Cultivating Culture, Heritage, and Spiritual Life in the Land

"The People of the Book" — this is how the people of Israel have been called for over a thousand years. Yet our brief stay in the Land of Israel quickly turned us into a technocratic people: engineers, high-tech professionals, electricians, industry workers, security systems, and advanced technology — all these are blessed and admirable in a land poor in resources and soaked in blood.

However, one decisive thing was forgotten and neglected into a corner:The spirit of the people.

The spirit is the unifier. It is the spirit of creation and wisdom. It is what has led us throughout the generations to great achievements in science, medicine, the military, education, literature, thought, and social life. Without it, even power, money, technology, and the state lose their way.

Therefore, we see cultivating culture among the inhabitants of the land as essential. Culture is the nourishment of the human spirit when it is not occupied with work, numbers, technical matters, and endless accounts. It is the place where a person breathes, expands, reflects, creates, and remembers who he is.

Spiritual life in the land expands the human spirit and broadens its outlook. It produces new leaders, new customs, new ideas, new abilities, and new desires to act and to be inspired.

For this reason, a significant portion of the public budget must be allocated to spiritual life, culture, and heritage — not according to election results, not according to political power, and not according to proximity to the government, but in a way that will allow every community to invest in its spiritual life and express its world.

The investment will include all spiritual efforts of the land’s inhabitants: education, history, Tanakh, art, creativity, yeshivot, literature, sports, theater, cinema, production, performances, batei midrash, cultural institutions, community events, and local spiritual life.

Budget allocations will be made according to fields, relevant ministries, and the actual activity of communities, associations, and public institutions. Its goal will be to cultivate a living, deep, free, and responsible culture — not a culture of propaganda, but a culture of life.

The movement sees the Tanakh, the Book of Books, as a shared pillar for all the people of Israel — religious and secular alike — and also as a foundational book for the entire Christian and Muslim worlds. Therefore, we must act continuously to create a spiritual-educational body that will know how to connect the parts of the people to the common thing between us: the Tanakh, its language, its stories, its morals, and the vision of its prophets.

This is based on the understanding that the Book of Books is one of the deep reasons for our being here on the land; and its study can help us understand our shared lives, our responsibility, our roots, and the path we must seek together.

I hope you will find it appropriate to join this movement — regardless of your origin, your community, your faith, your community, or your previous political affiliation.

This is in recognition that a fundamental change is required in the land: not only for our benefit, but for the benefit of all inhabitants of the land and all the peoples of the world.

So that we and our households will be a Voice of Truth and Peace, and thereby bring light to all the inhabitants of the world.

Yours,
Nachaliel Shilo

Always
Always
Voice of Truth and Peace
will be
in your heart.