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catastrophe are flashing red. And don’t overcome all of these threats. On the thrive – not only in the eighth decade,
under any circumstances count on the other hand, the tsunami of hatred and but also in all the decades to come, for
possibility of a fourth chance. factionalism may cause the vision of the eternity.
Third Temple to collapse from within, in
Small comfort can be found in the fact  This essay was originally published in
that other nations have also experi- the spirit of Bourguiba’s twisted vision. Hebrew in Matzav HaRuach.
enced the “curse of the eighth decade” Against the backdrop of this devastating
in a very painful way. The bloody Amer- threat, right and left, Charedim and Arabs,
ican Civil War broke out 85 years after veterans and new immigrants, anti-Zion-
the adoption of the Constitution (oh, ists and post-Zionists, the religious and
what luck – it happened to them in the unbelievers, Mizrachim and Ashkenazim,
ninth decade!). Italy became fascist and citizens of the ‘state of Tel Aviv’ and citi-
Germany became a Nazi terrorist state zens of the rest of the country must learn
in the eighth decade after each nation’s to forgo, compromise and come together Menachem Rahat
unification. The Third Republic of France, in peace under the same umbrella. Only was the political reporter for Ma’ariv, and
founded in 1871, surrendered to the Nazi by following this path can we peacefully now writes as an independent journalist
boot in 1940, in its eighth decade, while for a variety of online and print platforms.
the communist monster that was born in
the October Revolution of 1917 began to
disintegrate in the 1980s and was finally
shattered into pieces 74 years after its
founding in 1991.
What is the spell that brings crisis and
breaks up kingdoms in a nation’s eighth
decade?
Historians point to several factors,
whose cumulative impact can lead to
a crisis. One explanation posits that
a nation’s eighth decade ushers in
the era of its third generation.
While the first and second gen-
erations are acutely aware of
the great responsibility placed
upon their shoulders and are
prepared to sacrifice and make
major concessions for the good
of the nation (“Anything but a
civil war!”, as Menachem Begin
said after the Altalena attack),
the members of the third gen-
eration take the existence of the
nation for granted and focus on
their faction’s narrow agenda.
This is exactly what is happening
today. The existence of the State is
self-evident, even if there are serious
threats from the outside: murder-
ous Palestinian terrorism,
Hezbollah missiles, Iranian
nukes, and the like.
With Hashem’s
kindness,
we will

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