Historical thinking is not a widespread sensibility these days, whether the arena is the United States or Israel or, for that matter, anywhere else. So the fact that many Israelis, especially teens and twentysomethings cannot indulge in historical appreciation even on this, the 60th anniversary of Israel, should come as no surprise.

Yet, the history of Israel “is what it is,” and it is by turns heroic, utterly surprising and inexorably tragic. Heroic for its vision. Surprising for its success. Tragic for the intractable conflict with the Arabs. On balance, the overall picture is one of hope. When a Jewish community that consisted of a few farmers some 140 years ago has, in that short time, become the largest Jewish community in the world; when a ragtag band of visionary, secular, socialist idealists have yielded to a society with more yeshivot than any other in Jewish history, and one of the most advanced capitalist-technological economies in the world, hope is surely the dominant note of this 60th anniversary celebration of Israel.

Alongside the heroism and surprising dimensions of the success, however, are equally surprising fissures and difficulties — most of which do not even touch the continuing animosity of Arabs and Persians.

For all of Israel’s growth as a religious society, many of its youth know less about Judaism than many Sunday school graduates in the Diaspora.

For all of Israel’s stunning economic growth, especially in the last 15 years, poverty in Israel is deepening.

For all of Israel’s vaunted military power, an alarming number of Israeli youth seek ways to evade military service (and we speak here only of secular youth; the issue of service in the army vs. study of Torah is a separate issue).

For all of Israel’s utter creativity — in technology, in literature, in Torah study, in architecture — Israel is substantially oblivious to the destruction of her ancient heritage (and political justification) in the Old City of Jerusalem by the Moslem wakf.

For all of Israel’s unbreakable, umbilical connection to the Holocaust, Israel remains jarringly insensitive to certain contemporary attempts of other peoples, such as the Armenians, to stop the denial of their own genocide.

For all of Israel’s deficiencies in natural resources and sheer space and land, and for all of Israel’s magnificent parks and nature reserves, Israel is only just beginning to pay attention to the terrible pollution it has created in its rivers and aquifers.

For all of Israel’s extraordinary military triumphs, Israel is allowing the intractability of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (which is increasingly becoming a Muslim-Jewish conflict) to tire it out, and thus to compromise the necessary, hard-headed realism about what it can safely offer in peace negotiations; and, for that matter, about what it must tell its patron, the US, about realistic expectations of peace with Hamas and Fatah on any terms. In other words, for all of Israel’s control of her own destiny, the country is bereft of leaders who acknowledge the obduracy of Arab political animosity toward Israel, and lead accordingly.

And so, Israel is riven with fissures, even as it enjoys an ethnic and religious solidarity that figuratively hits any non-Jewish visitor in the face. Which tells us one simple thing: We ought not let the fissures overshadow the hope. Against the background of the Holocaust — and all the horrible persecutions that preceded the Holocaust — we cannot botch this Israeli experiment in freedom, cannot afford to let anything compromise Israel’s safety. If, G-d forbid, Israel were to be destroyed, the confidence of Diaspora Jews in their own safety would plummet, not to mention, it would likely take an untold number of centuries and sufferings to regain a Jewish society that is essentially insulated from the pressures of intermarriage and essentially nurturing of Jewish knowledge, spirituality and social cohesion — all the fissures notwithstanding.

A clue? A hint that we appreciate the uniqueness of Israel sufficiently to protect it? A small gesture that says a lot? Come next year, on Israel’s 61st anniversary, G-d willing, make as big a deal then as now. If Israel becomes so much a part of the furniture, assumed to be safe and always there, deserving of attention and protection only on entirely arbitrary — and infrequent — Number 10 Anniversaries, Israel will not last. The test of “Israel at 60” will be how Jews around the world take care of and pray for Israel when it is “Israel at 61” — and every day before, and after.