This July 4th, America celebrates its 250th birthday.

As I think about that milestone, I find myself feeling two emotions at the same time.

The first is gratitude.

America has been extraordinarily good to the Jewish people. Few countries in Jewish history have offered the freedom, opportunity, and acceptance that American Jews have experienced. We have built thriving synagogues, schools, yeshivot, camps, charitable organizations, and vibrant Torah communities. I feel blessed to be a rabbi in this country, and my family has been blessed to raise our children here.

But alongside that gratitude is another feeling.

For the first time in almost 2,000 years, the Jewish people once again have a sovereign state in our ancestral homeland.

And that raises a question previous generations of American Jews never had to ask in quite the same way:

What is the role of Jewish life in America now that the Jewish people have reestablished a sovereign state in Israel – a state that is now home to the largest Jewish population in the world?

Last Saturday evening, that question became the focus of a fascinating conversation.

We began something new in our community – a monthly Tradition journal book club. Each month we’ll read an article together from that journal and then discuss not just what the author wrote, but what it means for our lives.

Our first article was Malka Simkovich’s The Jewish State and the Failures of Diaspora: Three Approaches. On the surface, it was about the different views of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. But before long, our........

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