Why Israel? The Mission We Whisper
Every Jew knows the words of the Shema, but few realize that hidden within its familiar verses is the answer to one of Israel's greatest modern questions – why Israel?.
Every Jew knows the words of the Shema, but few realize that hidden within its familiar verses is the answer to one of Israel’s greatest modern questions – why Israel. If we rediscover the purpose Hashem repeats to us twice every day, we may finally understand not only why we are fighting—but why we were brought home in the first place.
For more than eighty years, the State of Israel has lived through miracles that few nations could imagine—and hardships that few nations could endure. We have built cities from sand dunes, vineyards from rocky hillsides, and one of the world’s great centers of innovation —all the while surrounded by enemies who openly dream of our destruction. We have revived an ancient language, gathered exiles from every corner of the earth, and defended a nation that many believed could never survive.
And yet, after every war, every rocket barrage, every reserve call-up, the same question quietly returns. It lingers beneath newspaper headlines, behind political debates, and inside the hearts of ordinary Israelis trying to understand the meaning of it all. It is a question whispered by parents, students, reservists, and young couples wondering what kind of future awaits their children.
What is All This For?
Not long ago, a group of exhausted reserve soldiers gathered around their commander after another long deployment. Their uniforms were dusty, their faces worn, and the adrenaline that carries men through battle had long since given way to simple exhaustion. Finally, one of them gave voice to the question everyone seemed to be carrying.
“What’s this all about?”
The commander answered exactly as commanders have always answered.
“You are protecting your families. Your friends. Your country.”
One soldier stared at the dirt beneath his boots.
“We’ve been fighting for almost six hundred days. We don’t lose, but we don’t really win either. Every time we’re close to finishing the job, the Americans tell us to stop. So… what’s the point?”
His question echoed far beyond that military base. It has echoed through cafés in Tel Aviv, bus stops in Jerusalem, classrooms in Be’er Sheva, and reserve units across the country. Many Israelis are no longer asking whether Israel should exist. They are asking something far deeper.
Why does Israel exist?
Looking for Our Identity in the Wrong Mirror
When Theodor Herzl envisioned the modern Jewish state in 1896, he imagined something extraordinary for its time: a modern homeland where Jews could finally live as a free nation among the nations. David Ben-Gurion transformed that dream into political reality in 1948. Few achievements in Jewish history compare with the miracle of that rebirth.
But somewhere along the way, many of us quietly began looking for our national identity in the same places every secular nation looks. We measured success by military power, economic growth, diplomatic acceptance, and international approval. Peace became the highest aspiration, and acceptance among the family of nations became one of our deepest longings.
Sometimes we have even been willing to surrender astonishing portions of our inheritance in pursuit of that dream, hoping that one more concession would finally purchase lasting quiet. Yet history has repeatedly shown that quiet built upon the approval of others rarely lasts very long.
If many Israelis feel emotionally exhausted after years of war, political division, and uncertainty, perhaps it is because we have been asking the wrong question. We have searched horizontally for our national purpose, looking toward other nations to define who we are. Hashem has always invited us to look upward.
The Mission We Repeat Every Morning and Every Night
Our national purpose has never been hidden. It is not buried beneath the stones of an archaeological dig, nor locked inside the pages of an ancient manuscript accessible only to scholars. It is placed on the lips of every Jew, every single day.
The very first prayer most Jewish children learn is not merely a declaration of faith.
It is our national mission statement: Shema Yisrael1.
Most of us know the opening verse by heart. We cover our eyes, proclaim the Oneness of Hashem, and continue almost automatically into the next paragraphs. Yet tucked inside the second paragraph is one of the clearest explanations of why the Jewish people were brought back to the Land of Israel.
The Torah tells us:
“If you continually listen to My commandments that I command you today—to love Hashem your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul…”
The Torah speaks in the plural. Hashem is not addressing isolated individuals striving for private spirituality. He is speaking to an entire nation. He is speaking to the Children of Israel as one people with one shared calling.
Our mission is beautifully simple:
We are the people of Israel. Our mission is to fulfill the Torah of Israel. In the Land of Israel. To serve the God of Israel.
These familiar words are so woven into our daily lives that we often stop hearing their breathtaking simplicity.
The Land Was Never Separate from the Covenant
The very next verses continue with words every observant Jew has recited thousands of times.
“Then I will provide rain for your land in its proper time…”
Your land.
The Torah is not speaking abstractly about agriculture or weather. It is speaking about Eretz Yisrael. Immediately afterward it describes grain, wine, and oil—the very produce that defines the Seven Species through which the Land of Israel is praised.
The vineyards climbing the Judean hills, the olive groves stretching across the Galilee, and the wheat fields waving through the Jezreel Valley all proclaim this eternal truth. They are physical expressions of a living relationship between Hashem and His people.
The Torah then reveals the other side of that covenant:
“Beware lest your heart be seduced and you turn astray and serve other gods… Then the wrath of Hashem will blaze against you. He will restrain the heaven so there will be no rain… and you will swiftly perish from the goodly land that Hashem gives you.”
These verses are sobering. Yet they are not merely warnings born of judgment. They are the loving instructions of a Father explaining how His world works. He is not inventing arbitrary rules. He is revealing the spiritual laws upon which Jewish history itself rests.
A Reminder Hidden in Plain Sight
Every year we encounter these blessings and warnings in Parashat Bechukotai2. Every year we hear them again in Parashat Ki Tavo3. The covenant echoes through our annual Torah reading like a great bell reminding us where our strength truly comes from.
But Hashem knew that hearing this message once or twice a year would never be enough.
So He placed it somewhere impossible to miss.
Twice every single day, morning and night, in Shemoneh Esrei.
Every Jew quietly repeats these words. Some whisper them before sunrise while preparing for reserve duty. Others say them before rushing to work, standing beside hospital beds, studying in yeshivot, putting on tefillin in beit knesset, or sitting alone on a late-night flight back to Israel.
The circumstances change, but the message never does.
Our purpose, our mission, has remained exactly the same for more than three thousand years.
The Hidden Front Lines
No one questions the courage of our soldiers. Every Israeli family knows someone standing at the borders, patrolling dangerous streets, or flying missions that most of us will never hear about. Their sacrifice deserves our deepest gratitude and our constant prayers.
Still, the Torah gently reminds us that military strength has never been Israel’s only line of defense.
Every sincere mitzvah strengthens something we cannot measure.
Every honest business transaction. Every page of Torah learned after an exhausting day at work. Every Shabbat candle lit.
Every act of kindness performed when nobody else is watching. Every chapter of Tehillim whispered for an injured soldier.
These moments rarely appear in the news. Cameras never gather around someone quietly refusing to speak lashon hara. Newspapers do not report on a father who closes his Gemara only because it is finally time to help his child with homework. Yet Heaven records every one of these moments with perfect clarity.
Rebbe Nachman repeatedly taught that no act of holiness is ever insignificant. A single spark can illuminate an entire room. A tiny seed disappears beneath the soil, unseen and forgotten, yet months later it becomes a tree whose branches shelter travelers and whose fruit feeds generations.
Perhaps redemption grows the very same way.
Quietly. Patiently.
Hidden beneath the surface until suddenly everyone sees the tree, forgetting that its greatest work happened underground.
The Purpose That Never Grows Old
This is why our purpose in Israel can never become outdated or exhausted. We are not merely surviving history. We are participating in it.
Our purpose is not simply to occupy this land. It is to sanctify it.
History often appears to turn on presidents, prime ministers, generals, and diplomats. The evening news tells us that the fate of nations rests in cabinet meetings, military headquarters, and international summits.
The Torah tells a different story. Hashem chooses history through ordinary Jews performing extraordinary acts of faith.
In the holy Shema Yisrael, Hashem reminds us twice a day.
Our hold in the Land of Israel comes from Him. He guarantees it when we fulfill His commandments.
Every day, we remember that the best way to support our holy brothers and sisters in uniform is to guarantee their security, and ours, through mitzvot.
Every day, we remember that the best way to encourage our brothers and sisters powering our economic progress with all those mind-boggling high-tech innovations is to guarantee His promise of prosperity.
Every prayer offered with sincerity, every mitzvah performed with joy, every child taught to love Torah, every Shabbat table filled with songs, laughter, and words of Torah adds another stone to a building that Hashem has been constructing since the days of Avraham Avinu.
This is our eternal purpose. Eternal in that we will never tire of fulfilling it in this world or the Next.
Editor’s Notes:
1 First paragraph (Va’etchanan) Devarim (Deuteronomy) 6:4–9
Second paragraph (Eikev) Devarim 11:13–21
Third paragraph (Shlach) Bamidbar 15:37–41
2 Vayikra (Leviticus) 26:3-27:34
3 Devarim 26:1-29:8
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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, 60,000 passionate Israelis, and Matilda, our local camel.
7/28/2026
As a former officer in the US Air Force, I can certainly relate to the importance of always keeping your mission in focus. Our squadron’s mission statement was posted everywhere—on stationery, on bulletin boards, and above doorways. You name it, the mission statement was posted there. Why? Because if we ever lost sight of our mission, we lost our focus, direction, and priorities.
In these chaotic times, keeping our focus is more important than ever. Perhaps that’s one of the causes of antisemitism? Hashem is pushing us back to our true mission.