On the Psychologist’s Couch – Israel Suffers from Victory-Phobia

The people of Israel, in great numbers, accompanied Shiri Bibas and her children, may their memory be a blessing, to their final resting place yesterday. It was an impressive display of unity and solidarity with the infinite suffering against the infinite evil of our enemies. People from all sectors, from across the spectrum, took part in the painful procession, inevitably raising the question: Why is it that precisely at such moments—of sorrow, pain, and bereavement—this unity is revealed? Why do we not see it on other occasions in Israeli discourse? Is it only in such moments that we know how to unite?

The answer, unfortunately, is yes—it is only in such moments that we know how to unite, and even more troubling, only in such moments does the public as a whole have the capacity to cope with reality. This is not a momentary whim but a deeply ingrained psychological issue in our national DNA, one that emerged from two thousand years of exile, bereavement, and loss; two thousand years of humiliation and oppression, which should have ended with our return to our land and the establishment of a Jewish state that allows us to live a healthy national life. But as the saying goes, it is harder to remove exile from the Jews than to remove the Jews from exile.

We are accustomed to being humiliated, oppressed, and murdered. For many among us, particularly those who have not had the privilege of a life of Torah and mitzvot, Auschwitz is the central component of Jewish identity. For many among us, in the absence of any positive reason to be Jewish, to fight for the land, to marry a Jewish spouse, or to feel part of the Jewish people—the suffering and bereavement serve as the only common denominator they feel they share with other Jews. For those raised on Western democratic values—what Aharon Barak calls "substantive democracy"—there is no rational explanation for why a Jew in Brooklyn, London, or Buenos Aires is part of our nation, while an Arab or any other non-Jew who holds Israeli citizenship is not. In this reality, the cruelty of Hamas becomes a national identifier, just as the Holocaust once reminded many of their Jewishness.

Sitting on the psychologist’s couch, the State of Israel finds in the funeral of the Bibas family the fulfillment of its fundamental psychological need for national identification—a need that was stolen from them by the Israeli education system, which has caused millions to suffer spiritual death due to malnutrition in basic Jewish values. In the absence of Torah and mitzvot, of Shabbat and tefillin, of Jewish holidays in their true form, and of the sanctity that forms the foundation of the traditional Jewish family unit, these unfortunate Jews cling to collective pain. The pure, innocent children of the Bibas family, who committed no crime or wrongdoing, become their ultimate lifeline against the absolute emptiness that secular, hollow life has instilled in them.

Due to this identity crisis, these people have no ability to define their Jewishness in a positive manner. Therefore, they can immerse themselves in feelings of pain, but they cannot handle the emotions of joy that come with victory over the enemy. This is why they seek a deal at any cost—a deal that ultimately means more defeats, more deaths, more hostages, more pain, and more loss—because only in this way can they reach emotional satisfaction and the only experience they are capable of having as Jews. This analysis may sound harsh, but consider how many secular Jews view the Holocaust as the primary meaning of their Jewish identity, and draw your own conclusions.

We are sitting on the same national psychologist’s couch, suffering from victory-phobia—a fear of victory. Victory demands a positive identity, not one based only on pain and loss. Victory requires a real definition of who we are and what we are.

Victory requires a return to the roots of our Jewishness, and that is too painful for those who have built their entire lives on escaping those roots. Decades of spiritual malnutrition have taken their toll, and the only solution to this distress is a massive injection of Jewish vitamins into the souls of those unfortunate individuals who genuinely grieve for the Bibas family but cannot find a positive reason for their Jewishness beyond shared national pain.

But Israel is not forsaken, and the Torah has already promised us that the Jewish people will ultimately repent, and no one will be lost. After returning to our land, the younger generation thirsts for a healthy Judaism—a Judaism of faith, a Judaism of positive values, a Judaism of absolute victory.

Absolute victory over the enemy and the evil he represents, and absolute victory in returning to our roots. The rebellion taking place in a Ramat Gan school, where children have rejected the emptiness imposed on them by the secular system, is nothing less than the first buds of a great revolution before us. Mentally healthy Jews understand that Jewish identity is far more than being victims of the Holocaust in Europe and massacres in Nir Oz.

Torah lessons across the country have already been established in memory of the Bibas family, and this more than anything symbolizes the inevitable process that no force will be able to stop!

The author is Rabbi Yehuda Epstein – Chairman of Kedushat Zion, the Association of Haredim for the Demand for Zion in Its Purest Form.