“When God brought back those who returned to Zion, we were like dreamers.” 

Who would have, could have, believed that after 1,900 years – and a mere three years after the greatest tragedy in Jewish history – the Jewish People could become sovereign in their land? Throughout most of our exile, Israel was a distant place – physically, spiritually and, perhaps most important, conceptually.

Much of the opposition to Zionism was based on the notion that the mass return of the people to their land was something that had to await the messianic period. Re-establishing a Jewish state was considered otherworldly, the stuff of dreams, something we dare not try to implement in practice. The Holocaust “cured” most Jews of this way of thinking, but for the Jew living the nightmare of Auschwitz, the idea of the State of Israel was inconceivable even as a dream. Its creation would be a miracle as great – and likely greater – than any other in Jewish history. The return to our land, against all odds, allowed the people of Israel to turn the greatest of dreams into reality. As David Ben-Gurion famously remarked, in Israel, believing in miracles is the mark of a realist. The thrice recited prayer “to the city of Jerusalem [please] return in mercy” is being fulfilled before our very eyes.

The world is a much more scary place than it was 10 years ago, or even last year. The Jewish state and the Jewish People (and they are one and the same) are singled out for hatred more than any other. Missiles in the thousands – and perhaps hundreds of thousands – are pointed toward Israel. Yet the Jewish People have never been stronger, and we can and must confidently move forward.

One of the basic characteristics of a dream is the rapid pace at which time moves. While there may be much happening in a dream, the dream itself lasts mere seconds. The State of Israel has been in existence only 67 years. Yet in that historical blink of an eye, Israel has done what others have not accomplished in thousands of years. Torah, technology, science, art, music, innovation, agriculture and medicine – you name it, and Israel is a world leader. For a country with less than .1 per cent of the world’s population, this is unbelievable, even for a dream.

The Talmud was greatly interested in the study of dreams, discussing their meaning and significance. Considering the role they play in biblical history, this is not surprising. Long before Freud, our sages surmised that dreams reflect reality – or if not actual reality, then the reality of our wants and desires: “A man is shown in his dreams only what is suggested by his own thoughts” (Brachot 55b). Furthermore, the Talmud teaches that “hakol holech achar hapitaron,” all occurs according to the interpretation.

Nowhere is such interpretation more necessary than it is in regard to Israel. Sadly, not all recognize the tremendous gifts that God has blessed us with.

Israel is not a perfect country. It’s run by humans, so how could it be otherwise? But it is a more perfect country than most, and perhaps it is more perfect than all. One can look at Israel and see division, challenges, political deadlock, social unrest and enemies all around. Yet one can interpret those as the inevitable growing pains of a young, dynamic, booming country. Should we not all be awestruck by all that Israel has accomplished? The rust of 1,900 years of exile does not come off overnight. Yet so much has been scraped off, revealing amazing beauty beneath.

If we want to see even more beauty, we must properly and positively interpret this most amazing of dreams, so that the greatest of dreams may continue to turn to reality.

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