History Repeating Itself
In 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin said to Senator Joe Biden:
“Don’t threaten us with cutting off aid to give up our principles. I’m not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”
“Standing by our principles” is crucial to withstanding global pressures.
"Our principles" refer to the foundational ideals that now underpin civilized society.
On a national level, these ideals include liberty and justice for all, inalienable rights, supporting the less fortunate, and global unity as a value.
On a personal level, these ideals include the values we aspire for our children so they can live full and productive lives.
All of these ideals require harnessing our instinctual behaviors.
Doing so embodies an acknowledgment of another’s existence and rights.
Additionally, embracing life’s ideals reflects a conscious or implicitly held belief in a higher authority.
The intuitively sound and universally resonant nature of life's ideals points to a higher authority as their origin.
In contrast, a perverted belief in God facilitates the unleashing of the darkest aspects of human existence in the negation of others.
Jewish thought teaches that the long-term solution to the Jewish people's challenges is to more wholly and actively embrace the life ideals that embody God’s ennobling agenda for humanity.
