Israel

Friends and Conversations

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger — something better, pushing right back.

In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.

In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.

In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.

I realized, through it all, that… in the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger — something better, pushing right back.”

Albert Camus

Israel

I had the privilege of being in Israel for the holiday of Sukkot. Sukkot in Israel is, in my opinion, one of the peak Jewish experiences available. Over 100,000 Jews from all over the world make their way to Israel to celebrate the festival. Sukkot lasts a full week, and pretty much every night there are parties and celebrations to attend.

This year in particular was special. At the beginning of the holiday, there were rumors that Trump (with Witkoff and Kushner) were on the verge of facilitating a prisoner-hostage exchange deal that would, in the words of my dear leader His Highness Trump, “end the war for good.”

I was still in a yeshiva in Jerusalem exactly two years earlier when the massacres of October 7th took place. Within a few days I witnessed the entire State of Israel, military and civic, mobilize against Hamas. People were shaken. It seemed that almost everyone in the country had a direct or one/two-degree connection to someone killed that day. I spent the month after October 7th in Israel raising money from American Jews, then buying and delivering an assortment of gear for the IDF with a group one of my friends had formed.

We were one of hundreds of small startup organizations that popped up in the weeks following the attacks to deliver critically needed gear for the hundreds of thousands of reservists who had been called up to fight in Gaza and on the northern border with Lebanon. I visited bases on both borders as well as those embedded within the West Bank. I witnessed men from the ages of 18 to literal grandfathers, men who had fought in the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars, volunteer to go fight on the frontlines in another war.

I believe there are very few countries with that sort of collective (well almost collective) faith and will.

October 7th and the subsequent War have clearly been the defining Jewish events of the 21st century.

In Hostage Square, Tel Aviv, the night before the hostages were due to be released, people were breaking out in emotional song and dance. The screen read “738 days.”

738 days since the hostages were inhumanely taken from us.

There was an incredible feeling in the air—that this nightmare the Jewish nation and Israeli people had endured was finally reaching its end.

I am eternally proud to have been born a Jew, and even though I am not yet an Israeli citizen (despite being born in Jerusalem), I consider it a privilege to be part of this nation and to play whatever small role I can in the living State of Israel.

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Friends and Conversations

My good friend Shmuel Lome was gracious enough to allow me to stay at his apartment in Nachlaot :) Reach out to him if you are in tech or VC—he is up to something very interesting.

I spent many long nights debating religion and philosophy with both him and Interdweller, another close friend who is now about to join the IDF doing technical research.

I also met and spent time with Simon Furst. Simon (pseudonym) has a unique background. He grew up in a strictly Yeshivish community in the U.S., attended the most elite yeshivas in America and Israel, and even wrote an entire Sefer Lomdus on tractate Zevachim before realizing his passion lay elsewhere. He is now finishing a bachelor’s at Bar-Ilan studying the Bible and the Ancient Near East.

We had a long and productive discussion on those and more topics, which I greatly enjoyed. He also has a Substack I highly recommend.

My uncle, who recently moved to Israel, hosted R’ Joey Rosenfeld at his sukkah on the first night of chol hamoed. I was only slightly familiar with his thought before this, and was quite impressed by his breadth and depth on both Jewish and secular philosophy. I was able to have an interesting discussion with R’ Joey on Leo Strauss’s interpretation of Maimonides’ Moreh Nevuchim, which I am in the middle of writing something on.

I am seeing a growing awakening among my generation that gives me hope that things will slowly change. Of course, like all major socio-political-religious-cultural change, where to look is among the youth, not the elders.

As I wrote in my last post, I believe we are at the beginning, and living in the midst of “A Great Turning.”

Trust in institutions, whether governmental, media, or religious, is at an all-time low in the post-WWII era. There is a lack of both trustworthiness and authenticity in the traditional halls of power. There is now an opportunity to create new institutions that have the capacity to hold the new vitality and authenticity that I see emerging.

The onus and responsibility are no longer on the old guard. In many ways, the old guard has lost the “mandate of heaven.” Gadol and gvir culture—and they have always gone together—have hollowed out Orthodox Judaism to the point where I believe a majority of our youth, if you asked them to speak openly and from the heart, would voice contempt for some part if not all of the current system.

Thankfully, I now see leaders emerging who hold within them the capacity for change. I am more optimistic than ever about our generation’s ability to fix what has been broken and to rekindle the ancient flame of Judaism, which has all but been turned into an over-intellectualization of things that don’t matter and an oversimplification and culture of obscurantism around the things that do.

With God’s help, our generation will begin to open and heal the dual wounds of the Enlightenment and the Holocaust. Each of which, in its own way, forced the hands of our religious leaders and caused our communities to become ill-educated, standoffish, and removed from society.

Slowly, slowly, the rays of true knowledge will begin filtering in again. Judah will awaken from his slumber, and Israel will emerge, as always, eternally victorious over the forces of evil.

Now please enjoy a random assortment of my camera roll from over Sukkot:

And more: