Rosh Hashanah, Sparta, and the New Jew
Friday September 18, 2025 – כ״ו אֱלוּל תשפ”ה
There is a memorable and jarring scene in the 2006 Israeli movie “Sweet Mud”/ “אדמה משוגעת” in which the main character, 12-Year-Old Dvir, who cares for his mentally unstable mother, is trying to prepare for his bar mitzvah, which at the kibbutz is combined with a severe regimen of survival training and a display of courage and athletic accomplishment. This rite of passage included not a Torah reading, Dvar Torah, or party, but rather an obstacle course and display of physical acumen. The scene evoked a distant memory I had, not of my own bar mitzvah, but of stories of coming-of-age rituals that I had once learned about ancient Sparta. In ancient Spartan society, the primary goal was to transform young boys into Spartan soldiers whose loyalty was to the state and their fellow soldiers, not their families. It was an actual survival of the fittest, and an attempt to build a pure-breed society of unblemished warriors who would be measured by their almost robotic behavior and irreversible training to subdue any sign of weakness or vulnerability.
In the early 20th century, Zionist thinkers debated what kind of society the “New Jew” would create. Many saw the return to the Land as a chance to overcome the vulnerability and “exilic weakness” they associated with Jewish life in the Diaspora. Physical strength, working the land, and taking up arms in self-defense became symbols of redemption. The socialist Zionist chalutzim (pioneers) cultivated this ethos, and later, the IDF carried it forward.
But critics warned: in striving to become strong, Jews risked becoming like Sparta — a society that was bereft of spirit and culture, and only prized military prowess above all else. Sparta was feared, but it left behind no enduring literature, philosophy, or moral vision. The contrast to Sparta was Athens, or even Jerusalem, though weaker militarily. Athens shaped Western civilization through its creativity, art, ideas, and its set of morals and values.
Anyone who has had any experience with the Jewish state in the last 77 years should be painfully aware that Israel has proven to be overflowing with an abundance of ruach (spirit), culture, science, art, literature, music, philosophy, and technology. Its army has a strict moral code, which, while sometimes transgressed, is what guides its military action.
On Monday night, after what looked like a fruitless meeting with the American Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Prime Minister Netanyahu sketched a grim future for Israel: economic isolation paired with endless war. “We’re going to be Athens and super-Sparta,” he declared. Thus, when the Prime Minister speaks of Israel as a “Super-Sparta,” the message is clear. If Zionism turns Jews into Spartans, it may ensure survival, but at the cost of what makes Jewish civilization worth surviving.
What made Netanyahu’s comment so troubling is what worried thinkers like Ahad Ha’am that a narrowly martial Zionism would hollow out Jewish spiritual and ethical life, leaving only the military as the raison d’être of the Zionist project. Ahad Ha’am wrote: “A Jewish State may be possible, but it will be empty of content if it does not become a center of spiritual life for the entire people.” Even Martin Buber, who spoke of the importance of nurturing our people’s relationships with each other and with our neighbors, cautioned that power, unless balanced with prophetic morality, could corrode our future Jewish destiny. The prophetic tradition calls for neither passivity nor domination, but for the pursuit of justice, acting mercifully, and living lives devoted to holiness.
As we approach Rosh Hashanah, Rachel Goldberg Polin, the mother of Hersh, who was murdered by Hamas, reminds us that Rosh Hashanah is not just the “birthday of the world,” but should be seen more as an annual review of our lives. Like any proper review, it is not merely celebratory—it has to be an in-depth exploration of what we have done and not done in the year gone by.. Rosh Hashanah is all about taking stock of ourselves, a personal and communal heshbon hanefesh, a spiritual audit and re-evaluation, in which we measure our lives against the standards of Torah and ask: How did I live to my fullest moral potential in this past year? How do I want to live differently in the year ahead?
The shofar itself summons us to this self-review. Maimonides famously taught that its blasts cry out: “Awake, you sleepers, from your slumber! Examine your deeds, return in repentance, and remember your Creator.” The sharp tekiah, the broken shevarim, the staccato teruah—all are calls to break open our hardened selves, to soften our hearts, and to realign our lives according to the highest virtues that our tradition teaches.
This year, our review must also extend to our collective identity as a people. Early Zionism sought to create the “New Jew”—in sharp contrast to the so-called “exilic Jew” who was mocked as weak and passive. Some early Zionists drew comparisons to Sparta, the ancient warrior society. On kibbutzim, even the bar mitzvah was reimagined as a point along the way of an obstacle course. The bar mitzvah was called upon to demonstrate self-discipline, physical and mental stamina, and a readiness to defend the Homeland. Prime Minister Netanyahu sharpened this legacy when he declared that Israel must be a “Super Sparta — a nation that is small in size but indomitable in strength.” This vision emphasizes military might and underlines the oft-heard slogan of “total victory,” and nothing less will suffice. Those words, in and of themselves, feel Spartan. Words that imply the necessary sacrifice of our hostages, of our soldiers, and of Palestinian lives, for a potentially unachievable goal. Maybe ancient Sparta would not have batted an eye about the ruthlessness in allowing citizens of the state – whose obligation was to protect the State at all costs – to become, if necessary, casualties of war, and oh well, that’s the price to pay for having to defend ourselves – but that should not be the response of the Jewish State, and is not in tune with what Zionism is or ever was. On Rosh Hashanah, we Zionists should be asking ourselves, is survival enough, or must we also sanctify life and live our lives with purpose and according to a moral code?
Sparta was strong but brittle, and in case you hadn’t noticed, it didn’t survive. Jews, by contrast, produced philosophy, democracy, art, and the virtues of compassion, humility, generosity, the pursuit of justice, and peace. The Torah reminds us that our covenantal mission is not only about survival, but about becoming holy. “I set before you this day life and blessing, death and curse—choose life” (Deut. 30:19). Strength without sanctity leads only to ruin; power without compassion is not nor has it ever been about our Jewish destiny.
Our heshbon hanefesh this Rosh Hashanah is twofold. On the personal level, we ought to be asking ourselves where we have become hardened when we should have softened, where we turned inward when we should have reached outward. On the national level, we ought to be asking whether in striving to be strong enough to endure, we have risked becoming so Spartan that we have forgotten to be human and forgotten to seek to become holy.
Many Israelis are shouting loudlyץ No! We must not forget who we are as Jews and Zionists. Many have been crying out that their government is abandoning their people and enabling a strand of Zionism that does not regard the ‘Other’s lives as mattering.
On Rosh HaShanah our fate as liberal Zionists should be in lock-step with those Israelis who are deeply committed to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, who show up to defend Israel and maintain its security, who affirm the right to self-determination for Palestinians, and who desire to be a permanent fixture that is accepted and integrated into the fabric of the Middle East and among the community of nations.
The shofar’s cry is both a battle trumpet and a mother’s wail. It summons us to defend and to sanctify life. May this year’s blasts awaken in us the need to balance what our ancestors dreamed about: creating a new-old people strong enough to survive, and wise enough to live with compassion, justice, and Torah at our core.
May this year bring with it a swift end to the war, a shiva – a return home for every single person being held in captivity, a healing to our collective trauma and suffering, and an end to the deep crisis and catastrophe Palestinians are currently experiencing.
May we have a Shanah Yoteir Tovah – A much better year.
Amen.