The contradictions that I am holding right now about Israel and about Zionism are simultaneously dizzying and comforting. Just a few days into the ceasefire with Iran and a few days before Yom Ha’atzmaut, those contradictions are particularly salient. 

My 45-year old friend cannot bear the Israeli government, has many hard questions about the State of Israel itself, votes regularly for the Arab parties in government, and is now, once again, volunteering in the army nonetheless. 

Another friend marvels at the tactical and physical prowess of the Israeli army, while lamenting our inability to win decisively in a way the average citizen can understand. 

My husband is distraught at the state of the school system here in Israel, and yet cannot imagine raising our children elsewhere. 

I cannot bring myself to plan a summer vacation for fear the war will return and ruin it all, but I’m already planning what my house will look like in about 10 years if I’m lucky enough to have grandchildren by then. 

Holding all of these contradictions, I find myself asking: how will I mark Yom Ha’atzmaut this year? 

I am grateful that the Jewish people are sovereign in their land. I prefer we defend ourselves with our own army than return to a state of complete victimhood. But celebrations this year will not come easily here in Israel. Our roads and homes are pockmarked by missile attacks, and our hearts are heavy. 

For years, Robbie Gringras, co-director of For the Sake of Argument, has been teaching that the core of Zionist belief lies in the second-to-last line of Hatikvah – lihiyot am chofshi b’artzeinu – “to be a people, free in our land.” This line can be investigated with four questions, Robbie teaches: 

What does it mean “to be”? To live with safety and security? This year, I am asking – Am I safer and more secure knowing that our enemies have been weakened, or is the danger greater, awaiting the vengeful return of the Iranian regime? 

Who is part of my “people”? This year, I’m thinking about the men and women who have fought tirelessly – they are part of my people. But what about those who didn’t serve, or refuse to serve in the army? What about those Jews who aren’t sure of my own right to protect myself? 

What does it look like to be “free”? Am I free when I can protest in Tel Aviv, but cannot pray at the Kotel as I wish? Am I free when leaders of my government push forward a law that treats capital punishment differently for Jews and Palestinians?  

What is “our land”? What are its borders and boundaries? Are there borders we would concede for a few quiet years? What does it mean to belong to a land my children know intimately — its flowers, its trees — even as its boundaries remain contested, and their ability to come and go freely changes by the day?

My heart is heavy with these questions.

But truthfully, I would rather be asking them. I hold onto that line — “to be a people, free in our land” — not as a declaration, but as an invitation. This year, on Yom Ha’atzmaut, I imagine asking my Israeli friends, as we gather around the barbecue, how they hear those words, and what they hope the answers to Robbie’s questions might be. What does safety and security feel like to them now? Who is their “people?” In what ways does our democracy, as it stands today, make them “free?” Where do they draw the boundaries of “our land?” What do they hope or wish the answers to these questions would be?

I want to hear the full range of answers — the ones that unsettle me and the ones that steady me. I want my children to experience both the friction of disagreement and the comfort of shared searching. I want to remind myself that while the kind of sovereignty we have might be imperfect, it allows us to ask questions and argue about our differing views of our own responsibilities and culpabilities. 

This year, Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations may be quieter and more tentative. But I remain grateful to live inside these questions, to wrestle with them in Hebrew, in public, with neighbors and family and friends. 

If this is what Israel looks like – a place that demands we ask questions that open up critical thinking and encourage us to do better — then perhaps this is the freedom I am embracing this year.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)