Soul and Survival

The Patriarch Jacob’s grappling with a mysterious being along the banks of the river Yabbok was as challenging as it was transformative. As the dawn began to pierce the waning darkness, Jacob pressed for a blessing. His adversary intones,

“Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Yisrael, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.”

To reinforce the dramatic change in identity, his opponent inflicts a sacred sciatica on the hero’s hip. It is a physical, limping memento of a more powerful inner change.

Many have understood this new name and identity, which became eponymous for the Jewish people, as painfully prophetic. Looking at the current situation in Israel through the lens of Jacob’s liminal dark night of the soul offers insight to inform the geo-political moment. The wrestling that is so central to the word Yisrael, and the communal identity that emerges from it, reflect a deeper conflict. It is a contest between the limitations of the human condition and the aspirations of a people committed to imitateo deo—to becoming holy like God.

Israel’s defense of its survival has required a military vigilance against intractable enemies. But it has also led to the collateral deaths of civilians. While Israel works hard to embrace the martial ethos of tohar neshek—a purity of arms toward a more principled prosecution of war, no modern nation can be perfectly faultless. Tragically, these collateral deaths are further exploited by Hamas in its endangerment of its own innocents as human shields. The savage barbarism of October 7th, and Israel’s necessary response, have tried this measured balance between a brutish world and rarefied ideals. The radical extremism of a right-wing governing coalition composed of the marginal and the malicious has exacerbated external threats with internal conflicts that jeopardize Israel’s democratic character and higher aspirations. The State of Israel is at a crucial inflection point as consequential as Jacob’s dusky grappling.

Significant portions of Israeli society have sounded the alarm bells in this moment–even calling on their fellow Jews in the Diaspora to join them. J Street–the pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy advocacy group–has heeded the call and has urged others in the American Jewish community to do the same.

The embrace and advocacy of a moral code can seem needless or even troubling in the face of barbarism and the intense emotions it evokes. The specters of centuries of persecution, violence, and murder evoked by October 7th triggered feelings which impacted both the constraints on Israel’s military response and the public’s support of the lowering of such guardrails. Additionally, the images of recently released hostages echoed the shocking gauntness of those liberated from death camps. And the recent return of the coffins of the Bibas family—especially the toddler and infant children—only fueled the Israeli public’s impulsive support for the once unimaginable notion of total transfer of the Palestinian population from Gaza.

In one sense, this is an understandable response to depravity. Raging against perceived enemies—even collectively—is a visceral reaction. But our ideals and our principles—and perhaps our souls–are truly tested, not in tranquil periods of intellectual reflection, but in the moments that try our convictions against our circumstance. The values and vision of J Street speak directly and inspiringly to this moment, when we strive with both the human and the godly–as the frailties of flesh and blood confront the better angels of our nature.

As the Jewish community wrestles with these aspects of the human condition, J Street recognizes that Israel must maintain both its security and its Jewish, democratic character–with neither being sacrificed at the expense of the other. J Street’s core ideology is a needed tonic for our times, even when not everyone agrees with every policy position. J Street is unique amongst Jewish organizations seeking to meet this unprecedented era. And it does so with reason, reflection, and a reliance upon the lofty ideals that define us as Jews, distinguish us as human beings, and determine our eternal essence as children of a loving, longing God.

The medieval commentator Rashi shared cogent insights on Jacob’s spiritual and moral evolution from haughty youth to an enlightened Israel:

It shall no longer be said that the blessings came to you through supplanting and subtlety but through noble conduct.

It is only through the crucible of struggle with self and with others that the very human and fallible Jacob could grow to become worthy of the mantle of moral leadership. And it is only through the undaunted pursuit of righteousness, compassion, and peace— even in the face of manifest evil–that the State of Israel will one day help to forge a world without the need to react to its enemies in kind, fulfilling its eternal mission to be a true light unto the nations.