Sometimes, we Jews and our external critics perceive Jews to be too insular, clannish and tribal. Sometimes, we sense that we can overdose on the first part of the rabbinic adage: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? — pursuing self-interest and self-protection — ignoring the second part: “And if I am only for myself, what am I?”
I have lived my own life as a moral shuttle between those two positions. (My most recent book illustrates that tension.)
So does Israel, and so does the entire Jewish people.
That is why Israel is Yisrael, the ones who struggle with God and with meaning itself.
We would not have it any other way.
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