By Rabbi Josh Wander

There was a time when Jews in exile ran to kings, bishops and foreign rulers begging them to intervene on behalf of Jewish communities. It was the tragic reality of galut. Jews had no sovereignty, no army, no government and no national power. We survived only through the mercy of others. The shtadlanim traveled from palace to palace pleading for protection.

But now, after two thousand years, in a sovereign Jewish state with a Jewish army, Jewish courts and Jewish leadership, a member of the Israeli Knesset has appealed to the American government to intervene against the policies of the State of Israel itself. MK Meir Porush sent a letter to the U.S. ambassador asking America to pressure Israel regarding the arrests of Haredim evading military service. Regardless of one’s position on the draft debate itself, the spectacle is disgraceful. An elected representative of the Jewish state inviting a foreign power to interfere in Israel’s internal affairs is not merely politically embarrassing. It is a flashing neon sign that exile mentality still dominates large parts of the Jewish world.

This is galut. Not geographic galut, but psychological galut. We often imagine that exile ended the moment Jews returned physically to Eretz Yisrael. But exile is not just where your body lives. It is where your mind lives. A Jew can live in Jerusalem and still think like he’s in Warsaw. He can carry an Israeli passport while emotionally remaining under the shadow of foreign rulers. Chazal understood this reality long ago. It is easier to get the Jew out of exile than to get exile out of the Jew.

The signs are everywhere if one is willing to look honestly. On Israel Independence Day, the main Jerusalem–Tel Aviv highway was decorated not only with Israeli flags, but American flags as well. What exactly are we celebrating? Independence? Sovereignty? National rebirth? Or continued dependence on a foreign superpower? No serious nation behaves this way. America does not line Washington with Israeli flags on the Fourth of July. France does not decorate Paris with foreign banners on Bastille Day. Yet many Israelis still instinctively feel psychologically safer when attached to another empire. Rome has changed names throughout history. Persia. Britain. America. But the dependency complex remains the same.

And perhaps no example better captures the absurdity of this contradiction than what is happening this very year on Yom Yerushalayim itself. Jews across the country will celebrate the liberation of Jerusalem and the reunification of the Temple Mount under Israeli sovereignty after the Six Day War. There will be speeches, ceremonies, flags and songs celebrating Jewish control over our holiest site. Yet at the exact same time, the Temple Mount itself will be closed to Jews. Think about how insane that really is. Jews are celebrating sovereignty over the very place that Jews are forbidden from entering. The nation will proclaim victory and liberation while the heart of that liberation remains inaccessible.

Imagine a nation celebrating the liberation of its capital city while being barred from entering the parliament building. Imagine celebrating control over a territory while another authority dictates who may enter it and when. That is not full sovereignty. It is sovereignty with an asterisk. It is independence wrapped in hesitation and fear.

Then there is another deeply uncomfortable fact that almost nobody wants to discuss. The Knesset itself, the supposed symbol of restored Jewish sovereignty, was built on land leased from the Greek Orthodox Church. Thousands of apartments and major national buildings throughout Jerusalem sit on church-owned land as well. Think about the symbolism of that for a moment. After two thousand years of praying for the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem, the parliament of the Jewish state was literally established on land controlled by a foreign church. Whether legally resolved later or not, the symbolism is staggering. Even in sovereignty, traces of dependency remain embedded into the very foundations themselves.

This is not merely a technical real estate issue. It reflects something far deeper about how incomplete our national consciousness still is. We returned physically, but psychologically many still cannot fully grasp what it means to truly be free in our own land. Even now, during one of the most existential wars in modern Israeli history, parts of society still cannot internalize that Jewish sovereignty means responsibility. It means defending ourselves, governing ourselves, arguing amongst ourselves and solving our own crises ourselves. A sovereign nation does not run to foreign governments every time there is an internal political disagreement.

The real battle today is not merely military or political. It is psychological. Can the Jewish people finally transition from a survival mentality to a sovereign mentality? Can we stop viewing ourselves as scattered communities seeking protection and begin viewing ourselves once again as a nation in its land? Because as long as Jewish politicians run to foreign governments for intervention, while Jews celebrate sovereignty over a Temple Mount they themselves cannot enter, the uncomfortable truth remains that the exile never truly ended.