The following is a transcript of Episode 118 of the For Heaven’s Sake Podcast. Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Donniel: Hi friends, this is Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Shalom Hartman Institute. And this is For Heaven’s Sake, Israel at War, Day 165. 

You know, throughout this war, Yossi, as you and I, we’ve been talking and thinking and walking with each other, there’s been hard days, worse days, depressing days. Sometimes there’s been some days with a little light, but it’s been a very long journey. And day 165 doesn’t just feel like a day. It feels like a cumulation of something. And I know you feel this and I feel this as well. There is a heaviness now on day 165. There are so many fronts. 

I don’t want to give us an ayin harah, so I’m not going to speak about casualties or anything like that. The evil eye is something that you don’t play with. That’s one of the things my mother, we were never suspicious, but I was raised that the evil eye is science. 

And so I don’t wanna compare, but there’s just so many fronts going on right now. What does the future of the war look like? Is there a plan for the war? What is the day, Gaza the day after look like? Is there a plan? Hostage tragedy — is there a way out? World opinion, more and more increasing criticism against Israel. The government, the conversation, the political conversation, especially from the right wing in Israel is becoming so October six-ish.

There’s a feeling of being down. There’s a feeling of heaviness. And so, Yossi, you and I picked a topic for today called hope. Not that we know what it is, but I think we felt an existential need to stabilize ourselves a little bit. Is there any hope that we could find? Is there anything that we could hold onto?

Because as you know more than I, once you become pessimistic and negative, it spirals out of control. And day 165 is a day where we want to sit and talk to each other and talk to our friends. In the midst of all these difficulties, is there anything that gives us hope, that gives us a sense of, a positive sense, anything that we could hold onto? Because, you know, these are marathons. And very often, victory is not just achieved through military power and through in the battlefield. Victory is achieved through the strength of a people. It’s achieved within through keeping our faith, keeping our beliefs, holding on to hope.

And so in that spirit, Yossi, help me, help us. We’re all scrambling here. What gives you hope? Is there anything that you could share with us that could give us the strength that we need at this time.

Yossi: You know, Donniel, we’ve been through by far the worst year in Israel’s history, which is saying something when you think about what this country has gone through in 76 years. But the, you know, my default position when I start to feel acutely anxious, I don’t want to say despairing about Israel’s future, is my own personal experience. And I think that that’s true for most people in this country. 

And I go back to the moment when I joined Israeli society. I’ve spoken about this on the podcast. Becoming Israeli in the summer of 1982, the beginning of the first Lebanon war, when the country was really, or at least it felt as if it was falling apart. 400% inflation, people tearing each other apart over the war, Mizrahim against Ashkenazim, talk of civil war. 

And in retrospect, there certainly was reason to be anxious, but we have a proven capacity to come to the very edge of the abyss, we’re like daredevil artists. And then we pull back. And that’s certainly what I feel about Israeli society over the last year. We pulled back from the abyss. 

Of course, October 7th really gave us no choice, but we had the ability to pull together again. And so I look at the last 40-plus years of my life as an Israeli, this unbelievable roller coaster. And my takeaway is never freeze the frame. You can never say this is Israel because there’s always another surprise, good or bad, waiting right around the turn and the roller coaster takes another wild ride.

Donniel: So where’s the hope, Yossi?

Yossi: The hope is that, uh,

Donniel: That the roller coaster never left the track in the past and therefore…

Yossi: I think that’s a good way to put it. The fact that we have been through so many existential moments in the last decades and we always manage to find the resources, whether it’s our faith in Jewish history, and for me personally, it’s faith in God, but it’s, Israelis are people of faith, whatever it is that we believe in. This is a country of deep faith. And I think that that gets us through.

Donniel: So you said two different things. Can we delve into them just a little bit more? Because once you spoke about Israel being a people of faith and you’re a person of faith, and they could be two different sources of hope. One is that we are really adept at crisis management. So if any people could get through this, you’re saying, okay, I’m anxious, but I trust these people. 

Yossi: We’re also adept at creating the crisis.

Donniel: But where does your, because, you know, like I have, my faith gives me no comfort. Never has. But you said your faith gives you, helps you get over it. How? Because here it’s like I’m amazed.

Yossi: You know, look, I believe that God is in this story. And that doesn’t mean that we have a blank check. That’s my disagreement with the Israeli religious right. They believe, ah, God brought us back to the land, and so we’re home free, and basically we can do what we want. I don’t think that it works that way.

Donniel: There’s an inevitable process of the unfolding of the Messianic era.

Yossi: Right, I don’t think that God works that way, certainly not in Jewish history. And we have more than ample proof that having God in the story is no guarantee that it’s going to work out happily. And so we know that, to some extent, how God plays out in our story depends on what we do. 

But the fact that God is in this story means to me that this story has more significance than a mundane historical tale. And there’s a lot more at stake, but we have resources, spiritual resources, that don’t only come from us. We’re getting help, and I really believe that. I look at the Israeli story, and you know, Donniel, there’s something actually that’s a little bit counterintuitive about reading God into the Israeli story, because Zionism, in one sense, is the story of the Jews rejecting dependence on God, and taking human initiative. And so reading God back into the Zionist story is a little problematic, and I appreciate that. 

But if we’re asking honestly about what the sources of hope, what my source of hope, I believe that God is deeply invested in this story and working with us and trying to help us get this right.

Donniel: I love what you’re saying, it’s so alien to me. But I’m envious of you. I always have been envious, not of you, of believers. I’m somehow stuck with a God who’s an underachiever and always has been. 

Yossi: You’re the rabbi, what can I say, Donniel?

Donniel: And you know, I’m the Rabbi, what can I, I’m just, I’m not, you know, and I never, by the way, have tried to convince people. I have no interest in more people believing the way I believe because it’s very lonely, frankly. And there is no comfort. I don’t have a comfort. I believe in a God who created human beings and gave us the power to rule the world, master it, and to do what we need to do. And God handed it over. It’s lonely, but I don’t have that source of hope. So I listen to you, I’m envious of it. 

But it’s also, it’s a powerful voice that for friends out there, if you have access to this God, you need him now. You need this God at this moment, and it’s a powerful source. See, for me in my, you know, I’m an Orthodox secularist. No, you know, like I’m, I am, that’s who I am.

Yossi: That’s a great way to put it. I’m a non-Orthodox believer.

Donniel: Exactly, so, and we found each other, go figure, go figure what that whole thing means. But I’m looking, because you know as I always say, I don’t do pessimism and all that, and there is no doubt that this moment, not this day, but this 165th period is challenging.

And I constantly look for where is there a kernel of something new emerging. And I’ve been noticing something these last couple of weeks. 

All of last year, there was a very large coalition under the Just Not Bibi title. Bibi is a corrupt leader. Bibi only cares about his political future. And the Just Not Bibi brought the right, the left, the center together. It eventually evolved into a Jewish democracy vision. But the Just Not Bibi put people together in a very powerful way. It was simple. 

Over the last number of weeks, I’m seeing a new coalition being formed. I want to call it the Just Not Ben Gvir-Smotrich Coalition. It’s not even Bibi. Because part of what you see now is the consequences, not of the Likud, and not of Netanyahu himself, but of Netanyahu having to be controlled and answering to an ultra-nationalist, ultra-messianic political ideology. 

And it is, so many of the things that are going wrong right now are coming from the Beit Midrash of Ben Gvir and Smotrich. And I don’t know if you’ve been noticing this in the paper. There is almost no criticism of Israel’s war efforts. That has been consistent. There is a beginning conversation now about humanitarian aid. 

Yossi: You mean internally, in Israel.

Donniel: Internally, I mean internally, yes, I’m talking about Israel inside. There’s now, people are talking about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We’re reporting what Blinken says that there’s never been a whole society who has suffered from hunger danger. And we’re talking about our responsibilities and about the crisis and about the destruction. And about the lack of day after for the sake of Palestinians. 

That is emerging, but what’s really emerging is that Ben Gvir and Smotrich, I think you once said this, they’re like a gift that doesn’t stop giving, in a negative sense. There’s a negative sense, but there’s also a positive sense, because is this the Israel you want? And there’s a coalition being formed, center, right, and left, who are saying we want to sit together. Not anti-Haredi, that’s one little coalition. I think that’s an easy one. 

But it’s saying, do we really want to have an internal and a foreign policy governed by ultra-nationalists and governed by this messianic ideology? Recognizing that when they’re in power, in the minister of finance, the minister of homeland security, when their colleagues just spew, they’re constantly in the midst of the war, attacking the army. 

It’s just, there’s so much hatred you feel that that’s not where I want to go. And so if I have hope, and I know it takes time, because to achieve the dividends of this are going to require a new election. That’s clear. I know that. But there is something noble.

There, to create a coalition, I met with a very prominent social activist. And he said, to activate people, you need both fear and you also need hope or vision. And I think Smotrich and Ben Gvir are providing us with the anti-Jewish-democracy vision that we need, that they’re replacing judicial reform. You want judicial reform? Israel’s democracy is going to be destroyed. You want Smotrich and Ben Gvir? Look what you’re going to get. You’re going to get hundreds of thousands of more guns. You’re going to get a society that doesn’t care about Arab deaths. You’re going to create a gridlock in our ability to implement policies for the well-being of Israel, for the well-being of Palestinians. You’re going to have a government incapable of relating to the world. And that government is being formed right now. 

And so every time they talk, it hits me so deeply. This is the antithesis of everything that I love. And then I look to the left and I look to the right. And just like every other democracy, we’re going to have our fringe, our 10% our 15%. But an 80% is emerging right now that it’s an ideological vision of a more positive Israel, a more positive Zionism. 

So Ben Gvir and Smotrich are giving me hope, but it’s a hope, it’s a hope that demands patience. It demands patience.

Yossi: That’s great. Now, Donniel what I love about what you’re saying is you’re giving a conceptual way of understanding the perplexing polls. Because on the one hand, the polls show Ben Gvir’s is rising. He’s now up to 10 seats. And it is not inconceivable that he will eventually out-poll the Likud. If this continues, the Likud goes down, he’s going up.

But the polls also show, and every poll has shown this since October 7th, that if elections were held today, the center-right-left coalition, basically the opposition, would win by a landslide. And so you have these two opposing forces rising in Israeli society. And what you’re saying is that the majority of Israelis crave stability, especially after this year of one train wreck after the other, to mix my metaphors with the roller coaster. 

And now what’s emerging is, or re-emerging, is the center that wants stability, that wants to start rebuilding the wreckage of Israeli society. Because Israeli society, given the combination of what we went through before October 7th, the bitter fight over the judicial revolution, and then the external threat.

You know, what we’ve gone through this last year, I think we need to state this, because it really helps explain the despair that so many people are feeling. We’ve experienced two visions of Israel’s unraveling. The first was internal. The second was external. October 7th was a vision, a kind of pre-enactment of what the destruction of Israel would look like. The borders are overrun, the army is in disarray, civilians are left helpless. And so we need to pick up the pieces.

And you’re right, you know, it has that, I feel that too now that I hear you say it, is that Smotrich and Ben Gvir are forcing us to own the alternative to a strong mainstream center, left-center, right. It’s more of the same of what we’ve been through in the last year. That’s what they’re offering.

Donniel: You know, it’s interesting, when I hear you expand on what I just said and when I feel, no, that’s not what I said. It’s close, but it’s, no, 

Yossi: It’s what I heard. It’s what I heard.

Donniel: That’s fair enough. You know, all you can do is you say, it’s, what you heard is what counts. You did hear, but you notice the keyword that you used? You use the word stability. I never used that word. And it could be. Let’s add them together, because there’s a value, you know, there’s the sum total, is what we bring to it, that Ben Gvir and Smotrich represent two things. They represent chaos, but they also represent, I was speaking about, a vision of a Jewish state that’s frankly not just unstable, that’s reprehensible. That’s reprehensible. Not just to North American or world Jewry. It’s reprehensible to the majority of Israelis. So they’ll have their votes. 

And you’re right, and it’s both, because they’re unbelievably destabilizing people. So they’re destabilizing the army, they’re destabilizing our relationship with the world, and Israelis know how important the world is for us right now. That was one of the lessons of October 7th, that we needed the world and we’re going to need them to deal with Iran. Do you really want a Smotrich and a Ben Gvir in positions of power if we have to fight with Hezbollah and Iran? 

So you’re right. I didn’t say it, but your take on it is a really important addition. It’s destabilizing, it’s irresponsible, it’s messianic, it doesn’t deal with realpolitik, but it is also morally embarrassing. It’s embarrassing. This is not what a Jewish people should be. 

And you want to know something? All the people coming back from the war? The soldiers who fought in the war fought under Israeli military code of ethics in which they tried to the best of their ability to limit civilian casualties. And we know that. Israeli soldiers didn’t just shoot. Civilian casualties come principally from air bombs, where it’s so impossible to decide and to determine. Israeli soldiers on the ground, there were mistakes, but by and large, they were trying to fight a just war justly. They don’t need a language which says kill them all. 

There is a right wing being formed that is not ultra-nationalist, that’s not immoral, and that’s not destabilizing. Every poll, it’s…

Yossi: That’s being reformed, reformed. 

Donniel: Reformed. And the polls, if you look at them now, when you add two-three new right-wing forces, there’s now three political parties who are going to compete for the Likud, besides the Likud, which is one, the last election they had what? 32? Now they’re down to the low 20s, high teens. When you add Bennett, you add Yossi Cohen, and you add Gideon Sa’ar. Each one of them are as alien to Smotriches and Ben Gvir as we on the center are. 

And they, again, we don’t know the polls, and they play off each other, but Bennett gets 15-16, Yossi Cohen gets 10-plus, Likud gets 15-18. So you’re talking about the forging of a growing right in Israel, which is somewhere in the vicinity of 40 seats. 40 seats. 

And those 40 seats don’t see Ben Gvir and Smotrich as their coalition partners. They have much closer affinity, they could see Shas if we could work on some deal when it comes to the drafting of the Haredim. Ben Gvir and Smotrich are their problem. They will sit with Yair Lapid, who has 10 seats. They will sit with Gantz.

Yossi: Certainly with Gantz.

Donniel: With Gantz, who is 20-plus seats. So just there you have 70. You add Lieberman who hates and abhors Ben Gvir and Smotrich. That’s another 10. And then you add Mansour Abbas, another five. And you add the new left-wing under Yair Golan, which is not a fall-off-the-cliff progressive left. It’s a responsible security left. You have a coalition of 80, 90. So there, even,

Yossi: Without the Haredim and without Smotrich and Ben Gvir. That really could be the future coalition.

Donniel: So, you know, I sit here, I’m always, you know, I’m grasping, it’s, you know, what could I be hopeful for? Then it’s true, it’ll take a while. When the elections will be, we don’t know. And you know what? It could be that Netanyahu, as skilled as he is, is gonna find a way to grow. And every time Schumer or others attack Netanyahu, he would love to run the next election on, I will stop the two-state solution. Even though he himself is for the two-state solution. That’s the great paradox. He would buy the Trump peace plan and he agreed to it. So, but he would love to run as that. That would elevate him. 

But even if he increases, what is he going to increase? 10%, 20%? There is such, this new coalition, this is my hope right now, Yossi. And part of what we have to think about is how do we solidify it? How do we make it stronger? How do we give it vision? How do we give it content? And that means part of our educational responsibility is not just to critique Smotrich or Ben Gvir on stability grounds. I think you’re right, we have to do it on that. But we also have to be very clear to articulate the moral grounds of our disagreement.

Yossi: So, Donniel, what I so much appreciate about where you’ve taken this conversation is simultaneously in two directions. You’ve brought us back down to earth, to the here and now, to the political arena, which is exactly where all of these issues play out.  

And at same time, you’ve taken us in the way that you always do, which is to challenge Israel on a moral vision. And the way that I would just play this out is I think that Israel today is shell-shocked. And the initial move I sense, the initial political move, is going to be to appeal to that deep need to restore this shattered society.

And I appreciate the fact that there needs to be a moral vision built into that, but I do sense that the initial impetus, at least, is going to be this craving for stability.

Donniel: You know, Yossi, that’s why when I heard you say it, I knew you were right. I wish more people would agree with me. But that’s maybe my, that’s the educational challenge. That’s where we have to go. 

But you know, like even Netanyahu, who now has come out for humanitarian aid. You know, how does he come out for humanitarian aid? Yes, humanitarian aid is strategically necessary for winning the war. It’s like it has the, he can’t say because Gazans are created in the image of God. It’s like, I’m like, whatever, I don’t want to get into my, you know.

Yossi: Don’t hold your breath.

Donniel: I won’t, I won’t, but you’re right. It’s like the, it’s true. But at the end of the day, just like last year, it couldn’t just be the fear of Netanyahu. The movement, the social movement needed a vision and it emerged as a vision of Jewish democracy, liberal values, the conversation in the streets became a valued one. I think here, it’s going to also need those two forces to merge together. And it’s going to need political and also moral leadership. Because at the end, also, the people, I don’t have confidence in God, but I do have confidence in the Jewish people. 

And part of my confidence in the Jewish people is 3,000 years of, at the end of the day, standing for what’s right. And that’s, I get hope there. And maybe one last, maybe your confidence in God gives us hope more immediately. Mine might take a little time. 

But we have to remember that in our tradition, we never believed in Mashiach now. And peace now was also, it’s we believe in a messiah who tarries, you know, one day we’re going to come back. And so it’s not immediate hope, but there is what to work for. There’s what to work for. 

When the elections will happen? I know that’s the million-dollar question. I know that. But there is a horizon. And on day 165, I think that has to be it. That can be enough. That’s what we have. 

Yossi, I love being with you. Thank you so much.

Yossi: So mutual. 

Donniel: And to our audience, my friends, hold on to it. Hold on to it. Despair is our greatest enemy. And I think we have a new day coming. It might be hard and it might take a while, but a new day will come. Be well.