Shalom Chevray,
So considering Israel is so prominent in the news I was curious. For us as Jews, our tradition holds Eretz Yisrael very central to our religious and cultural identity.
In what way does Israel (the Land and/or the Country) effect your Judaism and Jewish identity? Do you identify on a religious, spiritual, cultural or national level? or a combination of these levels? (sorry i'm having a hard time finding the right words to ask this question) I guess even more simply, what does Israel (again the Land and/or the Country) mean to you as a Jew?
Well, I consider myself something of a religious Zionist, so Israel is important to me. But beyond Zionism, certainly I think Eretz Yisrael is deeply central: most of our core tefillot have elements involving the land that God gave to our Avot, and His bringing us up from Egypt to give us that land, and/or our loss of that land and plea to be returned to it. Our poetry is filled with imagery of the Land of Israel and longing for it. And the Ingathering of Exile is core to Jewish messianism, which in turn has affected nearly every facet of Jewish tradition. So it seems hard to me to imagine the Land of Israel not being critically important to Judaism. It's our homeland, the place of our roots, the land that shaped who we are. It's our Holy Land.
And in terms of the State of Israel, I can say, having lived in Israel for a while, that
there really is noplace else like it. Even considering that most of the populace are officially "chiloni" (though in practice, only a minority of them are truly secular in the early Zionist/pioneer model), there is still something deeply powerful about being in a Jewishly constructed and framed culture, where Jews predominate. The place has a lot of problems, and many of those problems have to do with how Jews treat one another, to say nothing of how we treat non-Jews under our jurisdiction-- all of which is troubling.
But it's special. It's worth fighting to make it a better place (again to say nothing of the more literal fighting, to make it a safer place).
I make no bones about being a Jew content to live in galut (exile). I have no burning desire to make aliyah, though I would not be opposed to living there under the proper circumstances. But I do believe that the Jewish People also benefit from having a strong community in exile, just as we benefitted during the time of the Talmud. Nonetheless, Israel is our home, and should be treated as such, and the effort to maintain a Jewish State in the Jewish Land should not be diminished. And I conduct myself accordingly. I critique aspects of Israeli society, I push for political and social reform there, and I do not claim any immaculate status for the Israeli society, government, or military. But I do support Israel, and I will always go to bat for the rightful existence of a Jewish State in the Land of Israel, and the centrality of the Land of Israel as the eternal homeland of the Jewish People.
