Rabbi Steinsaltz writes:
Jews in the Diaspora have only two choices.
Either they can give up, close shop, and say, “We are defeated,” or they can create a new way, a new hope.
If people want to go on, if they have a feeling that there is something in it, if the memory of the half-obliterated document still possesses some compelling power, then the Jewish life in this country (the United States) must be rebuilt.
Let me say something full of chutzpah: there is a need for, a use for, and even a possibility of making this place something like Galut Bavel, the ancient Jewish place of exile in Babylonia.
It is possible to create a second center, comparable to, possibly better than, the main center in Israel.
But to accomplish this, one has to do much more than survive.
If you cannot do it right, if you cannot create something that will be worthwhile spiritually and intellectually, it is not worth doing at all.
--Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From “What Will Become of the Jewish People?” p.186-187, in We Jews by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
