MOSHE TARAGIN

Once again, this week we are left with no alternatives but to summon faith and confront this daunting challenge with courage, and unshakable resolve.

We must be exceptionally delicate in our speech, careful to uphold moral integrity, and even more so, to avoid clouding or distorting our historical narratives.

Secular Zionist culture has deepened in spirituality and no longer aims to hollow out religion. This cultural shift in Israel may render extreme cultural insularity less essential.

When the afterlife becomes the sole focus, like for Islamic terrorists who kill innocents, seeking heavenly rewards, religion loses its moral compass and can justify terrible crimes.

History may confront us with sorrow or struggle, but we still choose whether to respond with pride and confidence or with frustration and self-doubt.

The very different circumstances under which two Israeli soldiers were returned puts things in perspective and echoes Jewish values.

The worst fires in modern Israeli history erupted just as our people sought to celebrate our hard-won independence.

We are sailing together on the same ship of history, and without shared purpose and collective effort we will struggle to move forward.

In both 1940 and in 2023, antisemitism revealed the moral decay in societies that appeared to have achieved lofty moral goals.

Faith isn’t about finding all the answers – it’s about having shoulders wide enough, and spirits deep enough, to carry the weight of the questions.