroms, and, ultimately, the near-total catastrophe of the Holocaust.

In this second condition, Jews had no option but to exist as a minority. In the first, they elected to do so as free people. This distinction is crucial.

After the reestablishment of a Jewish state in 1948, the Jews effectively returned to the days before the destruction of the Second Temple. To the extent that there is exile, a Galut, it is by choice.

But Zionism continued to treat the diaspora, and life abroad, as if it were still that other exile — by compulsion. Most of Israel’s founders failed to see that the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty also brought about a reimagining of the Jewish global diaspora.

Accordingly, the attitude of Zionism and the State of Israel toward the diaspora has been mostly instrumental. For Israeli public figures, diaspora Jewry continued to be a “challenge.” Israelis have had, and continue to have, two or three set messages when they come to the diaspora.

The first message is to encourage aliyah — immigration to Israel. This is the Ben-Gurion vision. It is often accompanied by a measure of alarmism, which can seem justified these days. Antisemitism, after all, is a chronic disease that has crushed and murdered countless Jews. Those who choose to remain abroad are, in effect, gambling that it will not erupt in their own lifetimes.

The second message is the need to support Israel as the fulfillment of generations of longing — the fullest realization of Jewish life.

The third message follows from the first two: Israel is a success story like no other, and every Jew has a stake in its future.

In Israeli discourse, there is virtually no recognition that Jewish life and culture in the diaspora possess value in their own right — intrinsic, not instrumental.

No Israeli official comes to Jewish communities abroad to truly learn from them. Not really. They come to “explain,” “recruit,” “educate,” or, at best, to “conduct dialogue.” In the Israeli narrative, the diaspora is merely a phase on the way to the redemption of aliyah.

Rather than a conversation between equals, Israeli leaders often behave like the older brother — one who left home long ago and, supposedly, made it — lecturing the younger brother who cannot leave his room and step into the real world. Where there is a state, they insist, one must immigrate to it, fight its enemies, build a high-tech economy, celebrate Purim in bomb shelters as missiles fall, and send one’s children to the army.

This is, of course, a narrow—almost childish—view.

I am a descendant of Zionist pioneers. Most of their families went to America; they chose instead a harder path-building a nation, laying roads with their bare hands, fighting and sacrificing for an extraordinary mission.

Yet it is not difficult to acknowledge both the achievement and the success of my great-grandmother’s siblings who went to the United States and became part of one of the most remarkable success stories of any minority in history.

An Israeli Jew Vs. A Diaspora Jew

An Israeli Jew comes from the majority group in his society, and moves through his country as such. He must fight external threats, but he dictates the story of his country.

A diaspora Jew lives as a minority. And when you live as a minority, if you want to maintain your identity, you need Jewish institutions (not only religious ones), dedicated education, and yes, sometimes you need to act with caution toward the majority group, lest harm befall you.

This is an enormous gap.

It was diaspora Jews — Ashkenazi and Mizrahi — who founded Israel. They brought with them the accumulated experience of an ancient minority: their wisdom, their skill in behind-the-scenes diplomacy, and a deeply global perspective. All of this they carried into the young State of Israel. Israel was founded by Galut Jews, even as they sought to create a “new Jew”— the Sabra.

But then they died. And their children — and then their grandchildren and great-grandchildren — began to forget. Within the Zionist narrative, there is no structural recognition of the intrinsic value of the diaspora experience in shaping the Jewish people; nothing to preserve this collective memory or its lessons.

“What we can learn from Jewish life in exile” usually begins and ends, for many Israelis, with the Holocaust and the need to make aliyah. This is a grave mistake.

Education, Alliances, and Persuasion

Life as a minority across the world required Jews to preserve their identity. But it also demanded adaptability, the ability to navigate between cultures, and the building of global networks of trade, knowledge, and relationships. Those became a source of strength in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the modern era.

Jews developed a sensitivity to political danger; they understood that they would be the first to pay the price for sweeping social upheavals — coups, revolutions, and extremism. Prime Minister Netanyahu has claimed more than once that Jews were not endowed with a strong instinct for recognizing danger, citing the Holocaust as evidence. I would argue the opposite: the most persecuted minority in the West could not have survived without an acute sensitivity to peril.

As a minority — never able to wield power, anywhere — they developed a worldview that rejected force and outward displays of power, a tendency already rooted in early Judaism’s rejection of idols. The veneration of power was replaced by a commitment to learning and education, seen as the true beginning of redemption — first in a religious sense, and later in secular and class terms.

Jews gravitated toward classical liberal values not by accident, but because they experienced the other side of the equation: entrenched traditionalism that masked prejudice, discrimination, and hatred. They built alliances with other minorities and with centers of power, and learned to speak effectively to public opinion — because it was the right thing to do, but also because doing so carried real survival value.

Cold realism, the ability to mobilize public opinion, political advocacy, and a focus on the next generation— all were essential to the flourishing of diaspora Jewry.

Most importantly, life as a minority cultivated a moral sensitivity — to the vulnerable, to injustice, and to the layered, complex nature of identity.

Much of this has lost its hold on Israeli governance. Consider what was outlined in the preceding paragraphs: political realism, a reverence for education, sensitivity to the possibility of a pogrom, the need to build alliances and engage public opinion, and a moral awareness of one’s place in the wider world. These are precisely the qualities diaspora Jews have had to cultivate — and which are absent in much of today’s Israeli establishment.

Many Jews in the diaspora see a Palestinian family whose flock is being looted, whose door is being battered, whose sons are beaten by far-right settlers, and they see more than a moral injustice. Even unconsciously, as a minority, they sense an echo of a nightmare that could happen to them — “Hilltop Youth” cast, in their memory, in the role once played by Cossacks.

The generation of my parents, and their parents, did not see much to learn from diaspora Jews even if they acknowledged the diaspora experience — partly because for some of them, these values were self-evident. Yet for many others, their parents and grandparents — with their “galuti” (exilic) ways — were a source of embarrassment, so far removed from the myth of the new Sabra.

Today, the discourse in Israel has changed completely. People celebrate their heritage, travel with their grandparents to Poland or Morocco, and reclaim the memory and identity of their families in the diaspora. It is a welcome — and much needed — shift.

Yet it has not been accompanied by a systematic rethinking at the core of the Israeli narrative — an effort to say: this is what we learned and crystallized over two thousand years of exile, and this is what we must carry forward. The nostalgia is mostly for folklore — customs, food, liturgical poetry (Piyutim), stories. That is not enough.

The Merits of the Diaspora

While Jews in America think of Israel as an insurance policy, more and more Israelis think the same of their foreign passports. Like that famous sketch from the Israeli TV show “Eretz Nehederet” about the meeting at Ben-Gurion Airport — between those returning to Israel because of antisemitism and those leaving it because of the war and an extreme government — these phenomena are happening in parallel.

Even beyond the language of insurance and future catastrophe, life in the diaspora is not a disgrace. It requires no atonement. It carries deep value for Jewish identity as a whole. The growth of Israeli communities abroad is an undeniable reality, and the hope should be that these communities draw on the Jewish experience of millennia —one that endured and flourished, despite everything.

And as long as life as a minority abroad remains a choice — rather than the result of tragedy in Eretz Israel — this is not the same Galut of two thousand years.

Israeli Jews who come to the diaspora will need to adopt the quality we Israelis often tend to forget: humility. Yes, the Israel we hail from represents a rebirth, one successful beyond compare to any national project in recent history. It is not only about past success, but about resilience — and the creation of a democratic culture that blends tradition with a relentless drive for the cutting edge, a dynamism like no other.

But diaspora Jews represent the ability to survive and flourish over thousands of years, sometimes in difficult conditions, and above all with a remarkable preservation of their identity. They have successfully created communities with thriving institutions based on self-generated investment.

The call to recognize the deep and independent value of Jewish life in the diaspora is not a rejection or dilution of the Jewish right to Eretz Yisrael. It is simply a correction of an error — one that Israelis cannot afford to make.

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1. The Land is the Soul, Not a "Choice"

The author suggests that the Land of Israel is merely one "spiritual capital" among many. Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, fundamentally dismantled this idea. He wrote in Orot:

"Eretz Yisrael is not something apart from the soul of the Jewish people; it is not merely a national possession... Eretz Yisrael is an essential part of our existence, bound up with our life and our inner being by supernatural ties."

To Rav Kook, any Jewish life outside the Land is "unnatural." He compared the Jewish people in the Diaspora to a person whose soul is detached from their body. While the author cites Philo of Alexandria to justify a "choice" to live in the Diaspora, Rav Kook would argue that such a choice is a sign of a "diminished soul." The fact that Jews lived in Alexandria or Babylon doesn't prove those places have "intrinsic worth"; it proves how deep the "darkness of the exile" can penetrate, making a Jew forget his own nature.

2. The Torah of the Land vs. The Torah of the Exile

The essay claims that the "spiritual character" of the Jews was shaped primarily in the Diaspora. Rav Moshe Avigdor Amiel, the former Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, addressed this directly. He distinguished between the "Torah of Eretz Yisrael" and the "Torah of the Diaspora."

Rav Amiel taught that in the Diaspora, Judaism was forced to become a "religion" of the individual—of the synagogue and the private home. But the true Torah is a "Torah of Life" that governs a nation—with an army, a land, and a social order. He argued that the Galut narrowed our vision, making us "spiritual dwarfs." To claim that the Babylonian Talmud is "superior" to the Jerusalem Talmud is to miss the point: we were forced into the Babylonian Talmud because our national heart was broken. As Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap (a primary disciple of Rav Kook) wrote in Mei Marom:

"In the Diaspora, holiness is found only in the hidden recesses of the soul, but in Eretz Yisrael, the holiness is revealed in the very stones and dust of the Land."

3. The "Exile Mentality" is a Malady, Not a Virtue

The author suggests that Israelis should learn "humility" and "minority sensitivity" from the Diaspora. This "sensitivity" is often just a byproduct of the "Galus Mentality"—a fear of power and a desire to please our neighbors.

Rav Kook taught that the "Sabra"—the "New Jew"—was a necessary correction to the "stooped-shoulder" existence of the exile. He believed the physical strength of the Israeli youth was a form of spiritual "teshuva" (repentance). He wrote:

"The exercise which Jewish youth in Eretz Yisrael practice in order to strengthen their bodies for the sake of the power of the nation... this is a holy service."

The "moral awareness" the author praises in the Diaspora is often a "universalism" that dilutes Jewish identity. Rav Amiel warned that when Jews live as a minority for too long, they begin to view their own national interests through the eyes of their hosts. To compare "Hilltop Youth" to "Cossacks" is a tragic example of this; it is the language of the exile being used to demonize the sons of the Land who are reclaiming their heritage.

4. The Holiness of the "Physical" State

The essay argues that the Diaspora has "intrinsic worth" because it shaped our religious life. But Rav Charlap taught that the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty is not just a "political" event—it is the Acheleta De-Geulah (the beginning of the Redemption).

In the Diaspora, we could only be "holy" by withdrawing from the world. In Israel, we are holy by engaging with the world. Building a road in Israel is as holy as putting on Teffilin. Therefore, the "value" of the Diaspora is strictly instrumental: it was a "cemetery" (as the Vilna Gaon called it) where we preserved our bones until we could be resurrected in our own Land. Once the resurrection has begun, why would we want to return to the grave?

5. The "Insurance Policy" vs. The Covenant

The author claims that since the state is now an "insurance policy" for both sides, the Galut is no longer a "disgrace."

One should reject the "insurance policy" model. We are not in Israel because it is "safe"—October 7th proved that it is, in many ways, the most dangerous place for a Jew. We are here because of a Covenant. Rav Yehuda Halevi (whom the author mentions) wrote in the Kuzari that the "God of Israel" can only be fully worshipped in the "Land of Israel." He famously said that while we pray for Zion, our hearts are truly "at the end of the West"—and he called this a "great sin."

The "heightened sense of shared fate" since October 7th should not lead to a "reassessment of the Galut." It should lead to a rejection of the Galut. The tears of the American Jewess mentioned in the opening are a sign that her soul knows she is in the wrong place.

Conclusion

As Rav Kook wrote in Orot HaTeshuvah:

"The temporary stay of Jews outside the Land is a continuous protest against the natural order of the world."

We do not want a "conversation between equals" with the Diaspora. We want our brothers and sisters to come home. We do not need to learn "humility" from the minority experience; we need to learn responsibility from the sovereign experience. The Diaspora was a long, painful night. The State of Israel is the dawn. One does not "reassess" the value of the darkness once the sun has risen; one simply thanks God for the light.

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