With more than 20 million followers across all social media platforms and more than a billion views monthly, Sean Kelly’s Digital Social Hour is one of the most influential podcasts in the world. When I was invited to debate 10 Palestinians on his show recently, one of my ideological opponents asked me a simple question: “How can you keep defending Israel?”
Perplexed, I asked him to clarify. “Given the starvation, the indiscriminate bombardment of infrastructure, and the ongoing genocide, how can you keep defending Israel?”
I responded simply: I have never in my life defended Israel, nor do I have any intention to start.
You see, I explained, late last year Israel’s Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa’ar, took me and other Jewish American political commentators to the Kerem Shalom border crossing to see firsthand the more than 800 humanitarian aid trucks crossing from Egypt, inspected in Israel, and ultimately delivered into Gaza. I watched for hours as pallets larger than people were inspected, holding anything from feminine hygiene products to baby formula to clothing to medicine, all being facilitated and allowed by the Israeli government.
As we watched in amazement, I asked a young IDF soldier how she felt about her job managing the roads each morning to allow the safe crossing of those trucks. “To be honest, Shabbos,” she told me, “I feel conflicted. I feel conflicted because my cousin is a hostage. His name is Edan Alexander.”
Edan Alexander, of course, was the last living American released from Hamas captivity. That succinct response solidified for me my relationship to the State of Israel. As the Jewish people were grappling with the largest single-day massacre since the Holocaust, and while their own family members were quite literally being held hostage in the terror tunnels of Gaza, the same Jewish people nevertheless ensured to the best of their ability that no innocent Gazan civilian suffered as a result.
That fact is not something I defend, nor rationalize, nor attempt to justify. It is something I yell from the rooftops. As I stated directly to Sean Kelly and the 10 debaters that day, I laud and applaud the State of Israel. I thank Hashem each day that such a country exists, such a fighting force exists, and such a people exist. The world would be a much better place if more countries looked more like the United States and Israel, and certainly looked less like Khan Younis and Tehran.
My message this Sukkot is just as simple. Jewish strength is not the absence of vulnerability. Jewish strength is what we choose to do while vulnerable.
The sukkah is, by definition, a vulnerable structure. It has walls, but they are temporary. It has a roof, but it is deliberately incomplete. We leave the security of our homes and place ourselves in a structure that reminds us that ultimately, our safety does not come from walls, weapons, or fortresses. It comes from Hashem.
The lesson of Israel is not that Jews are no longer vulnerable. It is that we are no longer defenseless.
This Sukkot, we sit beneath a fragile roof and thank Hashem for the strength to defend our people, the courage to protect our values, and the faith to know that ultimately, He is the One who protects us.
Shabbos Kestenbaum is a political commentator at PragerU and former lead plaintiff in a landmark civil rights lawsuit against Harvard University. He is a regular contributor on national media, has testified multiple times in front of the United States Congress, White House, and Israeli Knesset, and lectures internationally on religious freedom, Gen Z, and American politics.