I will not equivocate: I prefer a strong Israel to a weak one. Millions of lives depend on it, and in our neighbourhood, it is a matter of life and death. There are so many naysayers that I feel it important to state something so fundamental, and perhaps so obvious, before Pesach and Yom Ha’atzmaut.

Israel has withstood extraordinary odds and is emerging as a powerhouse in its region. I pray this becomes a catalyst for a more peaceful future. But power, as Jewish history teaches us repeatedly, is only as good as the values that hold it.

This is why Israel must retain its humility and remember the source of its strength. It is G-d’s Land, and we live here at His will. History has shown us, with painful clarity, how much He despises baseless hatred and the self-inflicted blindness that comes from believing our strength is our own doing.

Our greatest leader, Moses, was also our most humble. We are about to celebrate Pesach, and the Haggadah that guides our Seder barely mentions him at all. He appears once, in the Hallel. The authors of the Haggadah stepped back from their hero deliberately, to emphasise that it was G-d Himself who took us out of Egypt: not a general, not a statesman, not a strongman. That is the Jewish model of leadership.

I worry about what a strong Israel can breed if left unexamined. A rise in extremism, internal strife, growth of populations that live outside the state and do not participate in it, and the mistreatment of minority rights are real dangers.

Yet they are not inevitable. The tradition that gave us Moses also gave us Ruth, a Moabite woman whose loyalty and kindness became the vessel through which the House of David entered the world. It gave us Esther, who saved her people not through force but through courage, wisdom, and a moral clarity that shamed a king. It gave us an entire literature suffused with obligation toward the stranger and the vulnerable. That tradition did not survive four thousand years so that we could abandon its lessons at the moment of our arguably greatest strength. Strength without conscience is not Jewish strength. It is something else entirely.

And yet, let there be no doubt: a strong Israel is not optional. It is not a preference or a political position. It is a condition of survival. The vision of a small, diminished, manageable Jewish state that some advocate for is, I will say plainly, a death sentence. History does not permit us the luxury of weakness.

So my vote is for a strong, proud, but humble Israel: one that projects genuine confidence, adheres unapologetically to its highest principles, and remains indifferent to the hatred directed at it. Not because that hatred does not exist, but because it does not get to define us.

As we approach Pesach, may we remember that it was G-d alone who redeemed us, and that the values He instilled in us demand both courage and conscience. Strength and humility are not opposites. In the Jewish vision, they are the same thing.

Israel remains, for all its very real struggles and imperfect leaders, a country whose contribution to the world in its short rebirth has been remarkable, whether the world acknowledges it or not. It is still, in my view, the greatest country on the planet.

To the Jewish People, to the Jewish State and all its citizens, to the American servicemen and servicewomen who are fighting by our side, and to all its supporters: wishing you a Happy and Kosher Pesach. May we continue to build a strong, proud, and humble Israel, worthy of the values we carry.

I still believe that Israel is a miracle.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)