Jerusalem Dispatch: Israel This Week

May 23 – 30, 2026

Giving Life Away

Israelis are the hardest working people I have ever known. I am constantly amazed, and somewhat intimidated, by the volume of work I see my Israeli friends get done while, at the same time, investing quality time with their spouses and families.

I see it every day in Jerusalem. My neighbors are up before dawn. Construction workers arrive early. Shopkeepers stay late. Mothers who work full-time still manage to host elaborate Shabbat dinners every Friday evening without apparent effort, though I know better than to believe it comes without effort.

There is a Hebrew phrase that captures something of this spirit: kochi v’otzem yadi, meaning “my strength and the power of my hand.”

Moses warned the Israelites about it in Deuteronomy, cautioning them not to grow proud and forget that God was the true source of their prosperity. It is a warning worth heeding, but it is also incomplete on its own.

Israeli productivity is not simply the fruit of divine blessing, nor is it merely a matter of intelligence, though both are real.

At its deepest root, it is about work understood as an obligation of life.

Jewish tradition calls this tikkun olam, which means to “repair, or complete, the world.” It is the idea that God’s people are called to be partners with Him in the ongoing work of creation, called not only to occupy the world but to improve it, to breathe life into it, to leave it more whole than they found it. Work, in this frame, is not a burden to be minimized. It is a vocation to be embraced with enthusiasm, even joy.

This is exactly what Adam and Eve were called to do before the Fall: be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth; subdue it; cultivate it; protect it; take dominion over it.