“There’s a lot of noise about this influencer who came to Israel this week.

People are arguing about whether bringing him here was a Kiddush Hashem or a terrible mistake. Others are saying, “It’s the Three Weeks. Let’s stop tearing each other apart.”

And they’re right. If we’re going to disagree, it has to be with love. It has to be l’shem Shamayim.

But I think there’s a deeper question here.

This visit has made people ask how we can reach Gen Z and get them to fall in love with Israel?

But maybe before we ask how to show them who we are, we have to ask if we know who we are ourselves.

What exactly are we trying to convince them of?

Many people this week have suggested we show the world how cool we are. “We have amazing beaches and parties here too!”.

But the world isn’t starving for another place that celebrates pleasure. It’s drowning in it.

The question is whether we have the courage to offer something no one else is capable of offering: a reason to live that doesn’t disappear when the music stops.

Because I don’t think this generation has become obsessed with pleasure because pleasure is so satisfying.

I think it’s because meaning has become so elusive.

We keep asking how to market Israel to this generation. Maybe the Ribbono Shel Olam didn’t bring us back to our land to become better marketers.

Maybe He brought us back because humanity is exhausted from a life that has no destination. A world without destiny eventually settles for pleasure. A world without eternity settles for the immediate.

That’s not because people are shallow. It’s because the soul cannot survive on consumption alone.

That’s what it means to be an אור לגויים.

Not to imitate a culture that’s lost its way, but to have the courage to live differently. To remind the world that life has a direction. That a human being has a soul. That history is going somewhere. That every one of us is here for something infinitely greater than the next fleeting moment.

Maybe the greatest hasbara has never been convincing the world that we’re like everyone else.

Maybe it’s becoming who we’re supposed to be.

Have a beautiful Shabbos”