Israel is a Biblical Nation
An article in The Jerusalem Post:
My comment:
As our “Biblical” sources write, “Suffering softens man like salt softens meat.”
We are a “Biblical Nation” with a “Biblical purpose” in the world.
However, because we also have a yearning to be accepted by others, to be like others and because our “Biblical purpose” is hard and “supernatural” – we have to fulfill it against and above the inherently egocentric, selfish and hateful human nature – we keep forsaking our origins and identity.
This tendency accompanied Jews since the times of Moses, and those who have forsaken the original Jewish foundations never fared well.
Modern Israel also tried to become a secular and Western nation, and we are still perpetually fighting for our physical survival.
As the aricle stated, returning to our “Biblical roots” does not mean religious observance as we know it today.
Instead it means constantly feeling as if leaving “Egypt” – the governance of our selfish ego – again and again, feeling as if we “received the Torah” – the instructions and method of recognizing our inherently cancer-like ego and against it acquiring the “godly qualities” of unconditional “brotherly love” according to the principle of “Love your friend as yourself” so – despite camping around the Mount of Hatred between us – we could build a Nation based on mutual guarantee, where we become “as one man with one heart.”
With that, we also fulfill our most important prayer, “Shema Yisrael,” sanctifying the single governing force of reality through ourselves becoming “one”.