Sublime

THE MIZRACHI “REVOLUTION,” JUST beginning in the 1970s, would affect much more than the music industry. Israeli political life, too, was about to undergo a seismic shift. The Mizrachim had long lived under the thumb of Arab majorities. They came to Israel when their host countries pressured or forced them to leave. Often expelled without most of th

Natan Sharansky, a world-renowned human rights activist

wrote a bestselling book about his experience, Radical, and coauthored another, Islam and the Future of Tolerance, with Sam Harris. He is a lion of human transformation, and I am proud to call him a friend.

He published the work under his recently adopted pseudonym, Shai Agnon.18 In 1966, he would win Israel’s first Nobel Prize.

heal.

As Rabbi Kalonymos Shapiro taught, the mission of the Jew is to teach the world how to sing. This is the call of Nishmat on Shabbos morning. Nishmat pleads to “arouse the sleepers and awaken the slumberers,” drawing on the language of Psalms 146:7–

We are B’nei Yisrael because we are meant to live in this world, to deal in materialism, but to continually find ways to elevate it.