Yom Ha’atzmaut 5785 – The year of strength
I am now acutely aware that I live in this privileged golden age in the Jewish timeline.
If October 7 taught me anything, it was not to take Israel for granted.
I am now acutely aware that I live in this privileged golden age in the Jewish timeline, a mere eight decades of Jewish sovereignty in our homeland that is bobbing above the morass of Jewish homelessness, powerlessness and subjugation. Every birthday Israel has is monumentally significant.
Yes the clouds are still heavy from that dark day in October, and yet it is precisely in this moment, in this year of 77, that we are reminded that the numerical value of 77 is זע – oz, strength. And how desperately we have needed it. And how deeply we have found it.
After October 7, we were thrust into an impossible equation. Israel, surrounded by existential threats from the east, needed to project strength and deterrence. And yet, as it did so, it risked losing the approval, and affection, of the liberal West; the more strength Israel showed the more it was vilified, the more it defended itself, the more it was accused. Caught between annihilation and alienation, it felt as if every move would cost us something we could not afford to lose.
But we have learned that it isn’t a zero-sum game at all. Those who stand against Israel and the Jewish people have always stood against us, their hostility was simply concealed beneath a thin veneer of civility. October 7 didn’t create their hatred; it exposed it. And those who stand with us have always stood with us, because they recognise that Israel truly is a beacon of light and hope in a region ruled by tyranny and terror.
These past 572 days, Israel has conducted the most complex war in the most impossible of circumstances. And though not always perfect, it has been guided, consistently and courageously, by its deepest value: to always choose life. To both defend our people and maintain our moral clarity. We have not always been given the benefit of the doubt, and certainly not the benefit of time, by a world quick to judge and slower to remember. And yet, our soldiers, our medics, our volunteers, our leaders and our people have not wavered.
We have not only survived. We have stood strong – with “oz”.
Strength, in our tradition, is a foundational element of building connections between our people and the rest of the world.
The final passuk of Birkat HaMazon, words that have echoed across every Jewish table for generations, demonstrates this: “Hashem oz l’amo yiten, Hashem yevarech et amo bashalom – Hashem will grant strength to His people; Hashem will bless His people with peace.”
It’s not just poetic, it’s a formula. Strength must come first, and only through strength can peace be realised. Oz, then shalom.
We do not pray for peace instead of strength. We pray for the kind of strength that allows peace to emerge and endure. The kind of strength that comes from discipline, courage, resilience and faith. And that is the strength Israel has shown in abundance.
We celebrate the extraordinary courage of the IDF, not just in firepower, but in principle. In unity. In moral clarity.
We celebrate the stealth and strategy: the pagers and walkie-talkies that coordinated a daring and successful operation against Hezbollah, showing that strength is not only muscle but mind.
We celebrate the brilliant coordination with global allies, with friends near and far that intercepted missiles from Iran. We celebrate the early warning systems, the iron domes both literal and spiritual, that have reminded the world that Jewish lives are not up for sacrifice.
We celebrate the world’s lone Jewish state standing tall and firm in a world increasingly drunk on victimhood. In a time when weakness is often paraded as moral superiority, we say something different: While pain may humble us, it does not define us. We refuse to be victims. We mourn. We grieve. We rage. But we do not collapse. We do not lose ourselves.
Our story has never been one of surrender.
It is counter-cultural today to believe in strength born from meritocracy, from vision and from will. And it is unfashionable in certain circles to believe that strength can also come from G-d. But we are an unfashionable, counter-cultural people. And proud of it.
Because Jewish strength is not just the strength of the sword, it is the strength of the spirit. It is the strength of those who run toward danger to save others. It is the strength of families who open their homes to evacuees. Of volunteers who collect toys for displaced children. Of Diaspora communities who rally, write, speak, donate, sing, cry, and show up. Of high school students who say Tehillim for Israel every day, because they believe their voices matter.
This is oz.
This is Israel at 77.
And so today we wave flags not because everything is perfect, but because everything is precious. Because Israel is still here. Still strong. Still building. Still teaching the world that resilience is not an emergency response, it is a way of life.
May Hashem grant His people “oz”, strength, courage, endurance.
And through that strength, may we be worthy of the blessing of shalom.
Chag Atzmaut sameach.
Am Yisrael chai.
Shula Lazar is the principal of Leibler Yavneh College in Melbourne.
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