One of the tragedies of Israel is that the secular Zionists misunderstood the depths of Jewishness. When I came to Israel, the illusion was that we were going to "create the new Jew." But how can you change a nation, its characters [sic], its mentality? The tragedy was that ideological secular Israelis wanted to change the character of a nation and that is impossible to do. Moreover, what was so bad about being Jewish? What did we need to change? There was a general conception among secular Zionists that the Jew was too weak, too spiritual, and that our real task should be to be more like other nations . . .

Today, many secular Israelis understand that this was a mistake. Many people have turned to religion, and some to a nationalist religion, because the secular life in Israel that was so rich in the beginning became empty. Now Israeli culture is struggling about what we are going to be, how we are going to absorb and reclaim our long cultural heritage. On the one side, we have liberal secularists who are mostly anti-religious, and on the other side we have a religious community that is slowly becoming anti-liberal and anti-state. . . .

I feel that in Israel there is a thirst for Jewish spirituality, a real spirituality that would provide meaning to people's lives. From that will emerge a Jew who doesn't hate his heritage, doesn't hate himself, and who will be good to his community and his surroundings. Israel could then become a Jewish state. I don't mean a halachic state, I mean a state that reflects the cultural, religious, and historical wisdom during that past two hundred years since the French revolution. Mendelssohn is part of our experience, Freud, Wittgenstein, Herzl, Marx -- these are all part of our experience that must be reintegrated into our life.

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