Seventy years ago, in 1956, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik delivered one of the defining addresses of modern Jewish thought before the Mizrachi Convention in the United States. That address would later be published under the title Kol Dodi Dofek – “The Voice of My Beloved Beckons” – borrowing its evocative name from Shir HaShirim. It was far more than a philosophical essay. It was a theological response to the greatest catastrophe in Jewish history and the greatest renewal of Jewish national life in nearly two thousand years: the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel.

Seven decades later, as Israel enters its seventy-ninth year and the Jewish people continue to grapple with the trauma of October 7th and its aftermath, Rabbi Soloveitchik’s message remains as urgent as ever.

The question behind the question

At the heart of Kol Dodi Dofek lies one of the Rav’s most profound insights: a distinction between two ways of reading one simple Hebrew word. The word lama means “why?” Yet with a slight change in vocalization, the very same letters can be read lema – “for what purpose?” This subtle linguistic shift contains an entire philosophy of Jewish faith. The question of lama seeks explanation. The question of lema seeks responsibility. One asks: why did this happen? The other asks: what can we do now that it has?

The “why” question – why do the innocent suffer and the wicked prosper – is perhaps the greatest theological question to haunt humanity, and especially those who believe in a just and merciful G-d. How does G-d allow the most heinous acts of cruelty to take place? People commit these terrible acts and bear primary accountability, yet G-d created human beings with the freedom to choose such evil and often does not intervene. Is there any acceptable answer as to how one and a half million children could be so brutally murdered in the Shoah? These questions echo throughout Tanach, from Avraham to Moshe, from Yirmiyahu to the entire book of Iyov, which is devoted to precisely this question.

The question of “why” remains unanswered, and the question is stronger than any answer. G-d tells Iyov that this question surpasses the capacity of the human mind. As Yishayahu the prophet declared regarding G-d’s ways: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways” (Yishayahu 55:8). There exists an unbridgeable gap between finite human understanding and infinite Divine wisdom. Rabbi Soloveitchik insisted that no philosophical system can adequately explain evil, and that any attempt to do so ultimately diminishes either the reality of suffering or the transcendence of G-d. This is especially true of the Holocaust. There is no theology capable of fully explaining Auschwitz. No rational calculation of Divine justice can make sense of Treblinka. The Rav maintains that the “why” eludes us, and he therefore rejects all facile explanations that pretend to resolve history’s deepest mystery.

The transformative “for what?”

Yet Rabbi Soloveitchik refuses to leave us only with silence and inaction. If the heavens remain silent regarding lama, they thunder regarding lema. Not “Why did this happen?” but “What can we do now that it has? What can we do to shape our future in light of what has occurred?”

This shift changes everything. Although we cannot fully understand what caused a tragic event, we can always take full agency in deciding how it will shape us going forward. Instead of seeing ourselves as helpless victims of history, we become partners in shaping it. Instead of remaining trapped by tragedy, we are called to transcend it – not by explaining it, but by responding to it. This is one of Judaism’s most powerful ideas: to accept a painful, unanswered “why” while embracing with vigor the “for what,” infusing life with additional meaning and purpose. We possess little control over many of the events that happen to us. We possess enormous control over what we do with our lives as a result.

The Holocaust and the State of Israel

Nowhere is this distinction more important than in understanding the relationship between the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. One sometimes hears the simplistic assertion that the Holocaust happened so that Israel could be established. Such a claim is both historically questionable and theologically problematic.

Historically, the Zionist movement was already well underway for over forty years, with hundreds of thousands of Jews having returned to the land before the Second World War began. While sympathy for the Jewish people’s suffering during the Shoah may have hastened the establishment of the State, there is nothing to suggest it would not have occurred without it. More troublingly, the claim implies that the murder of six million Jews was somehow necessary for Jewish redemption. Did the Almighty truly have to permit such unimaginable suffering for Israel to come about? No explanation can neatly account for such unparalleled human tragedy. The Rav would never permit such certainty. It is better to live with a painful unanswered question than with a superficial or inadequate answer.

We do not know why the Holocaust occurred. The “why” haunts and escapes us. But somehow, the “for what” took shape in the miraculous establishment of the State of Israel just three years later. That establishment was not an explanation for Auschwitz, but it is one of history’s most remarkable consequences. The Jewish people picked themselves up after the unspeakable horror of the crematoria and built, for the first time in nearly two thousand years, an independent state. They rebuilt Jewish communities around the world and slowly restored the yeshivot and Chassidic courts that had been destroyed in Europe.

Covenant of fate, covenant of destiny

Rabbi Soloveitchik famously distinguished between the covenant of fate (brit goral) and the covenant of destiny (brit ye’ud). Fate is what happens to us. Destiny is what we choose to do with what happens. The Jewish people did not choose persecution or suffering. These belong to the realm of fate, what the Rav calls the covenant of Egypt, where the Jewish people first collectively endured servitude and persecution. But they arrived at Sinai and chose to receive the Torah, infusing their lives with spiritual meaning and reshaping their destiny. From the covenant of Egypt to the covenant of Sinai: converting fate into destiny.

The fate of unparalleled suffering during the Shoah was somehow channeled into destiny in Israel. Rebuilding Jewish life, returning to Zion, revitalizing the land, reviving Hebrew, re-establishing Jewish sovereignty, ingathering the exiles from every corner of the earth, and rebuilding Jewish communities and learning centers in the Holy Land and around the world.

Religious Zionism sees in these events something even greater: a Divine invitation, a spiritual beckoning. In the Rav’s famous analogy drawn from Shir HaShirim, it is a knock at the door, Kol Dodi Dofek itself, the voice of the Beloved knocking and calling. G-d, through the historic opportunity of Israel, was not merely causing political upheaval but extending a great Divine invitation: to convert fate into destiny, to shape a Jewish state in His image, and to move Jewish and human history forward.

October 7th and the next chapter

After October 7th, Jews around the world once again found themselves asking “Why?” Why such hatred, brutality, and suffering? How was our military caught so off guard? How can this be prevented in the future? We will grapple with these questions, receiving answers to some but not all. Yet Rav Soloveitchik’s thesis urges us not only to grapple with “why” but to focus on “for what.” For what purpose shall we use this painful experience? How can it awaken us spiritually, individually and together? How can we deepen our solidarity and unity despite our differences and diversity?

Seventy years after Kol Dodi Dofek, Rabbi Soloveitchik continues to teach us that faith is not measured by possessing answers to every mystery, but by how we respond with faith to the circumstances we find ourselves in: transforming Egyptian exile into Sinaitic redemption, turning painful fate into purposeful destiny.

As Israel approaches its eightieth year, that responsibility has never been greater. We cannot fully explain the tragedies that have befallen our people, nor penetrate the mysteries of Divine providence. But we can determine how we will build, defend, and elevate the sovereign Jewish state entrusted to our generation. We can strengthen the bonds of our one great Jewish family. We can ensure that Jewish sovereignty protects Jewish life and serves as a beacon of moral and spiritual purpose. The “why” belongs to Heaven. The “for what” belongs to us.

In that sacred partnership between Divine mystery and human responsibility lies both the challenge and the opportunity of Jewish history.

Rabbi Doron Perez is the Executive Chairman of World Mizrachi.