We are ill. And I know what being sick looks like after spending hours upon hours at the hospital 20 years ago when my mother was hospitalized with cancer.

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I saw the heavy smokers who realized the consequences of their actions too late, as well as the people who just wanted their former, imperfect lives back – just like all of us, on both sides of the divide, today.

I saw cancer patients immediately give up smoking and agree to take bitter medicine that made them incredibly nauseous. Why? Because they were devoted to getting better. The trouble with us is that we are unwilling to either stop smoking or swallow bitter medicine.

When we were a healthy nation, we remembered where we came from and where we were headed and knew we were responsible for one another.

We knew that our grandparents were heroes who preserved their Jewish identities under challenging conditions, be it in Europe or the Middle East.

When we were healthy, we saw the good in our religious brethren and read the weekly Torah portion every Friday. When we were healthy, even in our most painful moments, we did not cease to love Israel.

Our addiction is the sense of absolute justice, and we are constantly being given this drug by the media that does not even bother to maintain an image of impartialness.

For those who are absolutely convinced that they are the ones in the right, there is no chance of a dialogue on a subject as complex as the balance between the judiciary, legislative, and executive branches. Not in the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, and worse yet, not even among members of the same military unit, or members of a family sitting around the Shabbat table.

And the medicine is truly bitter. For those convinced of their righteousness, the compromise will feel like chemotherapy. It is hard, but we have no choice, we need to get better. We are responsible for the dreams of previous generations who sought to reach and live in our land while trying to make it work in an environment that is making it increasingly difficult to do so.

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Prime Minister Yair Lapid's seemingly innocent address to first graders on Sept. 1 was, in my opinion, frightening.

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He said, "Dear students, there is something you are really good at, and you don't know it yet. That's the whole idea of school – that you have something that, over time, you'll discover you're really good at. That you have an area of excellence which you don't know yet, and that you will discover here at school because there will be people who will work together with you and help you understand what you are best at."

First of all, this is simply not true: statistically speaking, most people don't have "an area of excellence."

The sweeping promise that there is something everyone is really good at shows that the prime minister has the same vision as Bazooka Joe: he promises our children that by the age of 21, they will reach the moon, and those who don't understand where the moon is, should go to the school counselor's office and she will arrange for an attainable one.

What can a good education system provide all students? The most important thing: meaning. People feel it when they are connected to something that is not mentioned in Lapid's remarks, something bigger than themselves.

Israeli boys and girls who are about to start learning how to read will be the only ones, perhaps, to have the privilege to learn the words of King Solomon, the wisest of all men, in the original language. This is a small example of the connection to Jewish history that was not mentioned by the prime minister at all.

A high-tech superpower where education is free is the result of two other great stories: the Zionist story, which turned a two-thousand-year-old dream into reality, and the universal story of the scientific revolution, which began with the Renaissance. These two were omitted from Lapid's remarks.

Articulating a real vision, which would lead to a generation of drive and ability to survive in the Middle East, is probably not Lapid's "area of excellence."

Such a remark does anything but help a child become a successful link in the chain of generations.

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I have three things to say about Prime Minister Yair Lapid's statement following Operation Breaking Dawn.

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First of all, the Left has a long history with the word "dawn."

In his election campaign, Ehud Barak promised Israel the dawn of a new day. But what sounded good at the time ended with the most brutal wave of terrorism in the country's history – the Second Intifada.

The recent military operation also boasts the word "dawn," implying that everything that came before was mere fumbling in the dark. Whereas now that the fresh and confident ruling party Yesh Atid is at the helm, "Israel's deterrence has been restored," as Lapid put it.

During Breaking Dawn, the Palestinian enemy was particularly tired. They fought with one hand tied behind their back, because the main terror group in the Gaza Strip – Hamas – avoided getting involved in the conflict. Why? That's right, because of the deterrence Israel established during last year's 11-day conflict known as Operation Guardian of the Walls and all the rounds that preceded it.

Israelis run to their shelters, and our sons and daughters put themselves at risk to raid the West Bank, which, unfortunately, leads to casualties sometimes, and in his victory statement the prime minister makes the unstately move of using it to score some favor in the upcoming elections.

Secondly, Lapid's more stately remark was, "I also want to thank the opposition and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, for showing responsibility and backing the government throughout the operation."

This is exactly the spirit a statement that addresses an entire nation after a struggle should have. It is just a shame that as opposition leader himself, a week into Operation Guardian on the Walls – which was not initiated by Israel but was a response to rocket fire on Jerusalem – Lapid failed to disclose the responsibility he attributed to Netanyahu.

On the contrary, he questioned the considerations behind the launch of the operation, suggesting that the timing somehow benefitted the former prime minister

And lastly, what we learned from Breaking Dawn is that it doesn't matter whether it's Labor chief Merav Michaeli or head of the Religious Zionist Party Bezalel Smotrich sit at the edge of the government table, because terrorism is Gaza will always force us to respond, and our unwillingness to control the strip will always make the response moderate. With all due respect (and there is respect!) to the IDF, there is no new dawn in Gaza and probably never will be.

What we saw last week is what we've always seen.

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