So are we. Hashem created us different from the natural world. He gifted us with traits which distinguish us from the rest of creation: self-awareness, complex emotions, cognitive speech, creativity, imagination, dreams, and social and political instincts.

Chief among these qualities is our free will. We can choose between right and wrong. Hashem implanted within us a moral instinct to distinguish good from evil. He also revealed His will to help us navigate a complex world.

The gift of free will lends consequence to our actions. Since our moral choices are not predetermined, we alone bear responsibility for them. We suffer our failures just as we celebrate our achievements. Our freedom gives our lives moral significance.

We are grand because we are free.

Free will also lends us dignity. Our choices aren’t merely products of hormones or instincts. We consider different possibilities, weigh their merits, and determine our course. We shape our lives through decisions rather than surrendering to forces beyond our control. This ability to choose makes us similar to Hashem, the ultimate Free Being.

The Need to Belong

However, alongside our freedom, we also desire belonging. Absolute and unrestricted freedom is lonely. We crave interaction with other human beings. We desire love, friendship, family, community, and, of course, a covenant with a Higher Being. Our lives feel more meaningful when we stretch beyond our solitary and free existence and enter into relationships.

Our communities also convey and reinforce values. We choose relationships with people who share our core values. They lend our lives meaning and purpose.

Throughout our lives, we balance freedom with belonging. Belonging to a larger framework demands that we surrender some autonomy. Relationships carry expectations. Societies demand basic norms of behavior. Nations impose laws. Covenant makes us summoned human beings.

Six Centuries of Freedom

About seven hundred years ago, this balance began to shift. In antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages, human freedom was severely limited. Society was largely static, and people occupied the social position into which they were born. For security and order, people were beholden to monarchs or noblemen who dictated their lives but offered protection. Human freedom and dignity were compromised for survival.

With the advent of the Renaissance in the 14th century, we began a grand journey toward greater freedom and, with it, the potential for greater human dignity.

The Renaissance emphasized human beings as the masterpiece of Divine creation, atop nature's hierarchy. The Scientific Revolution took freedom one step further by democratizing truth. Truth was no longer dictated by a select few who claimed a monopoly over it. It could be discovered through universal methods of inquiry, available, at least in theory, to everyone.

Taking this journey toward greater freedom one step further, the Enlightenment of the 18th century emphasized the natural rights with which every person is born and which no government could seize, even for the sake of broader goals of security and stability.

Eventually, the defense of natural rights led to democratic systems which enshrined these rights in law. Individual freedom and human dignity now enjoyed legal protection against the arbitrary exercise of power.

Alongside political freedom came financial freedom through capitalism and free-market economies. No longer was economic potential limited by social station or rank. People could chart their own financial destinies and pursue opportunities made possible by economic independence.

Having achieved political and financial freedom, man was still bound by established patterns of thought and religion. During the 19th century, these constraints began to loosen. Secularization allowed greater freedom of worship, including the freedom not to worship at all. Morality was increasingly shaped by individual conscience rather than absolute religious dogma, allowing moral judgments to differ from person to person.

This growing freedom to think and believe independently also extended to the world of emotions. Romantic art and literature brought emotional freedom. People were no longer expected to express emotions in conventional forms or about prescribed subjects. The Romantics taught us that beauty and meaning discovered in ordinary experiences can produce emotions just as valid and profound.

The next century brought two additional forms of freedom. The sexual revolution challenged traditional norms of marriage and reproduction, allowing people to express their sexuality outside marriage and without necessarily facing the responsibilities of childbearing. Finally, the digital revolution provided unprecedented access to information. No longer do we receive information exclusively through institutions which select and filter what we may know.

Across six centuries of revolutions, humanity achieved unprecedented freedom. The individual, once confined by inherited structures and established authority, now enjoys extraordinary power to determine the course and meaning of his own life.

The Price of Individualism

The rise of individualism has come at great cost. Greater freedom liberated individuals, but also weakened the shared covenants, families, communities, religious traditions, and moral values that once anchored human identity. As these larger frameworks erode, people increasingly struggle with questions of identity and belonging. Without structures to reinforce common values, moral convictions become fragile and personal choices are increasingly guided by individual preference.

As people increasingly define their own identities and values, personal satisfaction becomes the measure of their commitments. Relationships and obligations are judged by what they offer the individual, making them easier to abandon when they demand sacrifice.

Greater freedom has expanded our ability to define ourselves, but weakened the bonds which once gave our lives stability, direction, and purpose.

Freedom and Jewish Destiny

In Israel, we are blessed to live inside a living narrative. Our lives are anchored in shared history, strong communities, enduring commitments, and a covenant binding us to Hashem and one another. While much of the Western world increasingly emphasizes individual identity and personal choice, Israel remains a society in which shared identity and national belonging retain enormous power. Despite our differences we still view our lives as part of a larger common historical story. Much of the hostility directed at Israel from liberal Western Europe stems from discomfort with a people that unabashedly champions a national story and shared historical destiny.

After the Vote

I am writing these thoughts on the eve of elections in Israel. Every vote is an expression of the individual freedom and dignity which humanity has struggled for centuries to achieve. We celebrate democracy as the best form of government humanity has developed, protecting these liberties. It affirms the Zionist dream that we have sustained a democracy despite military threats and internal dissent, an achievement especially remarkable in our largely undemocratic region.

As we celebrate democracy, we must also recognize the dangers of unrestricted personal freedom. The rise of individualism has brought with it a crisis of identity. Our shared Jewish identity provides an anchor against this growing crisis.

We are part of a community of Jews who returned to our homeland to undertake one of history's most ambitious projects. We are part of a long heritage of Jews who dreamed of returning to this land. We are also responsible to future generations of Jews who will judge how we navigated one of the most challenging periods in Jewish history.

We have inherited more than a country. We have inherited the dreams of generations who never lived to see Jewish sovereignty restored. They dreamed of freedom, but they also dreamed of the Jewish future that freedom would make possible. We owe them more than a free society. We owe them a Jewish future worthy of their dreams.

The writer is a rabbi and educator at Yeshivat Har Etzion (Gush). Find his latest book, Echoes of Rashi: Bereishit, at mtaraginbooks.com.