Daily Inspiration Quote by Meir Kahane

A sentence like this doesn’t invite debate; it issues a moral summons. Kahane frames identity as an obligation: “incumbent upon us” casts self-conception not as personal psychology but as communal duty. The phrasing is legalistic and sermonic at once, turning “greatness” into something you must both “understand” and “believe” - cognition plus faith. That pairing matters. It implies facts alone won’t hold the line; the community needs disciplined conviction to resist dilution.

The real engine is the threat embedded in the second half: without constant belief, “we” will “cheapen and profane ourselves.” Those verbs are doing ideological work. “Cheapen” suggests contamination by compromise, a loss of value through mixing or concession. “Profane” imports religious vocabulary: the sacred can be defiled, and defilement is not just error but sin. The subtext is that outside influence - or internal dissent - isn’t merely disagreement; it’s desecration.

Context sharpens the intent. Kahane, a clergyman and political agitator associated with Jewish ultranationalism, repeatedly argued that Jewish safety and dignity required hard boundaries and unapologetic power. Read that way, “greatness” functions less as self-esteem than as a mandate for separatism and militancy. The line is rhetorically effective because it flips insecurity into virtue: if you feel besieged, the remedy isn’t nuance or coexistence but intensified belief. It’s an identity politics of sanctity, where moderation becomes self-humiliation and politics becomes a test of purity.