Theodor Herzl once declared, "If you will it, it is no dream." Is there such a thing as "the cognitive will"?
In this best of all possible worlds, can someone--anyone--will something to happen, to become reality, to actualize, to be a manifestation of the truth, to be considered a fact? Where can the human imagination take one if the person wills his or her predilection to take place? Is the mind that powerful? After two thousand years, the Jewish people have returned to their homeland in Israel: not because of the Holocaust, not merely because of a United Nations vote, not only due to a Balfour Declaration or the San Remo mandate, but rather determined by the will of the Jewish people to return to their roots where their forefathers and foremothers dwelt, where the Hebrew Scriptures describe the narratives of once living Jewish people living in the land where they were told by their G-d to inhabit not only as a people, but a nation.
Since I returned to Israel at the end of December 2013, I have witnessed my country Israel survive the war of the summer 2014 and a myriad of terror events, many of them occurring in Jerusalem where I have slept every single night since December 26, 2013. I can readily attest to the strong, indomitable will of the people living in this country, even with the dissension and protesting and, yes, the emigration by some who wish to look elsewhere to find their providence. For such a small country, the size of New Jersey, with a population of approximately eight-and a-half million souls, Israel still is surrounded by millions of people who would be happy to extirpate her from the Middle East once and for all. And yet, the will is there to demonstrate democracy in the making in the midst of chaos amongst its belligerent, threatening, surrounding neighbors; create and innovate incredible life-saving technology bringing water to arid lands; medical miracles to so many who had lost hope; the possibility for security to nations who had been at war for decades; agricultural bounty; providing emergency care for nations hit by disaster; and, perhaps, most importantly, the raison d'etre that countless millions had lost due to extreme adversity in their lives and moral clarity where little or none could be found in the vast corners of the earth, even with some governmental corruption interspersed in its very midst on Israeli soil.. The miracle of Israel will continue to bring light into this still obfuscated world because of the cognitive will of those people inhabiting this tiny sovereign nation who will only accept their lot in this life to better humankind.
"On The Cognitive Will"
A human mind should think thoughts sublime
Fuller and richer than anyone Dare opine;
But all too often things force him supine
Truer reconciliation ne'er demanded more
of a mime.
Though feelings and sensitivities subjugate\man's way,
Freer and livelier fraught with despair, he utters nay.
Shoud odds outcome evens he shed his dismay
near to life's passion . . . he exudes A GLADDENED HURRAY!
Hunger and pestilence, world-wide established,
descried
Neither people not person ever willingly subscribed;
Nemesis's retort thoroughly rendered, evil solution
espied
Past long-winded argument knelt religious man
unqualified.
Tarry O muse, instill sheen rays MEANT of yore
Share yon virtue's soft melody,
Aurora's moist store.
--Yoel Nitzarim
Affair of the Mind, A Literary Quarterly
Vol. 2, Issue 3
Rottkamp Publishers
Long Island, New York
1998
"Fanfare for the Common Man," by Aaron Copland
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NjssV8UuVA>