The Eternal Israel Is More Than Any Government

This Rosh Hashanah, the shofar will sound in synagogues across the world. Its cry is ancient and urgent, a reminder to pause, reflect, and return. It calls us back to our best selves, back to community, and back to the truths that endure beyond the noise of daily life.

One of those truths is Israel. Not Israel as defined by this or that government, but Israel as our eternal home. Governments change. Coalitions rise and fall. Leaders come and go. But Israel remains. Jerusalem remains. The Jewish homeland remains.

For two thousand years, Jews ended Yom Kippur with the same prayer: Next year in Jerusalem. That hope was not tied to policies or politics. It was about survival, memory, and destiny. When the State of Israel was declared in 1948, it was not the triumph of one party but the fulfillment of that timeless dream.

The shofar is also a call to return. It reminds us of the journeys our people have taken—returning home after exile, rebuilding after tragedy, carrying faith across centuries. It reminds us that Israel has always been the refuge and renewal of our people: the nation that welcomed Holocaust survivors, absorbed Jews expelled from Arab lands, brought Ethiopian Jews across deserts to freedom, and opened its gates to Russian Jews seeking dignity and a future.

That is the Israel we are bound to—not the headlines of the moment, but the story of generations.

This does not mean ignoring differences or silencing concerns. Israelis argue passionately about their government every day—that is democracy at work. And Diaspora Jews, too, should speak with honesty and conviction. But our bond with Israel cannot be conditional. It is larger than politics. It is rooted in peoplehood, history, and faith.

The High Holidays are about teshuvah—about return. For some, that means return to God. For others, return to family, to community, to one’s truest self. But for all of us, it is also a reminder of return to the land that has always been at the heart of our prayers and our destiny.

So when the shofar sounds this year, let it carry this message across oceans and across generations: Israel is not theirs or yours—it is ours. Shared. Eternal. Unbreakable.

Like the shofar itself and like it or not at any given moment in time, that call will never fade.