HaMizrachi | Yom HaAtzmaut 5781

NOW IN OUR 4TH YEAR!

VOLUME 4 • ISSUE 1 TORAT ERETZ YISRAEL • PUBLISHED IN JERUSALEM • DISTRIBUTED AROUND THE WORLD

‫אייר תשפ”א‬

APRIL 2021 UK EDITION

WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO THE FOUNDING SPONSORS OF HAMIZRACHI – THE LAMM FAMILY OF MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Chief Rabbi David Lau

reminds us of the neshama of Yom HaAtzmaut PAGE 14

Rabbanit Shani Taragin

SOLDIERS’ STORIES

Bravery, Courage and Heroism in the Israel Defense Forces

with fascinating parasha parallels to these holidays PAGE 7

Rabbi Hershel Schachter

PAGES 42–45

explains why we are halachically permitted to celebrate PAGE 19

Rabbanit Sally Mayer

highlights the symbolism of the seventh decade in celebrating Israel PAGE 38

Chief Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein

suggests how mitzvat bikkurim can enhance our bond to Israel PAGE 15

Sivan Rahav Meir and Yedidya Meir with four interesting ideas for Yom HaAtzmaut PAGE 10

73

REASONS

TO LOVE ISRAEL PAGES 20–22

6 ICONIC ISRAELI SONGS

THE MUSIC THAT SHAPED THE STATE PAGES 52–53

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Rabbi Andrew Shaw

Israel

www.mizrachi.org office@mizrachi.org +972 (0)2 620 9000 CHAIRMAN

Mr. Harvey Blitz EXECUTIVECHAIRMAN

Rabbi Doron Perez

PUBLISHED BY THE MIZRACHI WORLD MOVEMENT EDITORIAL TEAM

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GRAPHIC DESIGN

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Home of Hope

t Rabbi Sacks zt”l’s installation as Chief Rabbi in 1991, he concluded his words with the following: “This is a rare and special moment in the history of the Jewish people. Only twice before in our long life as a people have we had the chance to practise Judaism in freedom and against the background of a sovereign State of Israel. For 2,000 years we prayed for it to come again, and now that it has, we must not fail the challenge of this et ratzon – time of Divine favour.’

Yom HaAtzmaut every year is the anniversary of the beginning of this new historic period in our history – now 73 years old.

the kingdoms, and the L-rd shall shine upon you, and His glory shall appear over you. And nations shall go by your light” (Yeshayahu 60:1-3).

Rabbi Sacks was born in 1948, a year in which Hashem gave us two remarkable gifts: a return to our ancestral homeland after 2,000 years and a visionary who would grow up to become one of the world’s most passionate lovers and defenders of the State of Israel.

As usual, Rabbi Sacks said it best, as he finished his ground-breaking Home of Hope CD in 2008 with the following words:

Rabbi Sacks would always praise Israel for its contributions to the wider world, the Kiddush Hashem it embodied and its commitment to Tikun Olam.

However, this year, Israel has taken that to the next level. With the darkness of the pandemic covering every corner of the globe, with fear and trepidation filling hearts and minds, there was one country that led the way, and began to bring humanity back from darkness to light.

It as if Israel is fulfilling the words of Yeshayahu: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the L-rd has shone upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and a gross darkness

We know that the lowest point of the Jewish year is the three weeks between the 17th Tammuz and the 9th Av, when we mourn the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash and the beginning of our long exile.

However, there are another ‘three weeks’ in the Jewish year. From the 5th Iyar to the 28th Iyar we celebrate the end of the physical exile and the beginning of our spiritual redemption – reishit tzmichat geulateinu.

“The day will come, when the story of Israel in modern times will speak not just to Jews, but to all who believe in the power of the human spirit as it reaches out to G-d, as an everlasting symbol of the victory of life over death, hope over despair. Israel has achieved great things. It has taken a barren land and made it bloom again. It has taken an ancient language, the Hebrew of the Bible, and made it speak again. It has taken the West’s oldest faith and made it young again. Israel has taken a tattered, shattered nation and made it live again.

Israel is the country whose national anthem, Hatikva, means hope. Israel is the home of hope.”

Chag Sameach!

Rabbi Andrew Shaw is Chief Executive of ‎Mizrachi UK.

TO R AT M I Z R AC H I Rabbi Doron Perez

Herzl, Hebrew and Holy Cows

1 0 R E M A R K A B LE PRO PH E C I E S CO M I N G TRU E I N I S R A E L TO DAY

T

he tiny State of Israel has become world-famous for its extraordinary achievements in so many fields. Jewish immigrants from all over the world returned to their Homeland, rebuilt its ruins, revived its barren wilderness and revitalized its ancient language, creating an economic, military, social, cultural and technological power of global renown. Amazingly, these achievements were all clearly foretold by our Prophets.

Let us look briefly at the fulfillment of just 10 of those prophecies:

210 years of slavery, whereas the return to modern Israel happened after almost 2,000 years. Secondly, all the Israelites came out of one country whereas in the modern era Jews came from over 100 countries. Thirdly, in Egypt all Jews lived in one confined, culturally segregated ghetto in Goshen, speaking only Hebrew, whereas Israel has seen the return of Jews from every cultural, political and ideological background, speaking over 80 different languages somehow forged into one functional society.1

1. The Ingathering of the Exiles ‫וְ ִק ֶ ּב ְצ ָך ִמ ָּכל ָה ַע ִּמים ֲא ׁ ֶשר‬ ָ ‫־ֹלק‬ ‫יך ׁ ָש ָּמה‬ ֶ ‫יצ ָך ה' ֱא‬ ְ ‫ֱה ִפ‬ “...and He will gather you in from all the nations to which He the L-rd (your G-d) has scattered you (there)…” (Devarim 30:3)

2. The Spiritual Alchemy between a Land and a People

Perhaps the greatest miracle of all!

In 1840, there were 6,000 Jews living in the Land of Israel. By 1917, that number grew to 60,000. When the State was declared in 1948, there were 600,000.

And today there are over 6.7 million Jews living in Israel! The Jewish population in the Land of Israel climbed from being of 1% of world Jewry to 6% in 1948, to almost half of all Jews in the world today.

The Ingathering of the Exiles is perhaps a greater miracle than the Exodus from Egypt! Firstly, the Exodus came after

‫יה אֹיְ ֵביכֶ ם‬ ָ ֶ‫וַ ֲה ׁ ִש ּמֹ ִתי ֲאנִ י ֶאת ָה ָא ֶרץ וְ ׁ ָש ְממ ּו ָעל‬ “I will make the Land desolate, and your adversaries will be desolate on it…”

(Vayikra 26:32) Following the Roman conquest in 70CE, the Land of Israel was conquered by 14 different empires over 1,900 years. As G-d had foretold, the Land remained barren to its conquerors despite repeated attempts to make it flourish – as if the Land itself was pledging fidelity to her children, awaiting their return.2 In 1867, Mark Twain famously described the land he saw as ‘a desolation… repulsive and dreary...with hardly a tree or shrub anywhere… a land covered in sackcloth and ashes.”

Until of course, the return of the Jews.

3. Land Blossomed Only Once Its Children Returned ‫ש ָר ֵאל ַענְ ּ ְפכֶ ם ִּת ֵּתנ ּו‬ ׂ ְ ִ‫וְ ַא ֶּתם ָה ֵרי י‬ ‫ש ָר ֵאל‬ ׂ ְ ִ‫שא ּו לְ ַע ִּמי י‬ ׂ ְ ‫ו ֶּפ ְריְ כֶ ם ִּת‬ “But you, O mountains of Israel, sprout your branches and give forth your fruits for My people Israel” (Yechezkel 36:8).3 As the Jewish people returned to the Land, the Land responded in return.

The desert has become an oasis and the desolation a blessing. Israel quickly started developing innovative agricultural expertise and water conservation technologies. The returning Jews have now planted over 250 million trees and Israel is the only nation on earth that entered the 21st century with more trees than a century earlier. It boasts more than 300 wineries and its wine, fruits and other products are exported all over the world.

4. Renewal of the Hebrew Language ‫ש ָפה ְברו ָּרה‬ ׂ ָ ‫ִּכי ָאז ֶא ְה ּפֹ ְך ֶאל ַע ִּמים‬ “For then I will change the nations [to speak] one clear language…” (Zephania 3:9)4 When the first pioneers returned to Israel, Hebrew was not a spoken language. No Jewish community and not one Jewish family spoke to their children in Hebrew. Hebrew was a language of prayer, Torah and scholarship. Herzl, Continued on page 4

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TO R AT M I Z R AC H I

Continued from page 3

despite his broad vision for a return to Zion, did not believe Hebrew could be revived. Miraculously, Hebrew has become the lingua franca in Israel and is the only language in recorded history ever to have been revived by a people as their spoken language!

5. Revival of the Torah World ‫ִּכי ִמ ִ ּצ ּיוֹ ן ֵּת ֵצא תוֹ ָרה ו ְּד ַבר ה' ִמירו ׁ ָּשלָ‍ִים‬ “...For out of Zion shall go forth Torah and the word of G-d from Jerusalem” (Yeshayahu 2:3) In the early years of the State, you could have put all yeshiva students into a small hall. At the zenith of Lithuanian Jewry, no more than 3,000 people were studying Torah full time. In Israel today, there are close to 200,000 men and women engaged fully in Torah learning in traditional yeshivot, hesder yeshivot, midrashot, mechinot, and more. Arguably, there are more people learning Torah in Israel today than at any other time in Jewish history.

6. Economic Prosperity ָ ‫־ֹלק‬ ...‫יך ֶאל ָה ָא ֶרץ‬ ֶ ‫יא ָך ה‘ ֱא‬ ֲ ‫וֶ ֱה ִב‬ ָ‫יט ְב ָך וְ ִה ְר ְ ּב ָך ֵמ ֲאב ֶֹתיך‬ ִ ‫וְ ֵה‬ “And the L-rd your G-d will bring you to the Land... and will benefit you and make you more numerous than your forefathers” (Devarim 30:5) The Jewish population in Israel has increased 10 times since 1948 and its economy has doubled 40 times!

According to “The Economist,” Israel has doubled its GDP in the past decade alone, a world record. According to Bloomberg, Israel’s economic stability ranks third in the world! But when it comes to cows – we rank number one!

7. A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey ‫וַ ִ ּי ֶּתן לָ נ ּו ֶאת ָה ָא ֶרץ ַהזֹּאת ֶא ֶרץ זָ ַבת ָחלָ ב ו ְּד ָב ׁש‬ “...And He gave us this Land, a Land flowing with milk and honey” (Devarim 26:9)

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The average Israeli cow produces 12,000 liters of milk per year. That is the highest in the world, more than countries such as the United States and Holland, which are renowned for their dairy production. Even the cows in Israel are holy!

“Honey” refers to date honey, and the large, sweet dates from the Jordan Valley are among the finest in the world.5 8. The Building of Jerusalem ‫ּ ְפ ָרזוֹ ת ֵּת ׁ ֵשב יְ רו ׁ ָּשלַ‍ִים ֵמרֹב ָא ָדם‬ “...Jerusalem will be settled beyond its walls, because of the multitude of people…” (Zecharia 2:8) Jerusalem is the beating heart of Israel.

For centuries, Jerusalem was off limits for Jews. Zecharia envisioned Jerusalem’s population growing so large that its walls would not accommodate its inhabitants. Until 150 years ago, this seemed impossible. In 1860, Jews began moving beyond the walls and Jerusalem today is home to over 900,000 inhabitants and 600,000 Jews!

9. A Source of Global Blessing and Wisdom ‫וְ נִ ְב ְרכ ּו ְב ָך ֹּכל ִמ ׁ ְש ּ ְפחֹת ָה ֲא ָד ָמה‬ “...And all nations on earth will be blessed through you” (Bereishit 12:3) Global advancements in the sciences, medicine, agriculture and high tech have Israel’s fingerprints all over them. Jews the world over have won a disproportionate number of Nobel Prizes in an array of fields, and Israelis have won more than the Chinese, despite China having more than 150 times Israel population. Israel has the largest concentration of start-ups per capita anywhere in the world, ensuring its innovations are a source of blessing to all humanity.

10. Standing Proud Among the Nations and the Abraham Accords

‫וְ ָרא ּו גוֹ יִ ם ִצ ְד ֵק ְך וְ כָ ל ְמלָ כִ ים ְּכבוֹ ֵד ְך‬ ‫וְ ק ָֹרא לָ ְך ׁ ֵשם ָח ָד ׁש‬ “Nations will see your righteousness, and all the kings your honor, and you will be called by a new name…” (Yeshayahu 62:2) The development of Israel’s foreign relations during the last 30 years is staggering. The number of countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel has doubled from 80 to 160.

Recently, the Abraham Accords have demolished barriers which previously seemed impenetrable, and Israel has been able to turn foes into friends.

Israel’s achievements are astounding, whether in science or study, technology or Torah, nation-building or universal blessing. What is even more astounding is that the destiny of this country seems less about politics and more about prophecy. Israel is not a new 73-year-old phenomenon but a reincarnation of an ancient one. A modern saga clearly foretold by our Biblical seers, who saw Jewish history and Israel as a pivotal piece in the fulfillment of Jewish destiny and the progress of human civilization.

1

Based on an insight of Rav Tzvi Hirsch Chajes (Maharatz Chayot, Writings, 1:74), regarding the nature of the future Redemption.

2

See Ramban, Vayikra 26:15.

3

Rabbi Abba sees the fulfillment of this verse as the greatest single sign of the Redemption (Sanhedrin 98a).

4

The Ibn Ezra says the language is Hebrew.

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There is a debate amongst our Sages as to what ‫ חלב‬and ‫ דבש‬refer to. In short, ‫ חלב‬is either cow /goat milk or fruit juice and ‫ דבש‬is either date honey (silan) or bee honey.

This article forms the basis of the script for Mizrachi’s specially produced video for this Yom HaAtzmaut, ‘Israel, A Living Prophecy’. Thank you to Rav Hillel Van-Leeuwen for his assistance.

Rabbi Doron Perez is Executive Chairman of the Mizrachi World Movement.

TO R AT M I Z R AC H I Dayan Elimelech Vanzetta

What did Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbarch Really Say?

M

y friend and Mizrachi UK CEO Rabbi Andrew Shaw recounts a beautiful story about a student at Yeshivat Kol Torah in Yerushalayim who asked his Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt”l, whether he was permitted to interrupt his regular studies in order to visit the graves of tzaddikim in the Galil. The Rosh Yeshiva responded that the student needed not travel so far, for there were plenty of tzaddikim buried on Har Herzl, just a short distance from the yeshiva.

Rav Shlomo Zalman was known as someone who was incredibly meticulous not only with what he said, but also how he said it. The leading halachic authority of his time, every one of his utterances was always firmly predicated upon the solid pillars of Halacha.

When one thinks of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, the Rambam, Rabbi Meir Ba’al HaNess, Rabbi Akiva, the matriarchs Zilpah and Bilhah, and the Shelah HaKadosh, all of whom are buried in Tiberias, one immediately understands that they are amongst the greatest tzaddikim of our people, so it is not so difficult to understand the student’s question. However, how should we understand Rav Shlomo Zalman’s answer regarding a modern-day military Jewish cemetery? Was it just a “nice thing to say” or was the Rosh Yeshiva actually conveying a well founded psak halacha to his student?

The Chatam Sofer (Yoreh Deah 333) was asked a halachic question concerning an irreligious Jew who had been killed by non-Jews simply for being Jewish. The Chevra Kadisha did not know where to bury him, given that

he had deviated from the path of his ancestors. The Chatam Sofer ruled unequivocally that such a person was a kadosh, a holy individual, since he had been murdered because he was a Jew and should, therefore, be buried together with his ancestors and with all the honors normally accorded to a niftar.

In his ruling, the Chatam Sofer quotes a verse from Tehillim (79:2) connected to the destruction of the Holy Temple and the killing of Jews, which reads: “They have given the corpses of Your servants as food to the birds of the heaven, the flesh of Your pious ones to the beasts of the earth.” The Gemara (Sanhedrin 47a) asks a poignant question based on this verse: “What is the meaning of ‘Your servants’ and ‘Your pious’ ones?”

Is the verse saying that only those who were fully committed to the pious observance of G-d’s will were killed?

The Gemara responds that all Jews, irrespective of who they were, who are murdered by a foreign power (for being Jewish), attain a complete level of atonement for any shortcomings they may have experienced in their lifetime and are, therefore, counted amongst G-d’s pious servants.

The aforementioned conclusion of the Gemara is upheld by the Ohr Zarua (2, The Laws of Mourning, 428), who rules that a Jew murdered by a non-Jew attains immediate atonement even for a grave sin this person may have committed in his/her lifetime. The same opinion is found in the Chochmat Adam (Sha’ar HaSimcha, 152:4).

The Dovev Meisharim (1:21) makes an even more clarifying statement and explains that such lofty status is

achieved irrespective of whether or not the person repented for his/her sins before being murdered by non-Jews.

The Rambam (Ma’amar Kiddush HaShem) says that a person who is murdered simply for being Jewish, dies al Kiddush HaShem – for the sanctification of the Almighty’s Name, irrespective of that person’s level of observance in his/her lifetime.

Finally, Rav Menashe Klein (Mishneh Halachot 16:33; 16:121; 19:122) brings abundant sources to corroborate that those who are murdered by non-Jews al Kiddush HaShem are all considered kedoshim in the purest sense of the word, whose memories must be respected, revered and never forgotten.

Hence, we see that what Rav Shlomo Zalman told his student was in fact a clear-cut halachic ruling – those who are buried on Har Herzl are tzaddikim, kedoshim and chassidim whose lives were taken whilst defending Medinat Yisrael and Am Yisrael, whose “mortal sin” was the fact that they were Jewish and were protecting their Jewish brethren and our Jewish homeland. Were they observant in their lifetime? That is an irrelevant question for someone who fell al kedushat HaShem, haAm veHaAretz.

May their memories be a blessing, may their merits protect Medinat Yisrael and the Jewish people wherever we are.

Dayan Elimelech Vanzetta is a member of the European Beth Din, Director of the Halachic Arbitration and Mediation Centre, and a sought after speaker and halachic authority.

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TO R AT M I Z R AC H I

M I Z R AC H I E D U C ATO R S Rabbi Reuven Taragin

What Covid Taught Us About the State of Israel

C

risis brings out the worst and best in people and peoples. Celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel a year into and hopefully emerging from the Corona pandemic is an excellent time to reflect on what we have learned about ourselves as a people and about the State of Israel. On the one hand, we have been reminded of the special qualities of Am Yisrael as a people and, on the other, about the challenges of returning to and building a country after thousands of years in exile.

Mi KeAmcha Yisrael We Value Human Life Judaism places a very high premium on life. We are commanded (not just allowed) to violate Shabbat and almost all of our mitzvot in the face of even a potential threat to human life. In fact, halacha brands one who is cavalier about human life a rotzeach (murderer).

Israel has one of the world’s lowest Covid deaths:infections ratios. One of the reasons for this is our health professionals’ devotion to helping the infected recover. This devotion is reflective of the value they and we place on saving and sustaining human life.

Am Yisrael as a whole also showed its appreciation for human life at the beginning of the pandemic, when we respected the guidelines of the first closure and safely distanced ourselves from our parents, grandparents and close relatives even during the chagim.

As opposed to many countries who prioritized keeping their economy and travel/leisure open above protecting human life, we have been consistent in prioritizing human life.

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We have also shown this in the extensive and intensive vaccination drive.

Working Together with a Common Goal The vaccination drive also showed our ingenuity and ability to work well together as a people and country when we share a common goal. The fact that we managed to acquire and administer one of the world’s highest percentages of vaccines so quickly is truly remarkable.

Benny Gantz and his party’s decision to join the Netanyahu government (after they had previously promised not to join) is also a great expression of our ability to prioritize the value of human life and our common goals.

Where We Are Lacking There is, unfortunately, another side to the story. Sadly, as Corona dragged on for months, many people grew tired of the restrictions and lost faith in the government and its guidelines. We saw this from many different segments and sides of the political spectrum. Mass gatherings for funerals, protests, organizational and individual disregard for guidelines, and even document forgeries.

Feelings of tiredness and even loss of faith are very understandable and there are many government decisions that can definitely be criticized. That said, it is important to understand that the only way to properly face national challenges is by having a government that coordinates our joint efforts. As a people in exile, we grew accustomed to living in countries run by governments often antisemitic or at least unsympathetic to their Jewish population and their

needs. We grew accustomed to needing to work around governments to protect our individual needs in situations when the national authority was attacking or even just neglecting us.

Now, Baruch Hashem, we have returned to our own state. This does not mean our government is perfect, but it does mean it is our government – elected by us and committed to our health and success. Even if one is of a different political persuasion and/or disagrees with the government’s decisions, disrespecting its guidelines threatens the basic notion of its ability to play its critical national role.

Obviously, the State of Israel’s current political instability and hostility has not helped matters. We can only hope that the recent election will help bring a stable government that can strengthen our sense of statehood.

On Yom HaAtzmaut, we celebrate the founding of our State. After a Corona year that reminded us of our values and unique abilities, but also challenged our sense of statehood, it is critical that this year’s celebration reinforces our appreciation of what the great zechut of having the State of Israel demands of us.

Scan here to join Rabbi Taragin’s WhatsApp group with daily Divrei Torah Rabbi Reuven Taragin is Educational Director of Mizrachi and Dean of the Yeshivat HaKotel Overseas Program.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

M I Z R AC H I E D U C ATO R S

TO R AT M I Z R AC H I

Rabbanit Shani Taragin

Shemini to Acharei Mot, Yom HaZikaron to Yom HaAtzmaut

T

his year, the fifth of Iyar coincides with the parshiyot of Tazria and Metzora, in which we learn of the laws of tzara’at, a spiritual and physical malady that renders the inflicted tamei: limited from access to the Mikdash and removed from the social camp. These parshiyot are preceded by Shemini, the narrative of the tragic deaths of Nadav and Avihu at the Mishkan’s inauguration.

The Torah charges the metzora to rend his garments, leave his hair to grow, cover his mouth and publicly declare his state of ritual impurity. Then, as an independent imperative, the Torah commands the metzora to live in isolation. The first two commandments remind us of the laws of mourning following the deaths of Nadav and Avihu, as Moshe had instructed Aharon and his remaining sons not to let their hair grow and not to rend their clothes in response to their loss, while the rest of the nation will “bewail the burning.”

In contrast, the metzora is not mourning for a relative, but for himself, as if he has died. As such, Chazal formulated that “a metzora is considered dead” (Rashi, Bamidbar 12:12, based on Sifrei). That is why the last requirement is mentioned separately; it constitutes the very essence of his “death.”

The metzora must detach himself from communal life, in which the Shechina resides, separating himself from public partnership in the community, from the life of the nation.

The process through which he returns to “life,” as he makes his way back into society, consists of three stages: 1. He returns to the camp by bringing two birds. 2. After seven days of residence in

the camp, he returns to his tent. 3. On the eighth day, with special sacrifices, he returns to the Mishkan. The ceremony of slaughtering a bird over fresh water, dipping a live bird in its blood and then sending it away, marks the transition from life to death, the rebirth of the metzora. The metzora, whose disease surfaced on his body with white, dead-colored skin, is “brought back to life” with crimson-colored water and bird’s blood, symbolizing the return to live, healthy flesh.

We may now understand the juxtaposition of the respective parshiyot read at this time of year. After the deaths of Nadav and Avihu on Yom HaShemini (the eighth day following the inaugural preparations, when the Shechina was manifest), we encounter laws of defilement related to childbirth and then the pseudo-death of the metzora. But on the same Shabbat, we also read of the process of purification and restoration to individual and communal life. The following Shabbat, we read parashat Acharei Mot, commanding Aharon to purify the Mishkan on Yom Kippur, as he dons bigdei haBad, special white linen garments, and brings ketoret, annually revisiting this sons’ deaths.

As he wears the white garments, the Kohen Gadol detaches himself from his gold and crimson priestly vestments and wears the garments worn by a Kohen Hedyot, a regular kohen.

Every Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol revisits Yom HaShemini, the initial consecration of the Mishkan. The core relationship between these two events is to annually restore the Mishkan to its earliest beginnings prior to impurities, when the Shechina was first manifest.

Simultaneously however, we are reminded of the deaths that accompanied the eighth day. Aharon wears the same uniform as his sons did and reenacts their bringing of the ketoret. Every year he dons white garments, symbolizing the color of death, as he revisits the deaths of his sons, and all the sons of Israel that have left the “camp of life,” like the metzora. Yet every Yom Kippur – as he sprinkles the blood of the bull and the goat, like the sprinkling of the blood of the bird of the metzora – he reminds us that kappara may be achieved and the tumah of death shall be removed.

Every Yom HaZikaron, dressed in blue – together with our white – we remember the tragic deaths of our soldiers and terror victims, young sons and daughters, who remind us of our own mortality. And the day after, as we read the parshiyot of transition from death to life, from Shoa to Tekuma, from white to gold, crimson, and techelet, we raise our flags and celebrate the “inauguration” of the State of Israel, a modern manifestation of the Shechina’s return to our midst.

Rabbanit Shani Taragin is Educational Director of Mizrachi and the Director of the Mizrachi Matan Lapidot Educators' Program.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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TO R AT M I Z R AC H I Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon and Rabbanit Sharon Rimon

Shir HaMa’alot

(Psalm 126)

W

e say Shir HaMa’alot every Shabbat and holiday before Birkat HaMazon and for decades we have sung it to the tune of Hatikvah at the conclusion of the Yom HaAtzmaut prayers. Why is this psalm connected to Yom HaAtzmaut, and what is its message?

This psalm is divided into two distinct parts: The first part (1–3) speaks in the past tense, in which the redeemed Jews feel their redemption is like a dream. It is so monumental that even the non-Jews are amazed at the greatness of the miracle; they see the hand of G-d and say, ‘‫ִהגְ דִּ יל ה‬ ‫לַ ֲעשׂ וֹ ת ִעם ֵא ֶ ּלה‬, “The L-rd has done great things for them.”

After the non-Jews speak about the magnitude of the miracle, Am Yisrael finally understand it themselves, ‫ִהגְ דִּ יל‬ ‫“ ה’ לַ ֲעשׂ וֹ ת ִע ָּמנ ּו‬The L-rd has done great things for us.” At first, ‫היִ ינ ּו ְּכחֹלְ ִמים‬,ָ it was like a dream, but now, after others talk about it with such awe, “we were like dreamers” becomes a clear reality: ‫ָהיִ ינ ּו‬ ‫שְׂ ֵמ ִחים‬, “we were happy.”

Photo: Sharon Gabay

Part Two (4–6) speaks in the future tense. It is a request for redemption, for G-d to return us ‫כ ֲא ִפ ִיקים ַ ּב ֶּנגֶ ב‬,ַּ “like springs in the Negev.” Tears of struggle accompany the sowing stage, and we request and pray that the harvest and the gathering will be with joy.

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The order of the psalm is surprising – if we have already proclaimed the vision of redemption; why do we now request redemption ‫יתנ ּו‬ ֵ ‫ ׁשו ָּבה ה‘ ֶאת ׁ ְש ִב‬, “the L-rd shall return us”?

To answer this, we must understand the unusual expression, “as streams in the Negev.” What are these afikim, these

streams? Yosef Breslavi explains that there are no streams which flow regularly in the Negev Desert, but there are flash floods. The Negev is usually dry. There is almost no rain. However, the rain that does fall on the mountains flows towards the dry streams. Because the ground is hard, the water does not seep into the soil but appears suddenly, almost instantaneously, on the surface and flows very quickly. This phenomenon characterizes the Negev. When it rains, hundreds of small tributaries fill up with water, flowing into dozens of larger ones, flowing down to one big site, which then looks like a river.

This phenomenon can be compared to the flow of olei haRegalim to Israel, the pilgrims who come to Yerushalayim at once, in large quantities, from many places across the Land.

Moreover, the suddenness and surprise of the flash floods in the Negev is a beautiful metaphor for the process of redemption. Just as a dry and desolate desert is instantly filled with life-giving water, so the lonely Land is suddenly filled with its returning children, and the barren begins to blossom.

The psalm also likens redemption to a plant, seeds and harvests. Indeed, in the words of the prophets, a plant is often a parable for Mashiach and Redemption. For example, Yirmiyahu (23:5) calls Mashiach ‫צ ַמח ַצדִּ יק‬, ֶ a true branch.

Zechariah (6:12) also describes how Mashiach, whose name is Tzemach, will build the Beit HaMikdash: ‫ִה ֵּנה‬ ‫יכל‬ ַ ‫ִא ׁיש ֶצ ַמח ׁ ְשמוֹ ו ִּמ ַּת ְח ָּתיו יִ ְצ ָמח ו ָּבנָ ה ֶאת ֵה‬ ‘‫ה‬, “Behold, a man called the Tzemach shall branch out from the place where he is, and he shall build the Temple of the L-rd.”

TO R AT M I Z R AC H I

In the Amidah, as well, we say ‫ֶאת ֶצ ַמח‬ ‫יח‬ ַ ‫ ַמ ְצ ִמ‬,‘‫ ָ ּברו ְּך ַא ָּתה ה‬...‫יח‬ ַ ‫ָ ּדוִ ד ַע ְב ְ ּד ָך ְמ ֵה ָרה ַת ְצ ִמ‬ ‫ק ֶרן יְ ׁשו ָּעה‬,ֶ “Speedily cause the sprout of David, Your servant, to flourish…

Blessed are You… Who causes the power of salvation to sprout.”

Why is Mashiach’s Name a Plant?

At the beginning of the growth process, we see nothing but dry ground. Only once the plant sprouts do we realize the process had already begun earlier. The new growth begins only after the decay of the previous seed.

Redemption comes after destruction, after tears. The decay of the seed may seem like the end of the process, but it is specifically there where growth begins.

Am Yisrael will grow to salvation and greatness only through despair, destruction and difficulty.

Chazal said (Yerushalmi Berachot) that Israel’s redemption is like ‫ַא ֶ ּילֶ ת‬ ‫ה ּׁ ַש ַחר‬,ַ dawn. Just as the light of dawn comes slowly and almost unnoticed, so too Israel’s salvation – a great light will suddenly burst out of the bleakest darkness.

Who is This Psalm About?

The common opinion is that this psalm was about those returning to Israel during Shivat Tzion. After Cyrus’ declaration, the immigrants felt the great redemption and were like dreamers.

Slowly, however, they encountered insurmountable difficulties. Indeed, almost the entire Second Beit HaMikdash period was characterized by challenges and hardships. Hence the returnees asked for the continuation

of redemption (the second part of the psalm), that the tears be turned to joy.

Some of the visions of this psalm did come to fruition, at least some of the time. However, there was certainly no impressive breakthrough of redemption like afikim in the Negev. Nevertheless, Jews all over the world continued to say this psalm in Birkat HaMazon every Shabbat and holiday, believing and expecting its vision would be fulfilled in its entirety.

We are almost there.

With immense gratitude to the Almighty, we have been privileged to return to our Land – a much more impressive return than that of the Second Beit HaMikdash. Then, the return was after 70 years. There was hardly any new settlement in the country. We have rebuilt after 2,000 years!

We returned after many years of foreign rule and yet we have succeeded in establishing a State, with economic, scientific and technological prosperity, and even spiritually, the quantities of Limmud Torah and observant Jews are much higher than at many times during our history.

Indeed, the world, the non-Jewish world, sees the greatness of the miracle, the magnificent blossoming of the State of Israel through G-d’s grace. We see but do not believe: “we were like dreamers.” The world is in awe: “The L-rd has done great things for them.”

We are seeing the great Redemption, the mighty streams in the Negev, in our own days.

The psalm ends with the sentence: ‫בּ ֹא‬ ‫יָ בוֹ א ְב ִר ָּנה נֹשֵׂ א ֲאלֻ ּמ ָֹתיו‬, “he shall come back with songs of joy, carrying his sheaves.”

Alumot, sheaves, appear elsewhere in Tanach solely in the context of Yosef ’s dreams. As a boy, Yosef had dreams of greatness. But those dreams were destroyed by the hatred and animosity between the brothers. Eventually though, after many trials and much suffering, Yosef ’s dreams came true, but in exile.

Now, with the Return to Tzion, we pray to witness the fulfillment of the great dream of the upright alumot of Knesset Yisrael that will in turn lead to the realization of the Divine mission in the world. These sheaves will stand upright through a process of unity, closeness and connection.

We have been blessed with such great abundance in our generation, and we continue to pray that “the L-rd shall return us.” We continue to pray for the success of the State of Israel, that all the people of Israel will know the Name of G-d called upon us, and may Hashem bless us in our beloved country to continue to make a Kiddush Hashem, further the Redemption, and bring Mashiach speedily in our days.

Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon is Rosh Yeshiva of JCT–Machon Lev and Head of Mizrachi’s Educational Advisory Board.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

Rabbanit Sharon Rimon teaches Tanach and is Content Editor for the HaTanakh website.

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TO R AT M I Z R AC H I

M I Z R AC H I S C H O L A R S - I N - R E S I D E N C E Sivan Rahav Meir and Yedidya Meir

Four Ideas for Yom HaAtzmaut

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Trembling in Awe | Our generation may take Israel for granted and not appreciate it enough, but anyone who was here in 1948 knows that allowing the miraculous to become ordinary is a crime.

Moshe Yekutiel Alpert, an ultra-Orthodox Jew from the old yishuv of Yerushalayim, described in his diary how he went to vote in the first parliamentary elections after the establishment of the State: “At 05:35, early in the morning, my wife and I got up. After drinking coffee, we wore Shabbat clothes in honor of this great and holy day. For ‫שה ה׳‬ ׂ ָ ‫זֶ ה ַה ּיוֹ ם ָע‬, this is the day the L-rd has made. For 2,000 years of exile, and perhaps even since the six days of Creation, we have not merited such a day, upon which we go to the polls to vote in a Jewish State, ָּ ‫ברו ְּך ׁ ֶש ֶה ֱחיָ נ ּו וְ ִק ְ ּי ָמנ ּו וְ ִה ִ ּג ָיענ ּו לַ זַ ַּמן ַהזֶ ּה‬. ...My wife and I and my brother-inlaw went to the polls in the area of​​ HaChabashim Street, carrying our little State of Israel ID books. We took the shortcut, and I walked every step in great joy, the way I dance hakafot with a Sefer Torah on Simchat Torah, because I had an Israeli ID in my hand.

My joy and happiness were boundless.

When we arrived, the official brought the ballot box, and the chairman called me and said ‫“ – וְ ָה ַד ְר ָּת ּ ְפנֵ י זָ ֵקן‬you shall respect the elderly.” Since I was the oldest there, I would be the first to vote.

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Trembling with awe and reverence, I handed my ID to the chairman, and he read my name. The deputy chairman wrote my name on a piece of paper, and assigned me the number 1. He handed me an envelope and I went into the other room, where all the parties’ slips were. With a trembling hand and a sense of sanctity, I took one slip for the Religious Union party, and placed it carefully in the envelope I had received from the chairman.

I went back into the polling station again, and showed everyone that I had only one envelope. And then I experienced the holiest moment of my life, a moment that neither my father nor my grandfather merited. Only me, in my time, in my life, merited such a pure and holy moment. How blessed I am!

I put the envelope into the ballot box, shook hands with the chairman, the deputy and the rest of the committee and left. I waited in the hallway for my wife because she was number 2, and at 06:28, we returned home and I went to pray. It was a day of great celebration!”

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VeHadarta | “On Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut everyone is looking for elderly people to talk to,” writes illustrator Naama Lahav. “Yes, old men and women. For schools, for radio and television interviews, for conferences.

Someone who escaped from Treblinka, someone who spent the night in the orchards of the kibbutz, a 10-year-old

who immigrated to Israel via an impossible route… Unbelievable stories. We look at these people, and wonder – did they go through all this? What life experience, what cumulative strength, O how much we can learn from them!

I think this is what the Torah meant in three words in Parashat Kedoshim, which we read during this time: ‫וְ ָה ַד ְר ָּת‬ ‫פנֵ י זָ ֵקן‬.ְ ּ We’ve known this mitzvah since kindergarten, so much so that perhaps we have forgotten to pay attention to the words. It is not, “you shall care for the elderly,” nor “you shall have sympathy for the elderly,” nor “you shall stand for the old man on the bus.” VeHadarta, respect the elderly. See the majesty (hidur) in his face. Not only on special days, but throughout the year, take care to respect, elevate and glorify the elders in our society. Respect every year and every wrinkle.”

3

What Unites Us? | Between barbecues and the annual torch-lighting ceremony, the ְ ָ‫חידוֹ ן ַה ָּתנ‬,ִ the World Bible Quiz, has ‫"ך‬ also become one of the symbols of Yom HaAtzmaut. Excited teenagers from all over the world take to the stage to test their knowledge of the Book of Books.

When Yuli Edelstein served as Speaker of the Knesset, he was also Chairman of the Judges for the quiz. One year, he gave a speech in which he shared his experiences as a Prisoner of Zion: “I look at you, the contestants. You are from the United States, Panama, Mexico, Belarus, South Africa... I am

M I Z R AC H I S C H O L A R S - I N - R E S I D E N C E

looking at you and soon translators will come up here to translate the questions, because you do not even have a common language between you... So what unites you all?

I was once a Prisoner of Zion. I lived in a country that, Baruch Hashem, no longer exists – the Soviet Union.

I taught Hebrew and Judaism. I did not have knowledge like yours, but I knew a little, and that was enough to teach other Jews in secret. It did not end well. I was put in jail and then in a labor camp. I was completely disconnected. I knew nothing about what was happening outside, beyond the barbed wire fence, at the end of the world in Siberia. One day we returned from hard labor in the woods. After 11 hours in the freezing cold, I crossed the camp with a row of inmates when the officer in charge of discipline – a man you wanted to avoid – called me out.

I approached him and he said: ‘Just so you know, the safe in my room is full of letters for you from all over the world.’

Then he smiled such a sadistic smile and said: ‘By law, you are not allowed to receive letters from abroad and you will not see a single letter.’

No-one could have been happier than I was at that moment.

He didn’t know it, but thanks to him I suddenly learned that Jews from all over the world were writing me letters.

He was right, this sadist. I never did see a single letter, but later I met a lot

TO R AT M I Z R AC H I

of people who said ‘I wrote you letters.’

People from many countries, including the countries you come from. Men and women, young and old, housewives and professors, Rabbis and even those who did not know aleph bet. Each person different from the other, but united.

They knew there was a Jew out there whom they didn’t know, and perhaps would never know, but they had to fight for his release.

•

‫ – וְ ֶאת ׁ ַש ְ ּבת ַֹתי ִּת ׁ ְשמֹר ּו‬You shall keep My Sabbaths.

•

‫ – ֹלא ִּתגְ נֹב ּו‬You shall not steal.

•

ֹ‫ – וְ ֹלא ְת ׁ ַש ְ ּקר ּו ִא ׁיש ַ ּב ֲע ִמיתו‬neither shall you lie to any of your neighbors.

•

‫ – ֹלא ַת ֲע ׁשֹק ֶאת ֵר ֲע ָך‬You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him.

We do not need false unity, but true unity, and you already have it – unity around the most authentic common denominator we have: the Book of Books, the Bible. I ask you, on Yom HaAtzmaut: keep spreading this common denominator of ours. If we know it and internalize it, we will achieve true unity.”

•

‫ – וְ לִ ְפנֵ י ִע ֵ ּור ֹלא ִת ֵּתן ִמכְ ׁשֹל‬Do not put a stumbling block before the blind.

•

‫ – ֹלא ַת ֲעשׂ ּו ָעוֶ ל ַ ּב ִּמ ׁ ְש ּ ָפט‬Do not pervert justice.

•

‫ית ָך‬ ֶ ‫ – ְ ּב ֶצ ֶדק ִּת ׁ ְש ּפֹט ֲע ִמ‬Judge your neighbor justly.

•

ָ ‫ – ֹלא ֵתלֵ ְך ָרכִ יל ְ ּב ַע ֶּמ‬You shall not ‫יך‬ gossip among your people.

•

ָ ‫ – ֹלא ִתשְׂ נָ א ֶאת ָא ִח‬You ‫יך ִ ּבלְ ָב ֶב ָך‬ shall not hate your brother in your heart.

•

‫ – וְ ָא ַה ְב ָּת לְ ֵר ֲע ָך ָּכמוֹ ָך‬Love your neighbor as yourself.

4

For the Glory of the State of Israel | Perhaps we should ask Israel the typical birthday question: What do you want to be when you grow up? After birth and adolescence, after the wondrous physical construction of the State, where are you going now? What are your aspirations and goals? It seems to me that in Parashat Kedoshim we have part of the answer.

We may know the verses by heart, but in Iyar we can read them again as the basis for building a regenerated Jewish society. Here are just a few examples: •

‫ – ְקד ׁ ִֹשים ִּת ְהי ּו‬You shall be holy.

•

‫ – וְ ָה ַד ְר ָּת ּ ְפנֵ י זָ ֵקן‬You shall respect the elderly.

Sounds like an excellent manifesto for the glory of the State of Israel.

Sivan Rahav Meir and Yedidya Meir are popular Israeli media personalities and World Mizrachi’s Scholars-in-Residence.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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Israel360 reflects Israel’s international reach and Mizrachi’s mission of spreading Torat Eretz Yisrael across the world. To celebrate Israel during the month of Iyar, Mizrachi is virtually bringing inspiring Israeli speakers and thinkers to 360 communities all around the globe.

Book your speaker for Yom Yerushalayim!

F O R D E TA I L S A N D T O TA K E PA R T

www.mizrachi.org/israel360

Mizrachi Israel360

G LO B A L R E L I G I O U S L E A D E R S

Chief Rabbi David Lau

From Yom HaShoah to Yom HaAtzmaut: Appreciating our Abilities

E

very year, upon the completion of Ma’ariv on Yom HaAtzmaut eve, a moment before the celebrations and performances, I rush up onto the stage and say the Prayer for the Welfare of the State of Israel and a few personal words of my own on the importance of the day. I am always moved to hear 40,000 participants answer “Amen!”

Many of them would not otherwise be exposed to this prayer and to the religious meaning of this day. We all sing Hatikvah and only afterwards do the performances begin.

As a child in Tel Aviv, I remember asking my father, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, “What does Yom HaAtzmaut mean to you? What do you feel on this day?” My father answered, “I know that people are busy with the question: Hallel with a bracha or Hallel without a bracha – but it’s not relevant. Of course this is a halachic question that needs to be dealt with, but when they focus solely on this, the askers are mistaken and lose the neshama of Yom HaAtzmaut and the reason for giving thanks.”

The fact that Yom HaShoah is a week before Yom HaAtzmaut adds so much meaning and value to both of those days. Because when one knows where one comes from, one knows how to appreciate one’s abilities, and with them, to forge the path ahead.

This is a day of thanksgiving. This is a day when we stand up and say to G-d: You’ve returned us, and malchut Yisrael has returned to its rightful place.

We’ve merited to return to the Land

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and institute a government, establish Beit Yisrael. There are many things still to correct. For example, many Jews do not yet recognize the Hand of G-d that returned us to our Land. But for one day a year, we can stop and see the light.

It’s not a cup half-full – it’s much more than that! Let us see the bigger picture, and say two precious, heartfelt words to G-d: “Thank You.”

“”

The Jewish nation has gone through difficult times... On our way to independence, we have passed through all of these trials and more

The Jewish nation has gone through difficult times. Times of imprisonment.

Times of suffering. Times Jews were expelled from their homes and into the desert. Only 73 years ago, the Altalena approached the Israeli coast and was refused entry. On our way to independence, we have passed through all of these trials and more.

Besha’a tova, we have merited that we are now here, in our Land, in our home.

We are here in our country, and we praise G-d who has stood and stands by us. We praise G-d who returned us to the Land of our forefathers, and we pray and ask: “Until now You have helped us and You have not relinquished us, our G-d. But now our request, our prayer,

is before You.” We praise Him for what we have. We express so much gratitude because there is so much to be thankful for. But we also ask G-d: “We want to praise You from Har HaBayit. We want to praise You from the rebuilt Beit HaMikdash.” Just as we have been fortunate to reach these moments, so too may we merit a full redemption and a rebuilt Beit HaMikdash speedily in our days, Amen.

Let us pray that G-d will give Israel’s leaders guidance; that He aid all the IDF soldiers, the security forces, and the medical personnel - that they should succeed in their endeavors and return healthy and safely to their families. Let us pray that we should feel the Jewish atmosphere in our Jewish country, and experience and appreciate the Divine gift of allowing us to return home to the Land of our forefathers in our generation. May Israel grow and succeed, may the current situation only get better soon and may there be goodness, joy and peace for all the inhabitants of this Land. Am Yisrael Chai!

Rabbi David Lau is the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel.

G LO B A L R E L I G I O U S L E A D E R S

Chief Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein

Celebrating our Connection to Israel with Pride and Gratitude

Y

om HaAtzmaut happens in the weeks leading up to Shavuot – the time of the harvest during which we celebrate the great bounty of the Land of Israel. This includes the mitzvah of bikkurim – the Torah requirement for farmers to bring their first fruits to the Beit HaMikdash.

Interestingly, the mitzvah of bikkurim can teach us how to approach Yom HaAtzmaut.

What is most unusual about this mitzvah is that when the farmers brought their baskets to the Beit HaMikdash, they would make a short declaration, summarizing Jewish history: how the Jewish people came to live in Egypt; how we were afflicted by the Egyptians and called out to G-d; how He answered our cries and redeemed us with signs and wonders, and eventually brought us to the Land of Israel – to the sacred ground from which these first fruits were harvested (Devarim 26:3–10).

Furthermore, the Mishnah paints a colorful picture of the farmers’ procession: they did not arrive one by one in Yerushalayim; rather, they would go up in a group, accompanied by music and a whole e nto u rage to

mark the occasion. At the head of the procession, there was a bull decorated in gold. And all the residents of Yerushalayim – the shopkeepers and all the workers, sometimes even the king – would come out to greet the farmers’ arrival. Upon arriving at the Beit HaMikdash, the Levi’im would sing a song from the book of Tehillim (Mishna, Bikkurim 3:3–4).

Why all the fanfare? What is so special about the mitzvah of bikkurim that it warranted such a declaration and such a grand, beautiful ceremony?

The Malbim (Devarim 26:5) explains that the declaration regarding the bikkurim was stated as a response to those who would challenge our right to the Land of Israel. He cites Rashi’s very first comment on the Chumash – the question of why the Torah begins with the book of Bereishit, the more narra-

tive-driven portions of the Torah, when really the Torah is a book of commandments (Rashi, Bereishit 1:1).

Quoting from a remarkably prescient Midrash (Midrash, Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 187), Rashi explains that the reason the Torah begins with the story of Creation is because one day “the nations of the world” will accuse the Jewish people of unjustly appropriating the Land of Israel, to which we can respond – G-d, the Creator of the world, gave it to us. That is our title deed. And we underline this claim by publicly declaring and celebrating our connection to the Land of Israel in the bikkurim ceremony.

There’s certainly a lesson we can draw here in our own age about proudly and unapologetically celebrating our connection to the Land of Israel. Yom HaAtzmaut is a special time to do so, and remind ourselves of the justice of Israel’s cause.

Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein is the Chief Rabbi of South Africa.

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G LO B A L R E L I G I O U S L E A D E R S Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks ‫זצ“ל‬

No Land Like Israel

N

o religion in history has been as closely tied to a Land as has Judaism. That connection goes back almost 4,000 years, from the first words of G-d to Avraham: “Leave your country, your birthplace and your father’s house and go to the Land I will show you.” No sooner had he arrived than G-d said: “To your offspring I will give this Land.” Seven times G-d promised the Land to Avraham, and promised it again to Yitzchak and Yaakov.

The word teshuva, often translated as “repentance,” literally means “homecoming” in a double sense: spiritually to G-d, and physically to the Land of Israel.

For Israel is the Jewish people’s place of destiny: a tiny land for a tiny people, yet one whose role in religious history is vast. It is the land to which Moshe and the Israelites travelled across the desert, the land from which they were exiled

twice, the land to which our ancestors journeyed whenever they could and which they never voluntarily left, never relinquished. Jewish history is the story of the longing for a Land.

The holy Land remains the place where Jews were summoned to create a society of justice and compassion under the sovereignty of G-d. And though it was subsequently held holy by Christianity and Islam, the centres of these other faiths were elsewhere: for Western Christians, Rome, for Eastern Christians, Constantinople, and for Muslims, Mecca and Medinah. There are 56 Islamic states today, 82 Christian ones, but only one Jewish State. It is the only place on earth where Jews are a majority, where they enjoy self-rule, where they are able to build a society and shape a culture as Jews.

The Balfour Declaration in 1917, subsequently ratified by the League of Nations, long before the Holocaust, was an attempt to rectify the lingering denial of a nation’s right to its land and the subsequent persecution of Jews in country after country, century after century, in a history of suffering that has no parallel.

The Jews who returned were not strangers, outsiders, an imperial presence, a colonial force. They were the Land’s original inhabitants: the only people in 4,000 years who created an independent nation there. All other occupiers of the Land – from the Assyrians and Babylonians to the Ottomans and the British – were imperial powers, who ruled the Land as a district of their vast realms. The Egyptians did not offer the Palestinians a state when they ruled Gaza between 1948 and 1967; neither did the Jordanians when they ruled the West Bank during those years. The only nation to have offered Palestinians a state is the State of Israel. And every day, we pray for its peace.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks ‫ זצ“ל‬was a global religious leader, philosopher, and award-winning author who served as Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.

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R A B B I S AC K S ’ T E AC H I N G S Dr. Daniel Rose

The Challenge of the Religious Zionist Educator

F

or Rabbi Sacks, effecting change in the world always began with education. There were a number of core values found in Rabbi Sacks’ thought that must be placed at the core of our Religious Zionist educational institutions.

Israel is central to the teachings of Rabbi Sacks. He often expressed his deep pride in Israel’s history and achievements and found them to be a source of immense inspiration. For Rabbi Sacks, Jewish history was a source of faith in G-d, and no period more so than the story of the creation of the modern State of Israel: “It is difficult to reflect deeply on the rebirth of Israel without sensing the touch of heaven in the minds of men and women, leading them to play their parts in a drama so much greater than any individual could have executed, even conceived.”1 He would argue, I believe, that we must invest in teaching Jewish history, and that as a discipline, it belongs on the kodesh side of the curriculum of the Jewish day school.

But Israel plays a more significant role in his philosophy. In fact, it is central in his understanding of the national mission of the Jewish people. Israel is the place where Jews are summoned to create a society of justice and compassion under the sovereignty of G-d: “Judaism is the constitution of a self-governing nation, the architectonics of a society dedicated to the service of G-d in freedom and dignity. Without a land and state, Judaism is a shadow of itself.”2 This must be clearly articulated in a Religious Zionist curriculum. The ultimate expression and destiny of Judaism is to be lived in the Land of Israel.

For Rabbi Sacks, this national destiny, fulfilled in the Land of Israel by the creation of a model society, but also as individuals wherever they may be, is to embrace the “radical responsibility” to Heal a Fractured World (this is tikkun olam, repairing the world). Thus, the Judaism taught in our schools and experienced at our camps must be framed in this way, in both theoretical/philosophical terms, and in normative practical behavior.

“”

For Rabbi Sacks, Jewish history was a source of faith in G-d, and no period more so than the story of the creation of the modern State of Israel

Jewish education should have a practical social activism component. It must not remain theoretical, remaining in books, classrooms, conversation or thought. It must leave the doors of the Beit Midrash and blaze a trail of healing in the world.

Finally, a Religious Zionist education must be brave and bold enough to be open, and willing not only to spend time outside of the Beit Midrash physically but intellectually and emotionally also.

We must expose our students to the beauty and holiness found in the sciences and the arts: “Chochma is what allows us to understand the world as G-d’s work (science) and the human person as his image (the humanities).”3

And we must allow room for the ‘other’ in our classrooms. This, for Rabbi Sacks, is the essence of the message of Judaism, and the core value at the heart of the Jewish national mission: “G-d, the creator of humanity, having made a covenant with all humanity, then turns to one people and commands it to be different in order to teach humanity the dignity of difference.”4 In summation, if a Religious Zionist education is to reflect the thought and values of Rabbi Sacks, it must be outward looking, engaged with the world, show compassion to the other and allow room for their narratives. It must present a Judaism concerned with redeeming the world, and provide practical skills and opportunities to fulfill this. And of course it must have Israel at its core, seeing it as the platform from which to actualize and fulfill the Jewish national mission.

1

The Jonathan Sacks Haggada, p. 53.

2

Future Tense, p. 135.

3

Ibid. p. 222.

4

The Dignity of Difference, p. 53.

Dr. Daniel Rose is the educational consultant and content developer for the Rabbi Sacks Legacy Trust.

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G LO B A L R E L I G I O U S L E A D E R S Rabbi David Stav

Praying for the State of Israel

O

n one of my first visits to the HaAtzmaut or not, one can spend hours sector. It is specifically those of faith United States, at the end of discussing whether the State of Israel is who must stand at the head of the camp Shacharit, the rabbi declared, the beginning of geula or not. But when calling for unity and togetherness, with“And now we will pray for the safety we see how many immigrants wanted to out mudslinging on others, even if they of our brethren in the Land of Israel.” I come to Israel from everywhere in the are not exactly alike in their worldview. heard this with mixed feelings. On the world during the past year, regardless of The test Israeli society has undergone one hand, I was very touched by a rabreligious and social affiliation, it is easy during the past year of Corona did not bi’s sense of involvement and solidarto recognize that the country has long end in much success. I do not refer ity of this rabbi in a land thousands of since become a magnet for the entire to the exceptions, I refer to the tribal miles away from Israel with the people nation. phenomena. There were tribes that put of Israel. On the other hand, it bothered I do not know a single ultra-Orthodox the success of the people first in their me that the Jews living in a remote comcommunity that thinks that its future eyes, compared to others who sought to munity, of which many of the children is abroad. strengthen and strengthen their will probably be assimilated in own tribe. It’s no wonder that the next generation, feels he is this year the hostility toward safe and that he is the one who ,‫גֹואלֹו‬ ֲ ְ‫ צּור יִ ְש ָׂר ֵאל ו‬,‫ָא ִבינּו ֶש ַּׁב ָּש ַׁמיִ ם‬ should pray for his brothers in Judaism and religion, and the .‫יחת ּגְ ֻאּלָ ֵתנּו‬ ַ ‫אשׁית צְ ִמ‬ ִ ‫ ֵר‬,‫ ָּב ֵרְך ֶאת ְמ ִדינַ ת יִ ְש ָׂר ֵאל‬religious social rift, increased Israel. to levels not known here for a ‫יה ֻסּכַ ת‬ ָ ֶ‫ּופרֹׁש ָעל‬ ָ ֶ‫ָהגֵ ן ָעל‬ ְ ,‫יה ְּב ֶא ְב ַרת ַח ְס ֶּדָך‬ To be sure, it is of utmost long time. importance to continue to pray

‫יה‬ ָ ‫ ָש ֶׂר‬,‫ׁיה‬ ָ ‫אש‬ ֶ ‫אֹורָך וַ ֲא ִמ ְּתָך לְ ָר‬ ֶ ‫ְש‬ ְ ‫ּושׁלַ ח‬ ְ ,‫ׁלֹומָך‬ .‫טֹובה ִמּלְ ָפנֶ יָך‬ ָ ‫ וְ ַת ְּקנֵ ם ְּב ֵעצָ ה‬,‫יה‬ ָ ֶ‫יֹועצ‬ ֲ ְ‫ו‬

for Medinat Yisrael and the Jews who live there. Nothing is taken for granted, we must not allow ourselves to become haughty of our achievements here in Israel in the last generation. But we must understand that something very dramatic is happening to our eyes these days. I do not know if it will happen in the next Shemitta or the one after it, but the Jews are quickly approaching the day when most of the Jewish people will live in the Land of Israel.

This is a phenomenon that happened more than 2,500 years ago. In halacha it is called rov yoshveha aleha. This is a halachic concept with many implications regarding the level of mitzvot hateluyot baAretz being de’orayta or derabanan. But beyond that, this reality has implications for the perception of the State of Israel as the center of Jewish existence in our generation. One can argue whether to say Hallel on Yom

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We are already in a different reality. We are already in a generation where the State is the main tool for the appearance of the Jewish people in the world, for better or worse. It is a huge merit to live in such a generation, but like any merit in our world, it comes with great responsibility not to miss the opportunity that has come our way, lest we fail in the laziness of the ra’aya who did not want to open the door for the dod (a reference to Shir HaShirim). In our situation, the dod is already here. What do we do so that He does not run away?

The State of Israel without spirit and values ​​is like a body without a soul. If we want to affect spiritual change in Israel, we must show national responsibility for the whole and not just a specific

If we want Israel’s chariot of redemption to continue up the mountain, we must all mobilize for it. We must understand the needs and pains of each “tribe,” strive to give each group a reasonable answer and find the critical common denominator for the future. Our existence as a people should overcome all other private values. We have no other way but to increase kiddush Hashem and the love of G-d by demonstrating a personal example of the world of Torah that will be a magnet and a source of inspiration for the State of Israel being built.

Rabbi David Stav is Rabbi of Shoham.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

G LO B A L R E L I G I O U S L E A D E R S Rabbi Hershel Schachter

Permission to Celebrate

T

he Gemara (Sanhedrin 20b) cites a Beraita that describes a series of three mitzvot which must be accomplished in a specific sequence. First, a Jewish government must be established in Eretz Yisrael, which then organizes a Jewish army.

Then, that army must wage war against Amalek and eradicate it. After completion of the first two introductory steps in the Geula process, labeled atchalta deGeula, there is a mitzvah to build a Beit HaMikdash and offer korbanot, which is synonymous with Geula itself.

Commenting on the passuk, ‫ֵא ֶ ּלה ַה ִּמ ְצו‍ֹת‬ – “These are the commandments” (Vayikra 27:34), Chazal derive the principle, ‫“ – ֵאין נָ ִביא ַר ּׁ ַשאי לְ ַחדֵּ ׁש דָּ ָבר ֵמ ַע ָּתה‬a Navi is not permitted to introduce anything new from now on” (Megillah 2b). This prohibition includes the establishment and observance of additional rabbinic Yamim Tovim if they are meant to be celebrated by all Jews all over the world.

Such a practice would be a violation of bal tosif, adding on to the mitzvot of the Torah.1 The only exception to this rule seems to be a Yom Tov related to geula, defined as hashra’at haShechina in the Beit HaMikdash. This is based on the idea the Ramban develops in his commentary to the Torah (Bamidbar 7:13-17) and in his Hasagot to Sefer HaMitzvot (shoresh shlishi, s.v. aval), that there is a mitzvah to celebrate the building of a Beit HaMikdash.

The Gemara (Rosh Hashanah 18b19b) discusses Megillat Ta’anit, a scroll that lists many Yom Tov days added by the Chachamim of the Second Beit HaMikdash period, on which fasting, and on some, eulogizing, were prohibited. The Gemara explains

that the days listed all revolved about protecting or fortifying the Beit HaMikdash, the avodah therein, or its institutions, such as the Sanhedrin and the Kehuna. These days of Yom Tov could be established without being considered a violation of bal tosif because they are subsumed under the mitzvah the Ramban discussed – to celebrate the building of the Beit HaMikdash.

The Netivot, in his commentary to Megillat Esther (Megillat Setarim 9:19), wonders how the Chachamim were justified in adding the Yom Tov of Purim, since, according to Talmudic tradition, the miracle of Purim occurred prior to the Second Beit HaMikdash period. It must be, the Netivot explains, that the Chachamim felt that the miracle of Purim would in some way serve as an atchalta deGeula, leading to the building of the Second Beit HaMikdash.

He suggests (as does the Sfat Emet, Purim 5643) that they may have felt this way because the destruction of the descendants of Amalek, the stage immediately prior to the building of the Beit HaMikdash, was accomplished through the execution of Haman and his sons.

It is interesting that the Netivot assumes it was permissible for the Rabbanim to establish a Yom Tov merely because they thought it represented an atchalta deGeula, even though their conclusion was not reached through ruach haKodesh. Indeed, the Netivot argues that at a later time, the Rabbanim revised their original assessment, concluding it was erroneous. We see that the determination of whether a historical event is to be judged as an

atchalta deGeula does not require a Navi or ruach haKodesh, but only that the event be one that possesses a reasonable probability of bringing a future geula.

We may add that the Purim miracle did, in the end, enable the building of the Second Beit HaMikdash. From a political perspective, the Persian King, Daryavesh (Darius, son of Esther and Achashverosh), granted permission to continue the building of the Beit HaMikdash. Moreover, from a religious perspective, the renewed acceptance of Torah SheBe’al Peh engendered by the Purim miracle was a necessary prerequisite for Ezra’s entry into Eretz Yisrael and the geula, the building of the Second Beit HaMikdash (Sfat Emet, Purim 5638).

Thus, in addition to the Yamim Tovim that appear in the Torah, we are able to institute additional Yamim Tovim that conform to the above-mentioned rules and regulations of Megillat Ta’anit.

An event labeled as atchalta deGeula would fit within those rules because such an event is related to the future building of the Beit HaMikdash. If the event signifies one of the steps in the three-step process that will lead to the building of the Beit HaMikdash, it may be celebrated as an atchalta deGeula.

1

See Pri Chadash, Orach Chaim 496:14, Yoreh De’ah 233 and Orach Chaim 191.

Rabbi Hershel Schachter is Rosh Yeshiva and Rosh Kollel at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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3

Reasons to Love Israel

Welcome Home

12. Over 500 million birds of 200 different species migrate through Israel twice a year, from Africa to Eurasia in the summer and back again for the winter.

1. Jews are returning home to Israel today after thousands of years of exile, from all over the world. Some of the returnees include members of the lost tribes: Bnei Menashe from India, and Bnei Dan from Ethiopia.

13. Israel recycles 90% of its wastewater.

Spain is the runner up, recycling only 20% of its own wastewater.

2. Kol Yisrael Chaverim – Israelis are unparalleled at helping a stranger in need.

3. Every two meters you walk here is a mitzvah.

4. Yerushalayim is the holiest city in the world, where the Beit HaMikdash will be built.

5. The glue on Israeli stamps is kosher.

6. In 2021, Israelis were rated as the 12th happiest people in the world, and continue to rank among the highest.

7. Birthright (Taglit) has funded 600,000 participants to explore their Jewish homeland – that’s the number of men over 20 – 60 who left Egypt.

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only country with more trees today than 50 years ago.

14. Also highest in the world, 93% of Israeli homes use solar energy for water heating.

8. Har HaZeitim cemetery is the world’s oldest continuously used cemetery.

9. On Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron, cars stop in the middle of the highway to commemorate our true national heroes.

10. 40,000 Israeli teens visit the death camps and ghettos of Poland each year.

Environment 11. Israel is the only country in the world to have entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees. It is also the

15. Israel boasts 25 wildlife protection programs.

16. Israel has the highest rate of vegans per capita worldwide, an estimated five percent of the population.

Agriculture 17. The cherry tomato was developed by the Agricultural Faculty at Hebrew University.

18. Drip irrigation technology invented in Israel is used to preserve water around the world.

19. Israel has over 140 wineries.

Start-Up Nation

Health

Holidays

20. Israel has the most lawyers per capita, more museums per capita and more orchestras per capita than any other country in the world.

30. Israel is paving the way worldwide in terms of the number of COVID-19 vaccinations administered.

38. 75% of Jewish Israeli households light Shabbat candles.

21. Israel tops the list of countries in annual publication of scientific papers.

40. Israeli radio stations announce what time Shabbat comes in every week.

22. Israel boasts the world’s second highest per capita rate of new books published.

For a week in June, Israel holds Shavua HaSefer (Book Week) to celebrate local literature.

41. Pet stores sell hamantaschen for dogs ahead of Purim.

42. The IDF publicizes videos of its soldiers eating matzah on Pesach.

23. Israel has more start-ups per capita than anywhere else in the world, and is second only to the USA in absolute numbers.

24. Israel is 0.1% of the world’s population, but receives 20% of its cyber technology investments.

25. 12 Israelis have won Nobel prizes for achievements in peace, chemistry, literature, and economics.

26. Motorola Israel is credited with having invented the first cellphone.

43. Even in prison, prisoners enjoy a matzah-baking day and a Pesach Seder.

31. An Israeli company designed ingestible cameras that can help diagnose cancer and digestive system disorders.

33. Israel performs more in-vitro fertilizations per capita than any other country, and fertility treatments are covered by national health insurance.

34. The Iron Dome’s cutting edge missile interception technology has knocked down over 85% of missiles aimed at Israeli cities since 2011.

28. Israel has a theater of only blind and deaf actors, and a cafe with only blind and deaf waiters.

29. The most popular Israeli song ever is Arik Einstein’s ‫“ – ֲאנִ י וְ ַא ָּתה נְ ַׁשּנֶ ה ֶאת ָהעֹולָ ם‬you and I will change the world.”

44. On holidays, public busses display signs saying: Chag Sameach!

32. Israel became the first country in 2012 to outlaw underweight models from performing in fashion shows.

The IDF

27. Waze and Mobileye are both Israeli start-ups.

39. Water bar and refrigerator promotions advertise Shabbat settings.

Family 45. Israelis (including every subgroup) have more children than any other Western democracy.

35. Upon being sworn in, every IDF soldier receives a Tanach.

46. 62.5% of mothers with four or more children work full time.

36. Since 1953, when Israel was just five years old, the Israeli army has come to the immediate aid of over 20 countries during times of crisis and natural disaster.

47. In this baby-loving country, complete strangers will offer to hold your baby for you.

37. At age 85, the IDF’s Brigadier-General David Laskov was pronounced by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest soldier in the world.

48. Bamba (the peanut snack) is one of the most common first words for babies.

49. In 2012, Israel ranked 12th out of 59 developed countries for participation of women in the workforce.

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H O L I DAY R E A D I N G

3

Reasons to Love Israel

50. In 2017, Israel was ranked the 8th safest country for women.

Chesed 51. The ambucycle was invented by an Israeli, saving thousands of lives.

58. One of the greatest archeological finds of the century was discovered in Israel.

The scrolls of Qumeran contain the oldest copies of Tanach, and have been invaluable to scholars.

59. Israel is the home of the kibbutz. Israel’s first kibbutz, Deganya, was founded by a group of 10 settlers.

60. Admission to the world’s largest Holocaust memorial museum – Yad Vashem – is free.

After the Kotel, it is Israel’s most visited site.

61. You can hike from the northern tip to the southern tip of Israel in a month, via Israel’s National Trail.

62. Although often mistaken for a crater, Machtesh Ramon is actually the only geological structure of its kind in the world.

52. Thousands of first responders – Jews and Muslims together – volunteer to save lives 24/7.

53. On Yom HaZikaron, flower shops offer free bouquets to grieving families.

54. Israelis set a Guinness World Record by donating hair for cancer patients.

The Land 55. In Israel, you can walk in the very footsteps of Avraham Avinu.

63. The desert just north of Eilat is home to the world’s oldest known copper mines, said to be from the times of Shlomo HaMelech.

64. In Israel, you can dunk in a mikveh and pray in a synagogue from 2,000 years ago.

65. The Carmelit, Haifa’s underground railway, holds two world records: it is the world’s shortest underground, and it is the underground train with the most extreme slope.

The People

56. You can shiver on Mount Hermon and sweat in the Negev Desert on the same day.

66. Holocaust survivor Shoshana Ovitz recently celebrated her 104th birthday at the Kotel with many of her hundreds of descendants.

57. Wherever you are in Israel, you can reach a beach within two hours.

67. Golda Meir was the world’s third female prime minister.

22 |

68. When COVID-19 broke out, Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin took to Facebook to livestream an hour of reading children’s books to entertain children across the country.

69. When COVID-19 broke out, former Soviet Prisoner of Zion, Natan Sharansky, shared tips for living in isolation.

Torah 70. In Israel today, there are close to 200,000 men and women engaged in full time Torah study, arguably more than ever before in Jewish history.

71. Israel has 70+ yeshivot hesder, with 10,000 students combining Torah learning and army service.

72. Thousands of women engage in high level Torah study in hundreds of midrashot and seminaries across Israel.

And, of course...

73. No matter what happens across the globe, Israel will always be a home and a haven for every Jew.

H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Rabbanit Nechama Porat

Revealing the ‘First’ Torah TORAT ERETZ YISRAEL IN THE EYES OF RABBI NACHMAN

T

orat Eretz Yisrael is a term which indicates the difference between the Torah of Eretz Yisrael and the Torah of chutz laAretz. In our privileged reality in which Eretz Yisrael is the world’s Torah center, a significant part of the processes of returning to Eretz Yisrael and of kibbutz galuyot, the question arises: is Torat Eretz Yisrael distinct and different from Torat chutz laAretz? Is it different in content, quality and essence? I would like to touch upon this question from the perspective of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, in Likutei Moharan, 78.

Rabbi Nachman begins by presenting a question: Torah is known as “your ָ ‫ַח ֶ ּי‬ life and the length of your days” (‫יך‬ ָ‫)וְ א ֶֹר ְך יָ ֶמיך‬.1 How then is it possible for us to stop studying the Torah? After all, everyone, from the greatest talmid chacham to the simple Jew, has to stop studying to eat and drink, to work, to live.

How does Rabbi Nachman understand the words, “your life?” The simple reading of the verse refers to adherence to G-d as a value that gives life, meaning, to our existence. Surprisingly, Rabbi Nachman reads the verse as a specific reference to Torah study! It is obviously not possible to study Torah all day and all night, so why does Rabbi Nachman think the intention is to literally study Torah? We will address that shortly.

The same question regarding life outside of Torah can be asked about the generations that preceded Matan Torah. It is clear that the world before Matan Torah was not only a world where one did not study Torah from a book, but a world in which no Torah

was formulated at all, and yet the world existed.

Rabbi Nachman suggests there was a “Torah” in the world even before Matan Torah. Torah is not just the luchot.

The world was created with 10 Divine statements, and it is this “Torah” that animates and sustains the world. These 10 statements – the revelation of the Divine will in the world – were later replaced by the 10 Commandments at Sinai. Rabbi Nachman explains that the world, by its very existence, contained a Divinity which breathed life into it.

In every act, in every situation, place or time, G-d was and is present.

This explains why the generation of the flood was punished, even before there were explicit commandments. Why was Cain punished even before “thou shalt not kill”? Because there was Divinity, Torah and a high expectation of human beings to live morally and compassionately. This Torah was not formulated in clear and orderly fashion, but reality, humanity and society were created such that they could live in peace and goodness.

This is how Rabbi Nachman explains the saying “derech eretz precedes the Torah.” Derech eretz is basic human moral behavior which chronologically and ideologically preceded the Torah as we know it.

Now we can ask two more questions: what is the need for a formulated and written Torah if there are Divine truths hidden in reality itself. Why do we need Jews, Judaism, and 613 commandments? And what is the connection between the Torah given at Mount Sinai and this ancient Torah?

The first question can be answered frankly: It didn’t work. Human society didn’t learn to conduct itself with a high consciousness of morality, goodness and Divinity. Regarding the second question, Torah as we know it is a concentrated summary of the Torah hidden in reality. Like anything revealed, it is more concentrated, stronger and more visible. But in essence, the 10 Commandments embody the 10 statements in which the world was created.

Returning to Rabbi Nachman’s question, we now understand why he chose to read the verse this way. This is a reading of the Torah of galut, which sees the visible Torah as the only lifeline, instead of seeing it as expressing the hidden Torah, the Torah that sustains reality. A galut perception of the Torah is one that clings only to the scroll itself. Torat Eretz Yisrael, as it appears from the Torah in Likutei Moharan, is the understanding that the visible Torah reflects an earlier Torah. It is Torat Chaim, which is not only observance of Torah and mitzvot, but a Torah that expresses connection to G-d from within our earthly lives, even when we are not studying Torah and keeping mitzvot.

A Torah that calls us to to see how Divine life beats its way into our hearts.

1

Devarim 1:20.

Rabbanit Nechama Porat teaches Talmud to women in Israel.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Lt. Colonel (res.) Rabbi Yedidya Atlas

The Torah of the Klal TORAT ERETZ YISRAEL IN THE EYES OF RAV KOOK

T

o understand the concept of Torat Eretz Yisrael, we must first comprehend the scope of Torah in general.

Torah is all-encompassing: Am Yisrael’s way of life as a nation, and every Jew as an individual. Moreover, since Eretz Yisrael is the natural habitat – both physically and spiritually – for Jews, it is only there that the full gamut of Torah learning, and therefore Jewish life, can be achieved. Thus our Sages declared: “because Israel has been exiled from her Land, there is no bigger bitul Torah than this” (Chagiga 5b).

Yes, throughout almost two millennia, Jews in exile produced such seminal works as the Talmud Bavli, the Shulchan Aruch, and much more. But nearly all these dealt only with the Jew as an individual, not as a nation. As our Sages wrote: “From the day the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, G-d has no place in His World but the four cubits of halacha” (Berachot 8a). Limited in scope, the Torah of the Galut, Torat chutz laAretz, ignored those areas of national Jewish existence in our own Land. More than half the subjects dealt with in the shisha sidrei Mishnah, for example, are not dealt with in the Talmud Bavli. Not even one tractate deals with the mitzvot teluyot baAretz – commandments dependent on the Land of Israel. The Shulchan Aruch essentially deals in Torat haYachid – laws pertaining to the individual Jew. Only the Rambam, in Yad HaChazaka, covers the laws of both the individual and the nation. He addresses the issues of Am Yisrael as a functioning nation in its own Land, from the mitzvot dependent on Eretz

24 |

Yisrael to the laws of kings and waging war.

The term Torat Eretz Yisrael appears in Vayikra Rabbah 13:5: “‘And the gold of the Land is good,’ teaches that there is no Torah like Torat Eretz Yisrael, and there is no chochma – wisdom – like chochmat Eretz Yisrael.” And in Bava Batra 158b, Rabbi Zeira declares “the air of Eretz Yisrael makes one wise.”

On the most basic level, one can distinguish Torat chutz laAretz from Torat Eretz Yisrael: only in Eretz Yisrael can one potentially perform all of the mitzvot in the Torah. Even today, without a Beit HaMikdash, all individual mitzvot and many of the mitzvot dependent on the Land can be fully observed. Of course, there is also the well-known concept brought by the Sifrei, Rashi and Ramban on Parashat Eikev (11:18), that even the observance of individually-oriented mitzvot in chutz laAretz has less value than keeping those same mitzvot in Eretz Yisrael.

Rav Kook writes in Orot HaTorah, Chapter 13: “Torat chutz laAretz deals only in repairing the individual soul… whereas Torat Eretz Yisrael is always concerned with the klal, in favor of the national soul in its entirety.” Thus, we can understand that Am Yisrael can only live a completely fulfilled life in Eretz Yisrael.

Therefore, Torat Eretz Yisrael, despite all the current limitations of living without a Beit HaMikdash, is the Torah not only of the individual Jew but of the Jewish nation in its entirety, as we move ever closer to the ultimate Redemption.

In that context, we can understand the words of Rabbi Chiya (Yerushalmi, Berachot): “Such is the coming redemption, in the beginning, little by little…”

And as explained by the Maharal in his introduction to Or Chadash, “the redemption will not occur all at once, but in stages.”

When the State of Israel was established in 1948, Yom HaAtzmaut was celebrated by Jews across the religious and political spectrum for the miracle that it represented. Sadly, as time passes, as we come ever closer to the next stage in our national redemption, many of our fellow Jews, although still living in truly miraculous times, no longer see the reality. As Rabbi Elazar said: “even one to whom a miracle happens, fails to recognize it” (Niddah 31a).

It behooves us to strengthen our connection to Torat Eretz Yisrael, thereby intensifying our commitment to Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael, and fully live the miracle as we work together to bring the ultimate Redemption ever closer.

Lt. Colonel (res.) Rabbi Yedidya Atlas is a veteran journalist specializing in geo-political and geo-strategic affairs in the Middle East.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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r Rashi, Nidda 66b

Clear and concise introductions and a modern English translation alongside the original Hebrew text :‫ רש״י | נדה סו‬.

– ‫דמשרו מזייא‬

Because it causes the hair to harden –

r Rambam, Hilchot Mikva’ot 2:18

a

Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 199:2

h

Masechet Nidda 66a–66b

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H O L I DAY R E A D I N G

I S R A E L A S A J E W I S H S TAT E Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander

Torat Eretz Yisrael and the Vision of a Jewish State

W

e are told in the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 16:4) that ‫אין ּתוֹ ָרה ְּכתוֹ ַרת ֶא ֶרץ יִ שְׂ ָר ֵאל‬,ֵ “there is no Torah like the Torah of the Land of Israel.” In what sense is the Torah studied and taught within the confines of the Land of Israel meaningfully distinct from the Torah of other locales? Did G-d not give one single Torah to the entire Jewish people?1 With the birth of the State of Israel 73 years ago, Torat Eretz Yisrael took on a whole new meaning, or, better yet, a renewal of a meaning that had been fossilized. As Rav Soloveitchik described in remarks delivered on June 12, 1967 before the RCA, “In the last 2000 years, the Jewish people played no role in the historical arena. Now, the great miracle has happened, that our people somehow emerged from the shadows, from anonymity, and are now in the center of the universal stage.” The Jewish people finds itself today not as a small, minority community dispersed across the earth. Rather, we are now an independent, sovereign nation, bound together by a shared destiny, and a full-fledged member of the family of nations.

What does the return to sovereignty mean for Torat Hashem and for the observant Jew, as we build not just a state for Jews, but a Jewish State? Torah now has a renewed responsibility to deal with a government and an army, and the repercussions of such power.

We need to discuss how Shabbat and Chagim look in the public sphere – how we operate our hospitals, army bases, power plants and recreational spaces. We must ensure that religion is not a political tool of the few but a portal of ethical and spiritual entry

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for the many in light of our country’s religious diversity. We need to remove 2,000 years of dust from the texts that discuss the moral and religious guidelines that must inspire our national policies in areas such as the plight of asylum seekers, the needs of migrant workers, and national support for those who suffer economically. We need to courageously muster halacha and the judiciary system on both the local and international levels to end the scourge of the agunah crisis. And as citizens of a state that is both Jewish and democratic, we must explore the halachic principles that can and should guide us in fairly engaging the minority populations who live among us, particularly with those who pledge allegiance to this country and even serve in our armed forces.

The purview of Torat Eretz Yisrael is not limited to what happens within our national borders. With more nations ready to establish bilateral relations with Israel, and with governments and regimes the world over committing atrocities against their own populations and those of their foes, how will we be guided by the Torah’s eschatological vision of a lasting, harmonious world peace? Perhaps like no other time in history, we can explore the role the Jewish State should play in facilitating and advancing a more just and equitable world order. These questions and so many more are what make Torat Eretz Yisrael unique, rich and expansive. And by engaging in these issues, the Jewish people are propelled onto the world stage, with the opportunity to make a global impact.

We are taught that as Rabbi Akiva was martyred, a key moment of defeat

marking the fall of the Second Commonwealth, the letters of the Torah ascended toward heaven. With sovereignty lost, elements of the Torah itself became inapplicable, and were sent into heavenly exile to await our people’s return. Today, Torat Eretz Yisrael is the recognition that only in Medinat Yisrael does Torah have the capacity to fully engage the private, communal and global arenas of Jewish life and outlook.

Here in Israel, we have the opportunity and ability to restore the Torah to its rightful prominence.

The Torah is no longer orphaned from its engagement with the rest of the global community. Today’s Torat Eretz Yisrael has the capacity to be holistic and visionary, confidently confronting the needs of Am Yisrael in its own sovereign state. It is a calling to forsake neither our ancient traditions nor the ever-changing realities around us, but to find the interconnectivity between them. This is the Torah of Eretz Yisrael!

May we merit to study it, to teach it and to bring it to life.

1

In addition to the contemporary idea I will be suggesting, there are many other interpretations of this statement including Rav Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter of Gur (Sefat Emet, Beshalach 5656) concerning the development of Mitzvot Hatluyot BaAretz, and others who point out the differences in the paradigmatic construction of the Jerusalem Talmud vs. Babylonian Talmud.

Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander is the President & Rosh Yeshiva of the Ohr Torah Stone Network and Rabbi Emeritus of the Boca Raton Synagogue.

I S R A E L A S A J E W I S H S TAT E

H O L I DAY R E A D I N G

Rabbi Yitzchak Feldman

Halacha in the Hospital

R

eturning to the Land of Israel and establishing our own medical centers has brought with it the blessings and the challenges of balancing halacha and medicine on a national level. As Rav of the 10 Assuta medical centers in Israel and the Assuta Hospital in Ashdod, these are challenges I face daily. How do I create a religious atmosphere in a large-scale public hospital? How do I ensure both halacha and medical protocol can exist hand in hand?

The main challenge of combining these two elements is in the area of kashrut.

We need to organize kosher mehadrin meals for the patients, and therefore we have a system of mashgichim who work 24/7 in all of the kitchens overseeing kashrut, with very strict rules. Besides this, inpatients who are makpid on a higher level of kashrut, like glatt, can order a personal meal via the nurses.

Then there is the issue of keeping Shabbat. There are clear rules the staff are required to abide by, such as using “Shabbat pens” and “Shabbat keyboards” when admitting a patient to ER. Once the patient has been admitted, staff no longer need to use these devices and can break Shabbat for him or her because the rule of pikuach nefesh now applies. We’ve organized

gramma mechanisms, which allow indirect opening of electric doors, and millions of shekels have been invested in adjusting the hot water system for the public hospital in Ashdod. Every patient also has a “Shabbat lamp” fixed above his or her bed.

Another system in place ensures that kohanim can enter the hospital. Our hospital in Ashdod is all one building, such that when a patient is pronounced dead in one department, it means kohanim are not allowed to enter the entire area of the hospital. Because of this, a smart “kohen alarm” system was installed, which is operated by the paramedics who move the deceased to the morgues. Immediately upon determining the moment of death, electronic monitors with the caption “warning kohanim” are activated near the main entrances of the hospital, informing kohanim that they cannot enter the hospital until the deceased is removed. Once the deceased has been taken out of the hospital, the warning sign is replaced with “welcome.”

Shabbat meals, Seder Night, Megillah reading, and even lighting candles in a hospital require coordination and creativity. In Assuta, we set up special candle-lighting areas adjacent to the security guard’s station in order to

prevent fires, G-d forbid. In wards in which it is not possible to light candles, we do so using electric lights, relying on the psak of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt”l.

Corona has brought many challenges, among them Shabbat meals and candlelighting in Corona wards, and even Megillah reading and Simchat Torah.

Every time we brought an object into the ward (tefillin, a Sefer Torah, a Megillah), we had to leave it there, for fear of contamination. Besides there being a shul in every Assuta hospital center, during Corona the religious leaders have had to come up with alternative solutions to allow tefillot to continue.

I often feel that religious staff and hospital Rabbis are also part of the medical team, to an extent. Halachic questions occupy perhaps 20 percent of the requests I receive. We are blessed that in Israel today, halachic issues are mostly taken care of, even in public hospitals, and we have ensured a foundation that deals with almost every possible eventuality (even special doors which help avoid yichud issues). Most of the requests I receive are specifically regarding service – booking appointments, advancing appointments, coordination between doctors and patients, and medical inquiries. True, this is not the official role of the Rabbi, but as Jews who know that in every place we find ourselves, and in every position we are, it is our responsibility to help others, we try to do these tasks with dedication and integrity.

Rabbi Yitzchak Feldman is Rabbi of Assuta hospitals and medical centers.

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H O L I DAY R E A D I N G

I S R A E L A S A J E W I S H S TAT E Rabbi Yuval Cherlow

Israel and Arms Export

O

ne of Religious Zionism’s deepest messages is that when we deal with the Jewish character of the State of Israel, we do not focus solely on matters of bein adam laMakom. Of course, government laws regarding Shabbat, marriage and divorce, kashrut and conversion are staples in the character of a Jewish State.

But Torah attention must also be given to the ways in which the country itself is conducted, such as determining socio-economic policy, leading the fight against corruption, etc.

One of the ethical issues at the center of how a Jewish State should be run is the question of the arms industry. Jewish ָ ‫ – ַח ֶ ּי‬your own ethics states that ‫יך קוֹ ְד ִמים‬ life takes priority over the life of anyone else. Therefore, the basis for ethical behavior is for one to first take care of oneself. In national terms, in order to defend itself, the State of Israel must maintain a developed and advanced arms industry, until the days of Mashiach, when “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid.” In the modern world though, to sustain an arms industry demands arms export – to maintain an economic base for the industry, to examine the effectiveness of weapons, for diplomatic purposes, etc.

Does this mean that everything is allowed though? Does Halacha not

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obligate the Jewish State to limit itself in this area? Doesn’t the duty to “do what is good and right in the eyes of G-d” also apply to the export of weapons?

To begin with, Jewish law states that it is actually forbidden to sell weapons to non-Jews: “And furthermore, it is taught in a baraita: One may not sell weapons or auxiliary equipment to non-Jews, and one may not sharpen weapons for them. And one may not sell them stocks used for fastening the feet of prisoners, or iron neck chains (kolarin), or foot chains, or iron chains. This prohibition applies equally to both a non-Jew and a Samaritan” (Masechet Avodah Zarah 15b).

However, the poskim allowed the export of weapons for various reasons: 1) national pikuach nefesh 2) on condition the sale is to countries that maintain law and order, and uphold the international principles of combat morality, and other reasons. These heterim are essential and in keeping with Halacha and the foundations of Jewish law. However, there is no heter to sell weapons to countries or private entities that violate human rights, or use the weapons they buy to commit war crimes and genocide.

Moreover, the arms export environment is always accompanied by moral decay.

Because these transactions are often done “in the dark,” because tremendous amounts of money are involved,

and because dealers are usually former senior officers close to government bodies, these deals are often associated with bribery, corruption and the like.

When the State of Israel participates in this type of arms deal, it harms its Jewish character and desecrates Hashem’s Name.

Yom HaAtzmaut is a kind of Rosh Hashanah for the State of Israel. This is the right time for introspection; to rejoice in the innumerable good things this country does, but also – as on Rosh Hashanah – to repent and correct what needs to be corrected. Those who follow the path of Torah must participate in the call for the State of Israel to pursue a policy of arms exports according to Halacha, within the proper moral and ethical constraints, thereby sowing our deep faith in the vision for the End of Days, when “nation shall not take up sword against nation; they shall never know war again.”

Rabbi Yuval Cherlow is a Rosh Yeshiva and a founding member of an organization devoted to bridging the religious-secular divide in Israel.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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H O L I DAY R E A D I N G

I S R A E L A S A J E W I S H S TAT E Rabbi Rami Brachyahu

Applying Halacha in Israel’s Police Force

T

he Police is the most important security organization in Israel, even more than the IDF. If the entire police force took a week’s vacation, the country would collapse, even without an external enemy.

In the Torah, there is no commandment to establish an army. The mitzvah is to appoint ‫ ׁשֹ ְפ ִטים וְ ׁשֹ ְט ִרים‬, judges and policemen. Not soldiers,or firefighters or even doctors. Why is this? Not only because internal security is a prerequisite for a normal society, but also because of the tendency to underestimate it. Without people responsible for public order, bribery, corruption and violence will simply erode the foundations of society.

I am often asked: can an observant Jew serve in the Police?

Imagine a religious patrol officer receiving a call on Friday night from someone complaining that a neighbor is playing his music too loudly. How does this relate to pikuach nefesh, the only reason one can break Shabbat?

The officer might talk to his commanders and ask them to exempt him from shifts on Shabbat, or to transfer him to assignments touching upon pikuach nefesh – but this is not a systemic solution.

It is important to realize that the Police bear broad responsibility for the wellbeing of the country’s citizens. Much of its mission is to establish law and order, a new category hardly discussed in halachic discourse.

Suppose one receives a call on Shabbat from someone who needs to drive his

30 |

wife to hospital and reports a vehicle blocking their exit from the parking lot. As a local Rabbi, if such a question came to me, I would give him my vehicle. But it is impossible to run a country like that. Halacha cannot afford not to answer such a problem.

On one hand, it is clear the police must work on Shabbat, but on the other, we cannot issue a comprehensive heter (permit) for all police work on Shabbat, irrespective of what that work is.

For example, is it a clear operational need for an investigative team following members of a criminal organization, gathering evidence to convict them, to continue to do so on Shabbat? Yes, because daily surveillance is key here, and the aim is to curtail crime as soon as possible.

type of camera allowed on Shabbat?

The Head of the Camera Department explained to me that the filming itself (or the fact that people know about it) often prevents violence – both by civilians and by police –- and they also make a crucial contribution to gather evidence of disorder and the like.

In general, whenever we can lower the severity of a ban from deOrayta to deRabbanan, we try to do so. We want to make a police career attractive to observant Jews too and for religious people to feel comfortable going to police stations to submit complaints or calls for help on Shabbat. I am pleased to say the Police are developing halachically-based tools to accommodate the religious population.

In my position as Rabbi of the Israeli Police, I have to be deeply familiar with the myriad departments and assignments in order to give a halachic answer.

I must understand what is clearly and urgently operational and what is not; what is societal pikuach nefesh and what is not. Halachic sensitivity (in the Police as much as anywhere else too) is needed to understand different roles, different situations and different people.

Sabbath observance is of course not the only issue that raises halachic questions in the Police. For example, undercover operatives sometimes have to sit in Arab restaurants, where they serve non-kosher food. One of them came to me, expressing his dilemma in such a situation. I asked him if he could say he was a vegetarian, but he told me that declaring yourself a vegetarian in an Arab restaurant is something that can arouse suspicion. So I told him: “Your safety is the highest priority here. If there is the slightest doubt, there is no doubt, and your eating there is part of the mitzvah you are involved in in protecting the country and its citizens.”

Ever-evolving technology also sparks a slew of new halachic questions. The classic example is body cameras. Policemen and women sometimes have a camera attached to their shirts. Is this

Rabbi Rami Brachyahu is the Chief Rabbi of the Israel Police.

What about public corruption cases?

They often take months, if not years.

In such cases there is no great urgency that demands work on Shabbat. You can stop on Friday and continue on Sunday.

H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Rabbi Dov Lipman

Bubby Knew

I

dreaded having to make the phone call. It was February 2004 and we had just decided to make aliyah. We lived in Maryland and my grandmother lived in New York, and we made the effort for her to see our children quite regularly.

A survivor of Auschwitz, she was in the golden years of her life enjoying her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Now I was about to tell her that we were moving her great-grandchildren thousands of miles away.

I picked up the phone and put it down a few times before I finally dialed. After some small talk I said, “Bubby, I have some news for you. With G-d’s help we are making aliyah this summer. We are moving to Israel.”

There was a pause on the other side of the line and I braced myself for my grandmother to be very legitimately upset. But she broke the silence with these words: ‫־ֹלקינ ּו ֶמלֶ ְך ָהעוֹ לָ ם‬ ֵ ‫ָ ּברו ְּך ַא ָּתה ה' ֱא‬ ּ ּ ‫ש ֶה ֱחיָ נ ּו וְ ִק ְי ָמנ ּו וְ ִה ִג ָיענ ּו לַ ְּז ָמן ַה ֶּזה‬. ֶׁ

After a moment of speechlessness, I asked, “Bubby, where did that come from?”

She explained: “It is going to be very painful to have you so far away and not to see your children growing up. But when we were on the boat coming to America from DP camp in Germany after the War, I asked myself the entire way, ‘Why are we going in this direction to another foreign country to the Jewish people, when we could be going in the other direction, where a new Jewish State is being established in our Biblical and ancestral homeland?’”

She continued that she appreciates how America welcomed the Jewish people, but concluded, “to see my grandchildren and great-children settling in Israel, I have nothing but thanks to G-d.”

Ten years later, my Bubby came to Israel and visited me in my Knesset office, close to 70 years after her liberation from Auschwitz.

She sat down, looked around and said, “This doesn’t make any sense.

A Jewish State?

Israel? The Jewish capital? Yerushalayim? A Jewish parliament? The Knesset? My grandson as a member of the Knesset? This just doesn’t make any sense.”

70 years earlier, she had arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau in a cattle car along with her parents, some of her siblings, and many nieces and nephews. That night, Shavuot 1944, all but she and one of her sisters were exterminated in the gas chambers. And here she was in my Knesset office, 70 years later. My Bubby was right. It doesn’t make any sense.

And yet here we are – with Yerushalayim and all of Israel available for all Jews – to visit or to move to whenever they choose to do so. G-d is “hard at work” making the impossible come true in the Holy Land.

There is no reason for any controversy about the magnitude of what happened on Yom HaAtzmaut. Rav Ovadia Yosef records (Yabia Omer, Orach Chayim 6:41) that three great Charedi rabbis – Rabbi Chatzkel Sarna, Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin, and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman

Auerbach – all signed a letter in 1949 which said: “the first buds of the beginning of the redemption through the establishment of the State of Israel.”

They understood the magnitude of what was happening. My grandmother, and all Holocaust survivors understood the magnitude of what happened on the 5th of Iyar 5708. Everyone who lived during the era of the Holocaust and the ensuing years recognized the miraculous significance of what it means to have a State of Israel. This adds deeper meaning to the transition from Yom HaShoah to Yom HaZikaron to Yom HaAtzmaut.

My Bubby, Ethel Kleinman, passed away last year at the age of 95. She lived to see great-great-grandchildren and radiated with joy when she saw her great-grandson, my son, in uniform as a commander in an IDF combat unit.

In my grandmother’s memory, please take a step back to truly internalize and rejoice over the remarkable times in which we live with the establishment of the State of Israel and follow my Bubby’s example to channel that happiness into heartfelt thanks to G-d.

Rabbi Dov Lipman is a former MK and the author of seven books about Judaism and Israel.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Rabbi Yosef Blau

Celebrating Yom HaAtzmaut in America of the 1950s

I

n contrast to some segments of both Reform and Charedi Jewry in America, the Modern Orthodox community welcomed the establishment of the State of Israel. But this positive attitude did not extend to any significant contemplation of aliyah. Israel was the haven for the refugees who survived the Holocaust, and later for the Jews forced out of Arabic countries. America, the leading world power and winner of the Second World War, was a land of opportunity for Jews. By European standards, antisemitism was minimal and a generation born in America dreamed of material and professional success.

With this background, I share my recollections of Yom HaAtzmaut during the 1950s. I attended a day school in which Jewish studies were taught in Hebrew (Ashkenazic pronunciation), then yeshiva for high school and college. I have no memory of any significant celebration in school. The Young Israel synagogue where we prayed was no different. Only because I went to Camp Moshava after ninth grade and joined Bnei Akiva did I experience Yom HaAtzmaut celebrations.

Before jet planes, there were no direct flights between America and Israel.

Only a select few American students studied in Israel during that era. Students didn’t receive college or semicha credit for learning in Israel. Going to Israel for a summer was unusual. Bnei Akiva was again the exception; going to Israel for a year of hachshara after graduating high school was normative.

Kol Dodi Dofek, a talk by Rabbi Soloveitchik at YU’s Lamport Auditorium

32 |

that ideologically defined American Religious Zionism, was given on Yom HaAtzmaut in 1956. But it was delivered in Yiddish and not published at the time. Its initial influence was limited to those who heard it. Not many young people knew Yiddish. Those of us attending the Yeshiva Program at YU had to know some Yiddish since all the Talmud classes were conducted in Yiddish, but it was easier to follow a shiur based on a text written in a mix of Hebrew and Aramaic than to understand a talk fully in Yiddish.

The Hebrew translation first appeared in a volume entitled Torah UMelucha in 1961 and it later became recognized as a classic work in Israel and America.

An English translation first appeared four decades later. Examining issues of the “Commentator,” the Yeshiva College student newspaper of the time, I didn’t find any mention of the talk. There was an editorial questioning the lack of any official program on Yom HaAtzmaut.

Bnei Akiva had a festive prayer service and a chagiga. At one, I was asked why I hadn’t shaved, since I should treat it as a holiday. Uncomfortable with deciding on my own, I called Rav Moshe Feinstein, the leading halachic authority, from the event. I didn’t ask Rav Soloveitchik because he permitted shaving during Sefirah. Rabbi Feinstein answered the phone himself (I was not even one of his students). He asked me if I considered it a holiday. When I replied yes, he said I could shave. I am not aware of any written version of this response.

The sixties was the beginning of a change which intensified after the SixDay War. In retrospect, the major rabbinic figures understood the historic implications of the re-establishment of a Jewish State in Israel after almost 2,000 years, but this did not filter down to the broader Orthodox community.

Except for a small minority, American Modern Orthodox Jews were so excited about the opportunities that America seemed to offer that even though they knew the establishment of the State of Israel was historically significant, they didn’t consider it relevant to their lives.

With the passage of years and events, all this has changed. The Six-Day War led to a radical change. Graduates of America’s yeshiva high schools started to spend a year of study in Israel; this trend expanded until it has become normative in recent years. This increased exposure to Israel is the source of greater identification and aliyah. May that trend continue to grow.

Rabbi Yosef Blau, a past president of RZA–Mizrachi, is the Senior Mashgiach Ruchani (spiritual advisor) at Yeshiva University.

H O L I DAY R E A D I N G

Ari Silbermann

Eretz Yisrael as the Heart of the Jewish Spirit A T R I B U T E TO R A B B I Y I S R A E L YO F F E Y

T

he success of Zionism was dependent on an enormous effort by individuals over decades, and Rabbi Yisrael Yoffey is a shining example of a talmid chacham and Zionist activist who has immeasurably impacted the Zionist Movement.

Rav Yoffey was an important Manchester Dayan around the turn of the century and served as Rabbi of Central Synagogue, which later merged into today’s Stenecourt Shul. He was a close confidante of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook and a representative of Anglo Jewry at four Zionist congresses.

Rabbi Yoffey was instrumental in establishing Mizrachi UK in Manchester in December 1918 and served as its first president. An ardent speaker for the Zionist cause, Rabbi Yoffey also worked tirelessly to create Jewish schools and strengthen kashrut, was one of the founders of the Manchester Yeshiva and also president of Agudat Yisrael.

Through his writings, one can see he took on the challenges of assimilation head-on.

He passed away in 1934, en route to assume the mantle of the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv.

In his work Knesset Yisrael,1 in his third drasha, Rabbi Yoffey notes with pain G-d’s words to the prophet Yechezkel (21:11-12): Every heart shall sink and all hands hang nerveless; every spirit shall grow faint and all knees turn to water because of the tidings that have come...

This section of Yechezkel is part of a symbolic prophecy of the pending destruction of Yerushalayim.

Homiletically, Rabbi Yoffey explains that ‫( ונמס כל לב‬every heart shall sink),

refers to the loss of Eretz Yisrael, which served as the spiritual heart of our people, concentrating and unifying unique and diverse spiritual forces.

Without it, our spiritual life and experience sinks. ‫( ורפו כל ידים‬all hands hang nerveless), relates to the lost ability to appreciate labour and its fruits, which were intrinsic to our life in Eretz Yisrael.

All of which leads to ‫( וכהתה כל רוח‬every spirit shall grow faint), read here as the spiritual vitality of the nation as a whole, which will be weakened. Finally, the words ‫( וכל ברכים תלכנה מים‬all knees turn to water) reflect the inherent instability of life in exile, with constant persecutions and the inability to set down roots.

While Rabbi Yoffey is bemoaning the weakened spiritual state of Jews in his day, through his words we can appreciate the importance of Eretz Yisrael. It is the natural place for us to concentrate and bring together diverse spiritual voices, a place to work the Land and see the products of our labour, leading to stability and a spiritual revival. In a similar way to Rav Kook, Rabbi Yoffey argues not only for Eretz Yisrael as a place which may solve the technical

problems of Am Yisrael – which could be solved in another place where Jews could gather to live – but argues for the centrality of Eretz Yisrael in its own right. Only in Eretz Yisrael, with its unique connection to our people and with its inherent holiness, can our spiritual life return to full force.

Rabbi Yoffey did not merit to live in Eretz Yisrael as he had dreamed, and he did not merit to see the establishment of the State. He spoke and wrote of Eretz Yisrael in theory, but we have merited to witness it in practice. Today the State of Israel is a spiritual center for World Jewry and a place where hard work and labour have brought us a country far outstripping many others.

Most importantly, we can see that our return to Eretz Yisrael and sovereignty has managed to unleash our spiritual possibilities and will, with time, help shine the light of Torah throughout the world.

Zionism – the idea of a return to Eretz Yisrael – indeed stirs and surfaces our spiritual potential and creates an abundance of reward for our national project.

If we listen to Rabbi Yoffey’s message, we know that behind the seemingly mundane existence in Eretz Yisrael, the day-to-day workings of a sovereign country and chance meetings in a rebuilt Yerushalayim, lies a deeper spiritual message. We have returned to our natural place; the only place we can truly flourish as a people and bring our unique message to the world.

Rav Ari Silbermann is the Mizrachi UK Rav-Shaliach in Manchester and the north.

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H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Rabbi Shimshon HaKohen Nadel

Halachic Holidays?

F

ollowing the miraculous birth of the State of Israel in 1948 and the dramatic unification of Yerushalayim in 1967, the Chief Rabbinate, together with leading authorities, established Yom HaAtzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim as full-fledged festivals, with the recitation of special tefillot, including Hallel.

cites a passage in the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 18b), which relates that following the destruction of the Temple, Megillat Ta’anit, together with all of the holidays it describes, became null and void. Accordingly, he rules that neither a community nor an individual has the authority to declare new holidays today (Pri Chadash, OC 496:14).

The question, debated by many, was: is it permissible to add new holidays to the Jewish calendar? According to the Ramban, creating a new Jewish holiday violates the prohibition of bal tosif, “adding” to the mitzvot of the Torah (See Ramban to Devarim 4:2).

But throughout Jewish history, both communities and individuals who experienced a miraculous salvation established ‘Purims,’ festivals to be celebrated like Purim, in commemoration of the miracle.

The Chatam Sofer defended the practice of instituting new holidays, arguing that even according to the opinion that Megillat Ta’anit is null and void, the holidays of Chanukah and Purim were never nullified. Accordingly, holidays created to commemorate a miraculous salvation, patterned after Chanukah and Purim, are indeed permissible.

He concludes by noting how he and his teacher, Rabbi Natan Adler, were careful to observe ‘Purim Frankfurt,’ even when no longer living in Frankfurt (Teshuvot Chatam Sofer, OC 191).

‘Purim Frankfurt,’ also known as ‘Purim Vinz,’ celebrates the downfall of the wicked Vincenz Fettmilch who led a populist uprising and a pogrom against the Jews of Frankfurt am Main in 1614, forcing them to flee the city until the emperor personally intervened. Even today, the Jewish community of Frankfurt celebrates the 20th of Adar, the day when Fettmilch and his followers were hanged and the Jews returned to their homes. Elsewhere, the Chatam Sofer writes that establishing a holiday to mark a miraculous event is a Biblical requirement, and one who does not do so is in violation of not performing a positive commandment (Teshuvot Chatam Sofer, YD 233).

In the 16th century, the Jewish community of Lepanto (today Nafpaktos, Greece), established a holiday to give thanks to G-d for sparing them from imminent destruction and to publicize the miracle. Members of the community asked Rabbi Moshe Alashkar if they were justified in creating such a holiday, like Purim, to celebrate this miraculous salvation. The Maharam Alashkar ruled that indeed community leaders have the authority to establish such a day, and it is binding upon members of the community – present and future – no matter where they reside (Teshuvot Maharam Alashkar, 49).

The Pri Chadash, Rabbi Chizkiyah da Silva, was upset with this practice, and based his objection on Megillat Ta’anit, a list of 35 holidays observed during the Second Temple Period. He

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The Magen Avraham (OC 686:5) and Mishnah Berurah (OC 686:8) both record that a community can create a

‘Purim,’ for themselves and for future generations, on a day in which they experienced a miracle. Rabbi Avraham Danziger himself celebrated the day and his family were spared after a powder keg explosion destroyed a number of homes including his own, claiming the lives of 31 people (Chayei Adam 155:41).

Over the centuries, tens of communities and families have established ‘Purims,’ sometimes with the recitation of special prayers, meals, and sometimes even reading from a special Megillah, written to commemorate the event. (For an exhaustive list, see Yom Tov Levinski, “Purim Sheni,” published in his Sefer HaMoadim, vol. 6, pp. 297-321).

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 94a) relates that King Chizkiyahu could have been made the Messiah but for the fact that he failed to give praise upon the downfall of the wicked Sancherev, King of Assyria. Chizkiyahu failed to give this profound experience religious expression. We dare not make the same mistake.

Yom HaAtzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim possess profound religious significance and meaning. These are days of great Divine Providence – miracles and wonders – and deserve religious expression. By celebrating Yom HaAtzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim as holidays, we express our thanks for the tremendous gifts of the State of Israel and Yerushalayim.

Rabbi Shimshon HaKohen Nadel lives and teaches in Jerusalem, where he serves as Rosh Kollel of the Sinai Kollel and Mara D’Atra of Har Nof’s Kehilat Zichron Yosef.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Rabbi David Katz

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

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oincidence? I think not! The Haftarah chosen by the Rabbanut HaRashit for Yom HaAtzmaut is the same as the Haftarah for the last day of Pesach (Yom Tov Sheni shel Galuyot).

It is from Yeshayahu (10:32–12:6) and speaks of the salvation that will come to the remnant of Israel that survive the destruction at the hands of Ashur/ Sancheirev and how they will return to Eretz Yisrael. The prophecy contains the imagery of the lamb and the wolf being able to live with each other; how apropos for Yom HaAtzmaut following the commemorations of Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron.

But we know there is no such thing as coincidence. So perhaps, if we can understand the connection of this Haftarah to the last day of Pesach we can uncover a deeper significance to its relevance to Yom HaAtzmaut. Finding the connection to Pesach is a bit more challenging.

Rashi (Megillah 31a) suggests that the fall of Sancheirev takes place on Pesach, and thus the connection. This is more familiar to us from the Pesach Haggadah, when we mention in a piyut that ‫עוֹ ד ַה ּיוֹ ם ְ ּבנֹב לַ ֲעמֹד… ְ ּב ֶפ ַסח‬. The difficulty with Rashi’s explanation is that this takes place on the first day of Pesach and not the last! Others suggest that the connection comes at the end of the Haftarah, where the pesukim seem very similar to those we find in Az Yashir, which is the Torah reading on the seventh day of Pesach.1 In fact, the comparison of Bnei Yisrael’s return to Yetziat Mitzrayim is explicit a few pesukim earlier (11:15-16), where the Navi speaks of G-d drying up the river just like He

did at the Yam Suf. Rashi and the Radak explain the word ‫ ְמ ִס ָ ּלה‬used in this context to mean the dry riverbed and thus the clear path to return.

The term ‫ ְמ ִס ָ ּלה‬is used several other times, in one form or another, in Sefer Yeshayahu. For example, we see it used in the prophecy of Nachamu (Yeshayahu 40:3), where we are told to clear a path for G-d to return to us and begin the healing process after the churban.

We also find it in the Haftarah for Yom Kippur (ibid. 57:14), where the Navi tells us ‫ס ֹּל ּו ס ֹּל ּו ּ ַפ ּנ ּו ָד ֶר ְך‬. In that context, ‫ ס ֹּל ּו‬means to clear a path for us to be able to easily return to G-d.

Given that ‫ ְמ ִס ָ ּלה‬appears in several places in the context of our return to G-d and His return to us, I would like to connect Yom HaAtzmaut, and thus the choice of this particular Haftarah, to the Haftarah choice for Yom Kippur. In theory, the Yom Kippur Haftarah could have remained the same as the Haftarah of a regular fast day, which also comes from Yeshayahu and also speaks of our return to G-d (ibid. 55:6–7).

wasn’t that we deserved it; the opposite!

We celebrate our miraculous salvation, despite not being worthy. As mentioned above, Yom Kippur and its ‫ ְמ ִס ָ ּלה‬represent the same concept. So too, perhaps, Yom HaAtzmaut. We were given the miraculous present of a Jewish State, not because we were any more deserving than earlier, more pious generations. We were given this gift because, certainly in the generation post Auschwitz and Treblinka, ‫מ ִס ָ ּלה‬. ְ Desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Behold the G-d who gives me triumph!

I am confident, unafraid; For Hashem the L-rd is my strength and might, And He has been my deliverance” (Yeshayahu 12:2). !‫מוֹ ֲע ִדים לְ שִׂ ְמ ָחה לִ גְ ֻא ָ ּלה ׁ ְשלֵ ָמה‬ 1

The eighth day is the Yom Tov Sheni of the seventh day and it is from there that it draws its significance.

2

Yemei Zikaron p. 243.

Rav Soloveitchik points out that what is unique about Yom Kippur is that unlike a regular fast day, when it is up to us to do all/most of the work, on Yom Kippur all we have to do is clear a simple path, ‫ס ֹּל ּו‬, and G-d does the rest.2 We are downtrodden and weary and otherwise hopeless, and we turn to G-d not with that we deserve His benevolence, but simply because we are not worthy, and only have Him to rely on. ‫מ ִס ָ ּלה‬. ְ Perhaps that is the message of Yom HaAtzmaut. On Pesach, we were on the 49th rung of tumah and needed an emergency miracle to take us out of Egypt before it was too late. ‫מ ִס ָ ּלה‬.ְ It

Rabbi David Katz is the Director of Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalayim (MMY).

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Rabbi Alex Israel

Body and Spirit

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heodore Herzl was the man who transformed centuries of Zionist yearning into a practical plan. In creating the Zionist Congress, he put a Jewish dream into action, activating a series of events which turned vision into reality. It was the Dreyfus Affair that triggered Herzl’s Zionism. If Jews could not be accepted by other nations without hatred and demonization, they would have to establish their own nation state.

For others, the catalyst was not antisemitism at all. It was a sense that Judaism in the Diaspora was somehow a pale representation of a greater Jewish vision. As Achad Ha’am wrote in 1897: “The Western Jew, having left the ghetto and having sought acceptance by the gentile majority, is unhappy because his hope of an open-armed welcome has been disappointed. …The heart of the Eastern Jews was sensitive to another tragedy as well – a spiritual one.

In the West it is the problem of the Jews; in the East, the problem of Judaism. The first weighs on the individual; the second, on the nation. The one is felt by Jews who have had a European education; the other, by Jews whose education has been Jewish… It is not only the Jews who have come out of the ghetto; Judaism has come out too. …

The spirit of our people desires further development.”

The “Eastern Jews” to which Achad Ha’am referred saw their shtetl, their halachic Judaism, as limited to a private or communal existence, preoccupied with minutiae – whether one put on one’s right shoe or left, the kashrut of a drop of milk which falls into meat. They

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yearned for the breadth of the Judaism they read about in Tanach: sovereignty and government, a Land, a national culture, an army. Reflecting this, as Ivrit developed as a modern language, Biblical Hebrew was preferred to Mishnaic Hebrew.1 Our Zionist dreamers and pioneers adopted the imagery of the Tanach. Achad Ha’am was saying that Judaism was in crisis.

This would seem like a secular repudiation of millenia of halachic life in the Diaspora. But Rav Kook agreed. In Galut, the nation was sick; Judaism had become distorted. Nationalism, though many of the original pioneers rejected traditional Torah uMitzvot, was an outgrowth of holy yearnings. A return to nationhood was a return to health: “We dealt much in soulfulness; we forgot the holiness of the body. We neglected physical health and strength; we forgot we have holy flesh, no less than holy spirit” (Orot HaTechiya #33).

“Sanctity in nature is the sanctity of Eretz Yisrael. The Shechina that descended to Galut embodied the power of sanctity in opposition to nature. But holiness which fights the natural is not a holistic sanctity” (ibid #28).

Thus Rav Kook embraced the building of the Land – from agriculture to the arts, from politics to academics – as a sense of Judaism returning to its true full-bodied expression, the nation revived. For Rav Kook, the physical was not merely secular. Material and spiritual were inseparable, intertwined: “The Land of Israel has an intrinsic meaning. It is connected to the Jewish people with the knot of life… The Land

of G-d prepares the nation who lives there as an eternal inheritance that comes from a covenant, oath and trust.”

On Yom HaAtzmaut we celebrate the survival of Medinat Yisrael; the miracle of the wars of 1948, ’67 and ’73; the miracle of the ingathering of the Exiles; the miracle of Israel thriving economically and culturally. This, says Rav Kook, is a spiritual process. But there is more to do. We need to address the second challenge, the spiritual. How can the spirit of G-d and the values of Judaism become more pronounced in the public sphere? Our prophets dreamed of a country that would champion a sense of G-dliness which would manifest itself in justice and compassion. We have yet to realize Rav Kook’s fusion, to articulate an agenda of a Judaism that can be fully lived in a modern state, a Judaism that will appeal to the entire gamut of the Jewish people.

When we say Hallel on Yom HaAtzmaut, we will say ‫ הודו לה’ כי טוב‬for the survival and physical flourishing of our beautiful country, and we will pray: ‫אנא ה’ הושיעה‬ ‫ אנא ה’ הצליחה נא‬,‫ נא‬as we commit ourselves to building a just and holy society which will embrace all Israel.

1

For example: Tanach – ‫ ;עץ‬Mishnah – ‫אילן‬.

Tanach – ‫ ירח‬,‫ ;שמש‬Mishna – ‫ לבנה‬,‫חמה‬.

Rabbi Alex Israel is an author, Tanach teacher and international lecturer.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Rabbi Azarya Berzon

Eretz Yisrael and the Desire to be Close

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The secret lies in the emotion known as ‫( ֵח ׁ ֶשק‬passion or desire). By our very nature, we desire that which is difficult to attain. The higher the mountain, the more we strive to climb to its summit.

When the object of one’s desire plays ‘hard to get,’ one’s desire intensifies.

Hence the obstacles placed before us are meant to increase our longing.

So in light of these Divinely-directed obstacles, how do we strengthen our will to achieve our goal of moving closer to G-d?

Bnei Yisrael entered the Land through ֹ‫יְ ִריחו‬. The name comes from the root ‫יח‬ ַ ‫( ֵר‬smell or fragrance). This alludes to the fragrant scent of the trees that grew there (See Rashi, Yechezkel 27:17). In Shir HaShirim (1:3), Shlomo HaMelech makes a big deal about the sense of smell. The enjoyment of a fragrant aroma belongs to the soul of man (Berachot 43b). Eretz Yisrael is called Eretz HaMoriya (mor meaning myrrh) due to the aroma of the ketoret (Rashi, Bereishit 22:2).

What does fragrance signify, and how is it intrinsically connected to the Land of Israel?

Photo: Sharon Gabay

-d desires that human beings seek a close relationship with Him. Paradoxically though, it seems to be so difficult to draw near to G-d. We take a step toward Him, and He seems to distance Himself from us. In the Divine plan, humans must encounter many barriers that make it difficult for them to approach G-d. How are we to understand the wisdom that underlies this dialectical relationship?

Like the sense of smell which entices us from afar, a Divine spark beckons us from a distance and inspires us to come closer to Him. This Heavenly glimmer arouses us and intensifies our ‫ח ׁ ֶשק‬.ֵ As a result, we are empowered to overcome the obstacles that separate us from G-d.

This ‫יח‬ ַ ‫ ֵר‬of a celestial ‘twinkle’ is distinctive to the atmosphere of the Land of Israel and stimulates our will to reach God. (See Likutei Halachot, Birkat HaRayach). Man’s desire for G-d is a direct result of G-d’s desire for the Land: “You desire, G-d, Your Land” (Tehillim 85:2).

It was the meraglim who denied the power of this will and craving for G-d, claiming the obstacles were insurmountable. Only Yehoshua and Calev appreciated the power of the Land to induce ‫ ָרצוֹ ן‬and ‫ ֵח ׁ ֶשק‬when they declared: “We shall surely ascend and conquer

the Land, for we can surely subdue it!”

(Bamidbar 13:30, and Rashi).

The will, the push, the drive, and the longing to cling to G-d and fulfill his Will – overcoming all barriers – are intensified by the atmosphere of the only Land saturated with the Will of G-d.

May we dedicate ourselves to appreciate the exquisite fragrance of the Land and be inspired by G-d’s call to overcome all obstacles and come close to Him!

Rabbi Azarya Berzon has over 4,800 shiurim online and has served as a Scholar-in-Residence in many communities worldwide.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Rabbanit Sally Mayer

Reaching Seventy and Beyond

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e are approaching two amazing moments in modern Jewish History – celebrating Israel’s 73rd birthday on Yom Ha’atzmaut, and 54 years to the reunification of Jerusalem on Yom Yerushalayim.

What does it mean to us that Israel is now over 70 years old? That number has great significance in Tanach and our tradition – 70 members of Yaakov’s family descended to Egypt; there were 70 elders appointed to help Moshe lead the Jewish people in the desert; according to our tradition, there are 70 nations and 70 languages, 70 “faces” or ways to interpret the Torah, and 70 years of exile after the destruction of the first Temple. I’d like to use three of these directions as prisms through which to discuss life in Israel at this stage.

The 70 elders and 70 faces of Torah signify the incredible Torah learning opportunities that we have in Israel.

Rav Ovadia Yosef zt”l in a responsum (Yabia Omer, OH 6:41) describes with wonder the explosion of Torah learning that has occurred in the modern state of Israel.

I’d like to add the incredible expansion of women’s Torah learning as well, which I am blessed to see every day in the Midreshet Lindenbaum beit midrash. The more men and women study Torah, the more committed they are to living Torah, and to serving as leaders of the Jewish people, enriching our families, our communities and our nation.

The 70 members of Yaakov’s family represent the sense of connection we feel to our fellow Jews – the sense that we are a family. On a mundane level, when

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I’ve had flat tires on the road over the years, in Israel multiple random strangers stop and insist on helping to change the tire.

More profoundly, the IDF brings together Jews from every background, to serve together to protect our homeland. And when a lone soldier is being buried in a small funeral on Mount Herzl, hundreds who never knew him come to pay their respects, comforting his family by showing that we are really all one family.

Finally, 70 has significance on the national level – those 70 years of exile in Babylonia that ended with the invitation to come home and to build the second Temple. Galut is the absence of a home and the absence of Jewish pride, as Yechezkel says in Chapter 36: We became a chilul Hashem, as people referred to us as “G-d’s nation that was exiled.”

Galut can also be forgetting that we are waiting to go home in the first place! In tefillat Musaf on chagim, we say that because of our sins we have been exiled, and then we add, “And we have become far from our Land.” Isn’t that redundant?

Perhaps this second phrase is referring to an emotional distance – not only are we not there, but we don’t even feel like we’re away from home. As we say in our tefillot, the modern State of Israel is ‫יחת ְ ּג ֻא ָ ּל ֵתנ ּו‬ ַ ‫אשית ְצ ִמ‬ ִ ׁ ‫ – ֵר‬the beginning of the sprouting of our redemption. We are seeing prophecies fulfilled before our eyes – elderly men and women with their canes, sitting along the streets of Yerushalayim, children laughing and playing – these images are straight from the prophet Zechariah Chapter 8 and were once unthinkable, especially just

80 years ago when the elderly and the children were sent to cruel deaths.

Now, those children put on uniforms and protect their elders and their people. Our children’s hearts pulse with hope and a desire to serve and contribute. Living for the other. As one nation in the Land.

Israel is 73. The 70 faces of Torah are being revealed and cherished by those learning in Israel. Those 70 children of Yaakov who went down to Egypt have become a family-nation who sticks together and takes care of each other.

And after the 70 years of the Babylonian exile, which stretched into two thousand for us in the Roman exile, we are back in Israel, back to a united Yerushalayim, where those laughing children grow up to be brave soldiers and volunteers who build our country and nation and take it forward.

May G-d bless and protect the State of Israel, and may the coming years bring peace, health and prosperity to all its inhabitants.

Rabbanit Sally Mayer serves as Rosh Midrasha at Ohr Torah Stone’s Midreshet Lindenbaum.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Rabbi Sam Thurgood

Dawning of Redemption or Second Golden Calf?

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he establishment of the modern State of Israel is one of the most controversial topics in the religious Jewish world today. Whilst some see it as a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy and a great step towards redemption, others see it as the greatest obstacle we have to redemption! As always, there is a third opinion somewhere in between.

What makes this argument more difficult to understand is not simply the extremity of the different views, but that they are all expressed by believing Jews, who pledge their primary allegiance to G-d and Torah. How are we to understand such extreme differences?

I would like to briefly explain four perspectives on this important question from four great Torah scholars, by way of metaphors.

1. Messianic Religious Zionism – Building the Temple: Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook When the Beit HaMikdash was being built, the Jewish people had a dilemma.

This was to be the most sacred place in the world, the Holy of Holies, into which no unsanctified foot could tread. How was such a holy place to be built with unsanctified materials? The answer, our Sages tell us, was to build the Temple with unconsecrated materials, and to designate them as holy only afterward.

The first part of the building was secular, and only then was it invested with holiness. So too, our State is built as a secular state first, but as time goes by it too will be vested with greater and greater holiness. Even those who do not identify as religious are subconsciously responding to the call of the national Jewish soul to return to our Land and

rebuild our nation in preparation for this holy revelation, and thus are themselves connected to holiness.

2. Religious Anti-Zionism – The Golden Calf: Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum The sin of the Jewish people in the desert was that they were unwilling to wait for Moshe. Instead of trusting in G-d and expressing sufficient patience, they chose a new solution to their problem. So too, after 1,800 years of patiently waiting in exile for G-d’s redemption, the non-believing elements amongst us abandoned the trust of waiting for G-d, and decided to do it themselves, to pursue a political, rather than religious, solution. This is a grievous rebellion against G-d, and just as with the Golden Calf, we must choose to stand against it and take no part of it.

3. Pragmatic Anti-Zionism – Ya’akov with Shimon and Levi: Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin Ya’akov Avinu was opposed to the plan proposed by his sons Shimon and Levi to go to war against the city of Shechem in retribution for their crime against their sister Dina. Nonetheless, once they went ahead, Rashi tells us that Ya’akov himself girded weapons of war and stood at their defence, since blood is thicker than water, and loyalty to our fellow Jews overrides ideological considerations. So too, even though political Zionism was not a positive phenomenon and we would prefer that a secular state would not have been built, once it is an established fact, with millions of Jews living there, we must devote ourselves to supporting and helping.

4. Pragmatic Religious Zionism – Eyes Open: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik We are obliged not to shut our eyes to the miracles G-d has performed for us in Israel, nor to dream of a future that we do not see in evidence, but to take an open and honest look at all that has happened and is happening. There are incredible things that have been accomplished in the State of Israel, amazing achievements both religious and secular, and we should thank G-d for every one of those. At the same time, there are great disappointments, and we must be honest about them too. There is a great deal more good than bad, but we must approach these days for what they are, not for what we fear, or wish, them to be.

We live in confusing times – and the question of how to view these times and what to learn from them is one of the most important questions for a Jew today. I find the approaches of Rav Soloveitchik and Rav Kook most compelling – to see the miracles that we are witness to in our own times, and see within them a sign of even greater miracles to come. May G-d grant us a full redemption in these days in which we are sensitive to the need for redemption so keenly.

Rabbi Sam Thurgood is the Rabbi of Beit Midrash Morasha in Cape Town.

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H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Rabbi Dr. Benji Levy

The Independence of Interdependence

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om HaAtzmaut is unparalleled in the annals of history, constituting a remarkable demonstration of the eternal uniqueness of the Jewish nation and our centrality within world history. The root of the word ‫ ַע ְצ ָמאוּת‬first appears in Bereishit (2:23–24), during which G-d fashions the world’s first two human beings and they become aware of each other’s existence for the very first time: And the man said, “This one is bone of my bone (‫)ע ֶצם ֵמ ֲע ָצ ַמי‬ ֶ and flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called woman, for from man she is taken.” Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they shall be as one flesh.

These two verses tell a very curious, even paradoxical story. On the one hand, it is the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, each of whom is endowed with their own individual personhood. Yet, at this moment of initial independence, Adam recognizes they are of the same flesh and bone, and his duty requires him to “cling to his wife.”

These two human beings understand their independent individuality, yet, at the very same moment, also intuit the urgent, primal need for relationships and interdependence.

What causes Adam and Eve to forgo their individual independence in favor of marriage?

While thesurvival of every being is dependent on something or someone else, the greatest expression of independence is the choice of who and what we want to depend on. This act of free will

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is manifest in who we choose as a partner in marriage. Here it becomes clear that instead of being “in dependence,” to be independent is to choose the right people on whom to depend.

This tension lies at the heart of the Hebrew term ‫ע ְצ ָמאוּת‬.ַ The definition of independence is as true for the nation as it is for the individual. For one glorious moment in 1948, the Jewish nation declared national self-determination, permanently closing the disastrous chapter of Jewish powerlessness. While remembering when we were strangers in different times, no longer would Jewish blood be considered “cheap,” and no longer would Jews across the world depend upon the precarious benevolence of other host nations.

While this is of course an incredible, miraculous achievement, it is but the beginning of an entirely new set of challenges. Now that we are autonomous, what kind of country will the State of Israel become? Who shall be our friends? For which principles shall we fight? Which cultural influences should we promote, and what kind of culture will we export to the community of nations? Achieving independence means summoning the strength to fully face up to the challenges of interdependence, to recognize our role within the international web of relationships. This is a lesson that must be internalized by all supporters, defenders and citizens of the Jewish State.

Of course, Yom HaAtzmaut will always be a moment of great celebration – but we owe it to ourselves to preserve it as a moment of introspection. Freedom

and independence (both individual and national) are two of the greatest gifts, yet they are only a means to a greater end.

In taking note of the element of strength reflected by the root ‫ ִעצּ וּם‬or ‫ ָע ְצ ָמה‬within the word ‫ע ְצ ָמאוּת‬,ַ we reach a deeper understanding of the true essence of independence. Through internalizing our responsibilities as an independent sovereign state interacting with others, we can legitimately strive towards a position of strength and self-reliance, the likes of which our ancestors could only dream about.

It is up to us to take the raw materials represented by the blended root meanings of the Hebrew term ‫ – ַע ְצ ָמאוּת‬bone, essence, core, strength, force – and fashion them together into a harmonious independent society worthy of the Jewish nation. Through doing so, we transform the State of Israel into a model of goodness and justice for the entire world. It is this vision, this striving towards ethical excellence, that is truly worthy of the eternal people, and that underlies the unmistakable joy and exuberance expressed far and wide on Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel’s Day of Independence.

Rabbi Dr. Benji Levy is the Co-Founder of Israel Impact Partners, working with philanthropists to optimize and scale up impact in the non-profit sector. He was previously CEO of Mosaic United and Dean of Moriah College.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

H O L I DAY R E A D I N G Rabbi Jesse Horn

Patient for the Truth

T

he Radak offers an inspiring and insightful perspective into a well-known verse we recite in Hallel. The verse states, ֹ‫ִּכי גָ ַבר ָעלֵ ינ ּו ַח ְסדּ ו‬ ּ ָ‫“ וֶ ֱא ֶמת ה‘ לְ עוֹ לָ ם ַהלְ ל ּו י‬For His kindness ‫־ה‬ has overwhelmed us and the truth of the L-rd is eternal” (Tehillim 117:2), and is describing the final redemption as both ‫ח ֶסד‬, ֶ kindness, and ‫א ֶמת‬,ֱ truth.

This is seemingly strange, because the two descriptions are mutually exclusive, for one is not entitled to a ‫ח ֶסד‬, ֶ yet one is entitled to an ‫א ֶמת‬.ֱ Is G-d’s bringing the redemption ‫ ֶח ֶסד‬or ‫?א ֶמת‬ ֱ It cannot be both!

Resolving this problem, the Radak brilliantly explains that due to the profound pain the exile has caused us, it is easy for Am Yisrael to become skeptical or doubtful. Because of this uncertainty, we perceive the redemption as a ‫ח ֶסד‬,ֶ as if we are unsure whether it will come.

Yet, once the redemption has arrived, looking back, it will be clear that it is, in fact, an ‫א ֶמת‬.ֱ After all G-d has unmistakably promised it in the Torah (Vayikra 26:46).

This beautiful insight lays out the theological outlook for modern Religious Zionism. It requires patience and perspective. In any transformative process, there are ups and downs, moments of idealism and those of setback. Unclarity and even skepticism are normal and anticipated human emotions in this

long and important spiritual process called Jewish history. For the ‫א ֶמת‬,ֱ will only be clear once the redemption has arrived.

Yom HaAtzmaut is a day that celebrates the highs. It reminds us that something worldly and mundane, like the declaration of the State, feels like a monumental ‫ח ֶסד‬,ֶ but it actually fulfills a promise, an ‫א ֶמת‬.ֱ Rav Soloveitchik astutely summarizes: “Our history is a strange one: it consists of Divine promises, but at a slow pace.

G-d promised Avraham the Land; it was not given to him. Hundreds of years passed but eventually it was indeed fulfilled” (Festivals of Freedom 137).

Rav Dessler (Michtav MeEliyahu) notes that we should not go through the holidays but rather allow them to go through us. We should leave every holiday religiously advanced and spiritually elevated. This Yom HaAtzmaut should inspire us to continue looking forward, knowing that the ultimate promise, the ‫א ֶמת‬,ֱ will be fulfilled.

Rabbi Jesse Horn is a Senior Ra”m (Rosh Metivta) at Yeshivat Hakotel and director of the Mizrachi/Yeshivat Hakotel Mechanchim program.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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SEVEN STORIES OF

IDF BRAVERY

Since the War of Independence in 1948, Israel has been shaped by the courage and heroism of our soldiers, who elect to place their lives on the line for the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

HaMizrachi has chosen just seven stories of bravery, courage and valor from Israel’s early days until today. Stories of Jewish Israeli pride and guts, of average soldiers who just did the right thing.

Midnight Mission in Enemy Territory June, 1955.

Six IDF soldiers agreed to take part in a top secret mission.

The six were taken to an army base in Beer Sheva, where they were shown a map of Sinai and the Straits of Tiran.

Without being told, the soldiers knew what had to be done.

In 1955, the Egyptians had blocked the Straits of Tiran, preventing ships from

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entering or leaving Eilat. An operation was being planned to attack and conquer Sharm-el-Sheikh and from there to reopen the Straits to Israeli passage.

The Israelis wanted to send a six-man team deep into enemy lines to check conditions on the ground. Would the topography of a 70km roadless stretch from Eilat to Sharm-el-Sheikh allow an army vehicle to pass?

The team was to arrive in Sinai by boat, but if they had not arrived by 1:00 am, the order was to abort the mission and return. Avoiding a close call with an Egyptian ship, they arrived at 12:30 am. They continued by foot, scouting the desert terrain at night and hiding by day. The information they collected would be critically important to the IDF, but if the Egyptians caught them, their lives would be at stake. They had one chance a night to communicate, when an Israeli plane would fly overhead, low enough to make radio contact.

watershed line. We’ll evacuate you from there.”

A group of Egyptian soldiers were rapidly approaching.

The Israelis had to leave the area immediately.

They arrived at the pick-up point, where they quickly removed stones and plants so the Israeli plane could land.

Half an hour after the team was airlifted out of there, the Egyptians arrived on the scene. Miraculously, the six were saved with their mission accomplished.

Because of the bravery of these six men and the information they gathered, the Israelis were able to plan the attack on Sharm-el-Sheik and successfully lead the Sinai Campaign and Operation Kadesh, freeing the Straits of Tiran to Israeli passage.

A few days into their mission, a plane flew overhead with water supplies. As the containers parachuted down, the thirsty team heard them smash on the ground, one by one. Thankfully, the last container landed safely and the parched soldiers drank their fill.

Rescue from the Flames

On the final night of the operation, they had important instructions: “Go to the

That’s how Mordechai Attia, on reserve duty, was woken from a nap.

June 7th, 1967.

“Start the truck, there’s a war on!”

Mordechai, his wife and two children had fulfilled their lifelong dream and made aliyah only five years earlier from Algeria. Upon arriving in Israel, 24-year-old Mordechai enlisted in the army, where he served for three months before being assigned to the reserves.

On the third day of the Six-Day War, Mordechai was making the rounds between Gaza and Beer Sheva, supplying soldiers with critical equipment. On one of his rides, he saw the truck ahead of him driving straight ahead instead of turning at the junction as it should have.

Mordechai honked his horn but it was too late…

The truck had driven over a mine.

Without thinking twice, Mordechai jumped out of his own truck and ran to rescue the soldiers trapped in the blazing vehicle. He dragged the driver’s escort 10 meters to safety, then returned for the driver. His arms were burning and he realized the enemy was now shooting at him.

Mordechai could save himself and take cover, or continue to try and free the driver, whose legs were still stuck under the gas pedal. “I knew I couldn’t leave him there,” said Mordechai.

Pulling with all his might, under heavy fire, Mordechai freed the driver and dragged him to safety, minutes before the truck exploded.

After the war, Mordechai Attia received a decoration for his bravery.

If they raised their heads, the snipers would shoot. Yet they couldn’t stay there without ammunition.

Alone Against the Enemy June 9th, 1967.

The fifth day of the Six-Day War. The Syrians were firing from the Golan.

Yaakov Girschfeld, a rookie squad commander, was given the order to advance.

The mission: conquer the Syrian outpost Tel Faher, a strategic point in the Golan, from where the IDF would conquer the rest of the Heights. The plan: loop around the outpost and take it from behind.

As soon as they began their mission, things did not go as planned. Yaakov and his men were met with Syrian fire, and soon the path was blocked by an abandoned Israeli tank.

“Take it by foot, Yaakov!”

“Get behind me,” Yaakov told his men.

Yaakov covered for his fellow soldiers as one by one they rolled back into a ditch behind him.

Yaakov was left alone, with no one to cover for him.

Crawling sideways, he quickly rolled into another ditch.

A ditch he and his team had not cleared of enemy soldiers.

And there, looking into his eyeballs, was a Syrian soldier.

Yaakov shot first, beating his foe by a millisecond. Grabbing his enemy’s gun, Yaakov dashed through the ditch until he reached his comrades. He helped them evacuate the wounded before returning to fight until Tel Faher was under Israeli control.

The soldiers planted explosives to demolish the fence, then bravely jumped into the ditches, shooting at enemy soldiers. The team had managed to clear 200 meters of ditch when they came upon what seemed like an empty building. Ordered to clear the building and take it by force, the soldiers began to climb out of the ditches... straight into Syrian fire.

Yaakov and his comrades dived back down and returned fire, but they were soon running low on ammunition.

They were trapped.

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Yaakov’s determination and refusal to back down became a symbol of the IDF’s fighting spirit. Through their courageous actions, Yaakov’s team helped pave the way for Israel to liberate the Golan Heights.

The Military Post That Held Back the Syrian Army October 1973.

On Friday morning, October 6th, Erev Yom Kippur, Second Lieutenant Yossi Gur took charge of Military Post 116 in the southern Golan, replacing the reserve officer who had gone home that morning. Yossi had no idea he would soon be leading Israel’s defense in the Yom Kippur War.

That night, Tzion Ezer, a soldier on guard, heard noises. He climbed to the lookout point and saw what seemed like the entire Syrian Army approaching them in tanks.

two other injured soldiers ran to the bunker, as their comrades once again cleared the post of Syrian soldiers. But Yossi could not sit there while his men were fighting for their lives.

The next morning the Syrian tanks began bombarding Post 116. The soldiers stood their ground, and began firing at the tanks. One by one, the Syrian tanks went up in flames.

He climbed up and saw the entire valley smoking, realizing the battle was right here on his doorstep. He thought it would take weeks for the IDF to send them supplies but just then, he spotted a jeep driving into the camp. As an Israeli soldier took aim, he yelled, “It’s ours!”

Still, three of them managed to reach the post.

The first rolled into the gate and straight over a mine; Yossi watched the white powder spill onto the basalt stones but it failed to explode and the Syrians advanced.

Soon Syrian soldiers were jumping out and the cry could be heard, “Syrians in the post!”

Tzion threw a grenade into the Syrian tank as his men attacked the enemy soldiers and managed to clear the post of enemy infiltrators.

They did not yet understand they were at war.

On Sunday at 10 am, 116 received the message that Israel was at war.

Five Syrian tanks approached the post.

Yossi felt shrapnel as bullets exploded around him. He aimed, and hit the first Syrian tank. He aimed again, and hit the second. The tanks didn’t explode, but Yossi managed to stop them. Three remaining tanks were advancing as the firing continued.

Yossi was hit in the arm and appointed Tzion to take charge. The Syrians, seeing two of their tanks had been stopped, began to retreat.

The following morning, the Syrians attacked Post 116 again. Tzion heard yelling in Arabic and knew the enemy was right there, in the post. Yossi and

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Both Yossi and Tzion received awards for their bravery. Because of their courage and refusal to back down, the small military Post 116 of a handful of soldiers managed to delay the Syrian army from advancing into Israel before backup troops arrived.

Saving His Unit With Shema Yisrael July 26, 2006.

It was Ro’i Klein’s Hebrew birthday, and Roi, deputy commander of the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion, was heavily engaged in the Second Lebanon War. He and his unit were fighting in the Battle of Bint Jbeil, one of the main battles in the war.

Suddenly, Hezbollah terrorists ambushed Roi’s unit and threw a hand grenade over the wall near the Israeli soldiers.

Ro’i saw the grenade land, and knew it would explode in a matter of seconds, giving no time for his comrades to take cover.

Ro’i Klein cried out, “Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad!” and

jumped onto the grenade, using his own body to save the lives of his men.

As he lay wounded, Roi ordered medics to first tend to another injured soldier.

He knew they couldn’t save him.

Ro’i Klein has become a symbol of heroism, self-sacrifice and Kiddush Hashem.

He was awarded the Medal of Courage after his death.

The Heroic Medic January 8th 2009.

Operation Cast Lead.

On the morning of January 8th, medic Menachem Tzik was in Gaza with his platoon. His deputy commander ordered him to stay behind, as others began to purge the area.

Suddenly, rockets hit the building the soldiers had entered.

“Medic! Medic!”

Menachem rushed into enemy territory, straight into enemy fire.

“Get down!” his deputy commander yelled.

Menachem had no time to get down.

He had lives to save.

Realizing he would run faster without it, he dropped his weapon and ran through the bullets whizzing millimeters from him.

To Menachem, it seemed like eternity; he felt as if he were running and running, but not getting there.

When he finally reached the building, he heard his name. “Menachem! Over here!”

Menachem found the wounded soldier, assessed the situation, and realized his hands were already doing what they should.

He helped evacuate the soldier and was soon running back to care for the others.

Keeping Calm March 8th, 2012.

The Kfir Brigade’s Lavi Battalion received an order to make an arrest in the hostile Arab village of Yata in the South Hebron Hills.

Usually, when there’s an arrest, it takes place at night, and the team receives aerial photos or information the day before, so they can plan ahead.

This time though, it needed to be immediate and during the day.

While the operational team arrested the suspect inside the building, the 14-strong assisting team, including soldier Gal Weingarden, stood guard outside, keeping a safe distance between the building and a mob of about 500 angry Palestinians who had rapidly gathered outside, flinging rocks, Molotov cocktails, iron bars and anything that came to hand at the IDF soldiers.

Suddenly, one of the villagers began walking towards Gal. Gal ordered him to stop and go back.

This was a closed military zone.

The man began to retreat, then ran toward the other soldiers, trying to

distract Gal. Suddenly, another Arab jumped Gal with a knife from behind and the first guy came back to grab Gal’s hand.

Gal managed to shake both men off, but not before the knife had cut his throat.

Gal knew he had to stop them before they got lost in the crowd.

He shot four bullets in their direction, managing to hit them both.

Dripping with blood, he staggered to the jeep, collapsing on the floor as another soldier rushed to stop the blood.

Thanks to Gal’s ability to stay calm and act coolly, the two terrorists were arrested and the interrogators exposed a slew of previously unknown terror plots.

In saving his own life, Gal had saved the lives of many others. “Maybe,” he says, “But I don’t think I did anything out of the ordinary.” n

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THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND

R AV KO O K ’ S T E AC H I N G S Rabbi Dr. Yosef Bronstein

Partnering with G-d

W

hat is the essential principle of Religious Zionism? What distinguishes it from other movements within Orthodox Judaism?

For Rav Kook, one key factor emerges from an age-old but highly relevant question of how to understand the books of our prophets. Many nevi’im captivatingly prophesied about the messianic era. The Jewish people will return to the Land of Israel and the Beit HaMikdash will be rebuilt. Peace and fraternity will become the norm.

The hungry will be fed. G-d’s palpable presence will permeate the world. All will recognize the truth of the One G-d and His Torah.

Background illustration of Rav Kook courtesy of www.gedolimcanvas.com

What is the relevance of these prophecies for Jews living in an imperfect world? What should be our takeaway when we read these soul stirring descriptions during the tragic times of exile?

One approach is that these prophecies are intended for consolation and encouragement. The promise of a bright future provides us with succor and hope even as we live through the depravity of the present. But on a practical level these prophecies should have little impact on our behaviors.

Our job is to punctiliously observe the commandments and fervently pray for redemption. G-d will then see that we are worthy of redemption and He alone will send Mashiach to redeem us.

Rav Kook, however, taught a different approach. In his view, redemption is not solely something to be awarded but a goal to be actively pursued. The prophecies regarding the ingathering of the exiles and the establishment of a Jewish state normatively obligate us to

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see them to fruition. We must partner with G-d to perfect the world.

In this context, Rav Kook quotes the following Midrash: In the future, a heavenly voice will burst forth from the tops of mountains and declare: “Whoever acted together with G-d, let him come and take his reward… the Holy Spirit says “Who has acted before me such that I can reward him” (Vayikra Rabbah 27:2).

G-d wants us to “act together with Him” to create redemption. For this reason, Rav Kook’s conception of Religious Zionism is still urgently relevant today.

While, arguably, the secular Zionist project was mostly accomplished by the establishment and strengthening of the State of Israel, for Rav Kook, this is just the beginning. Partnering with G-d to bring redemption after 1948 means trying to actualize the whole gamut of messianic prophecies within our individual and national lives. It means deeply studying the Torah’s descriptions of the end of days and actively using this “light of Mashiach” to help navigate our path in the present (Orot, Yisrael UTechiyato, 20).

In line with this broader conception of Religious Zionism, Rav Kook cited the above Midrash in at least two different contexts. In 1906, Rav Kook wrote a public letter in which he urged Jews living in the diaspora to immigrate to the Land of Israel. After describing the virtues of living in the Land and the historical changes that made it an opportune time to make the move, Rav Kook wrote: Who is so blind that he cannot see the hand of G-d that is guiding us, and who does not feel a personal obligation to “act together with G-d” (Ma’amarei HaRe’iyah, p. 324).

Here, Rav Kooks refers to Aliyah and settling the Land as partnering with G-d.

In an essay written 25 years later, Rav Kook once again invoked this Midrash. Here, however, his theme is not the material building of the Land, but the imperative to realize why we have returned. According to Rav Kook, our mission is to create a society in the Land of Israel that reflects G-d’s most ideal values.

Therefore, in conjunction with the building of towns and businesses, a true Jewish revival must include “invest[ing] to increase the light of Torah in the Land of our lives… and then the holy and loyal spirit of the Jewish people will be revealed through the entire enterprise.” By doing so, Rav Kook writes, we will fulfil the words of the Midrash of “act[ing] together with G-d” to bring redemption (Ma’amarei HaRe’iyah, pg.

73).

Partnering with G-d to create a redeemed reality is a multifaceted project. Even as we thank G-d for what we have, we still must actively work towards making life in Israel pulsate with the spirituality and morality of the Torah. We must be a part of creating the utopian society that we want to live within.

May we merit to partner with G-d towards the material and spiritual redemption of the Jewish people, and ultimately, the whole world.

Rabbi Dr. Yosef Bronstein is a faculty member of Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalayim and Yeshiva University.

Z I O N I S T I N F LU E N C E R S

THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND

OUR SERIES ON LEADERS WHO HAVE SHAPED ZIONISM CONTINUES WITH SOME OF ZIONISM’S EARLIEST INFLUENCERS

Rabbi Yitzchak HaKohen ben Moshe (Ishtori) HaParchi

R

abbi Yitzchak HaKohen ben Moshe HaParchi was born in the early 1200s to a line of distinguished Rabbis and Sages. His birthplace is unknown – some say he was born in Provence, France, others say in Florenzia, Spain. (Hence his surname – Florenzia comes from the root for “flower” in Spanish, corresponding to the Hebrew perach), and still others claim that Florence, Italy, was his birthplace.

More commonly known by his pen name, Ishtori, he was a scholar, physician, geographer, researcher, translator and traveller, and possessed an incredible memory as well as being well versed in Latin and Arabic works of philosophy and astronomy. He studied under the renowned Sages Rabbi Ya’akov Ibn Tibbon and Rabbeinu Asher ben Yechiel (the Rosh).

him had toiled to clarify the halachic borders of Israel and identify its historical sites, but the vast majority of them had never even set foot in the Holy Land. They had only the text itself to rely on. Rabbi HaParchi set out to understand the Land of Israel through intimate and direct contact. Even Binyamin of Tudela, who had travelled to Israel and recorded his findings before Rabbi Ishtori, had only travelled on the standard path through Israel, relying on what others told him about the identity of various locations. Rabbi HaParchi wanted to see every inch of Israel for himself. When determining the identity of a certain location, he took into account the topography, geography and archeology, and compared it with descriptions of the Tanach and rabbinic texts.

In 1306, when the Jews were expelled from France, Rabbi Ishtori decided to move with his family to Israel, stopping in Cairo along the way. Upon arriving in Israel, one of the first things he did was dedicate himself to studying the laws and boundaries of Har HaBayit, to understand how close he could go to the place of the Beit HaMikdash while in a state of tumah.

During his tours and travels, HaParchi felt it was his obligation to write a book recording his findings. He wrote the first Hebrew book on the geography of Israel, the Kaftor VaFerach (the terms used to describe the menorah in Shemot 37:17), in 1322. It was later published in Venice in 1549. He published the book under the pseudonym Ishtori HaParchi; some say Ishtori may be a combination of the Hebrew words ish tori, touring man.

Rabbi HaParchi spent seven long years touring the Land. Torah scholars before

In his book, Rabbi Ishtori described the flora and fauna of Israel and recorded

the customs of its society (such the traditions of the Jews of Israel and their halachic weights and measures). He also discussed the mitzvot hateluyot baAretz and the borders of Israel, calculated the shemittah and yovel and listed 180 ancient towns and sites of the Tanach he had identified on his trips.

His work has become an invaluable source of knowledge and information for modern scholarship and research, and is testimony to the depth of knowledge in Mishna, Tosefta, Talmud and Midrash he had absorbed in his younger years.

Whenever Rabbi Ishtori would arrive at a city or town in Israel, he would rejoice.

He loved every inch of the Land, as is clear from his writings. He wrote about his hope that the settlement would flourish and grow, and that he saw the suffering of French Jews as a sign of the coming of the Redemption.

After he finished writing his book, Rabbi Ishtori took it to a Yerushalmi Rabbi to receive an approbation. He then settled in Beit Shean, where he worked as a physician until his passing in 1355.

Though he lived well before the modern Zionist movement, Rabbi Ishtori was a Zionist in the true sense of the word; his legacy of concrete love of the Land has left a lasting impact on Jewish history 

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THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND

M I Z R AC H I I N T H E N AT I O N A L I N S T I T U T I O N S Gael Grunewald

Days of Redemption

I

n recent years, there has been an initiative to call the 10 days between Yom HaShoah and Yom HaAtzmaut Aseret Yemei Toda, 10 days of thanksgiving, similar to the Aseret Yemei Teshuva.

In these 10 days, we tread the path our forefathers trod from exile to redemption. And just as the Aseret Yemei Teshuva precede the month of mercy and forgiveness, so the Aseret Yemei Todah begin in the month of freedom.

The Jews have always known how to be attentive to time: the days of the week, the months of the year and the seasons of nature. As Rav Kook says, “The Exodus from Egypt will remain forever the spring of the whole world.”

Until the Jews left Egypt, the world did not recognize the concept of the liberation of slaves. In the month of Nissan, freedom descended into the world. That is why I see a direct connection between Seder Night and Yom HaAtzmaut.

I would like to share with you an idea I heard from Rabbi Avraham Krieger, Director of the Shem Olam Institute in Kfar Haroeh. The same freedom that flowed in Jewish blood on the day we left Egypt is the same freedom flowing in Jewish veins today. This is the freedom that gave our ancestors strength when our enemies tried to destroy us. During the Holocaust, we experienced a clash between the Nazi-German civilization and our Jewish civilization. On the one hand enlightened, technological, philosophical, cultural. On the other, ancient wisdom, longstanding tradition, and a scattered and separated people.

And then the war exposed an inhumane monstrousness and barbarism on the

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one hand, and daily stories of heroism, communal areivut, respect for elders and devotion on the other – a culture that withstood the ultimate tests and yet retained its humanity.

Freedom to be G-d’s people on earth.

The State of Israel chose to mark Yom HaShoah in Nissan, when the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began. In contrast, the Chief Rabbinate instituted Yom HaShoah on the 10th of Tevet, the Yom HaKaddish HaKlali, the day for saying Kaddish for those whose date of death is unknown.

“”

The State of Israel chose to mark Yom HaShoah in Nissan, when the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began. In contrast, the Chief Rabbinate instituted Yom HaShoah on the 10th of Tevet, the Yom HaKaddish HaKlali, the day for saying Kaddish for those whose date of death is unknown

When we speak about the sanctity of time, behind these two dates stand two worldviews. The 10th of Tevet, in the middle of the dark and cold winter, gives expression to the daily heroism of the six million murdered for being

Jews, who passed the embers of the Jewish people on through the survivors, through telling the stories to future generations. ‫ יוֹ ם ַה ּׁשוֹ ָאה וְ ַה ְ ּגבו ָּרה‬bursts forth in spring and seeks to express the spontaneous, momentary acts of resistance. It shines a spotlight on one ghetto, one act of resistance, one simple kindness, through which many years of war become bathed in eternal light.

It is this same heroism – ‫ְ ּגבו ָּרה ׁ ֶש ִ ּבגְ בו ָּרה‬ – we encounter in the Counting of the Omer. ֹ‫איזֶ ה ּו ִגּבּ וֹ ר? ַהכּ וֹ ֵב ׁש ֶאת יִ ְצרו‬.ֵ The hero is the one who fights every morning to be a better person. Jewish heroism is not necessarily an outburst of courage.

It is quiet, strong, human (and often superhuman). The more we learn about the ghettos and extermination camps, the more we are exposed to the depth of that heroism.

The days between Yom HaShoah and Yom HaAtzmaut – Aseret Yemei Toda – remind us that between Pesach and Yom HaAtzmaut and what they represent, Am Yisrael have been forged and shaped through every exile into the strong and proud nation we are today. !‫לְ ׁ ָשנָ ה ַה ָ ּב ָאה ִ ּבירו ָּשלָ יִ ם ַה ְ ּבנוּיָ ה‬

Gael Grunewald is Deputy Chairman of the World Zionist Organization and head of its Education Department. He is one of World Mizrachi’s representatives in the National Institutions.

P L AC E S I N I S R A E L

THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND Michael Even-Esh

Ein Keshatot Mother of All Symbols

A

pile of rocks! That’s all you could see here for years; just a pile of rocks. Except for a few archaeologists, guides and hikers, this site was way off the beaten path in the Golan Heights.

As of now, we don’t know the ancient name of this site, but today it goes by the modern name of Ein Keshatot (“Spring of the Arches”). This name derives from the site’s Arabic name: Um el-Kanatir (literally: “The Mother of Arches”). And indeed, the village spring still lies under impressive arches to this day.

Since the 19th century, explorers and scholars have agreed that an ancient synagogue had been located here, but for most visitors, Um el-Kanatir could just as well have been called “The Mother of all Rubble.” (We know today that “Ra’ash Shvi’it”, a fierce earthquake during the Shmittah year of 749 CE, destroyed the village.)

But then… somebody dared to think out of the box!

The premier archaeologist in the Golan, Chaim Ben-David from Moshav Keshet, came to visit the site with ancient technology expert Yehoshua Dray. To paraphrase and condense their conversation, Chaim said: “So what do you think?” And Yehoshua said: “We can do it!”

And so for the first time, somebody took the very rocks of a destroyed synagogue, and built the original Beit Knesset, ancient-rock-by-ancientrock (technically, this process is not called “reconstruction,” but rather “anastylosis”).

Ben-David, Dray, archaeologist Ilana Gonen and the Golan Regional Council all came together to make the project happen. It began in 2003 with a survey; afterwards, a huge crane was placed over the rubble. From atop the crane, 3-D digital photos were made of the ancient debris, which allowed an analysis and interpretation of the ruins. Every stone had a number and an installed microchip with its “profile.” For two seasons, the crane removed more than 1,500 stones from the collapsed structure.

Then it was time to rebuild! Yehoshua “scanned” each stone, and a computer program “told” him where it should be placed and in which position. In 2018, the site was finally opened to the public.

It is an absolute masterpiece!

Today, visitors to Ein Keshatot can enter the sixth century synagogue, pray the very words that our ancestors prayed, and be surrounded by the very same stones. But the jewel in the crown of this site is on top of the bima. A magnificent ark complex (“heichalit”) stands in all its glory. Although the wooden cabinet that held the Torah scrolls didn’t survive, the stone structure that surrounded it did. And it is a sight to behold! Look at the heichalit’s pillars and you’ll see the engraved symbols of a menorah, lulav, etrog and shofar.

But what about that strange-looking dustpan-like thing? What’s that? It’s an incense shovel, akin to that in the Temple in Yerushalayim. This artefact tells us, without a doubt, that the builders and decorators of this synagogue were invoking the image of the Beit HaMikdash. As if to say, this is our

Mikdash Me’at, our mini-Temple. We don’t just pray towards Yerushalayim, but we invoke the Beit HaMikdash itself in our synagogue architecture. If walls could talk…

Compared to others in the area, this Beit Knesset is large and fancy. How did the Jewish citizens of this backwater village manage to pay for the construction and decoration of this magnificent monument? The answer might be found near the village spring. Two of the arches stand today over the water that was used for drinking, home use, and other purposes. But on the western side of the spring was an “industrial zone.”

The pool here was used, apparently, for preparing flax for use in luxury linen clothes. This wasn’t just any shmatteh enterprise; it was big business!

This is only a small part of the fascinating story of Ein Keshatot – its rise and fall, its discovery, its rebirth, and its inspiring archaeological finds. But one question remains: why visit here davka on Yom HaAtzmaut?

Golan resident Effie Eitam (Brigadier General, res.), said it best: “This entire site is symbolic of the rebirth of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

For centuries, it was just a pile of stones.

Nobody believed it could be rebuilt.

Nevertheless, a few energetic visionary pioneers came and put it back together again, stone-by-stone.”

Michael Even-Esh is an outdoor educator, cave explorer and snake catcher. He and his family live in Moshav Nov in the Golan Heights. evenesh@gmail.com.

| 49

THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND

ISRAEL INSIGHT David M. Weinberg

Truly at Home

Y

om HaAtzmaut is an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of “home” in grand historical perspective; to assess the modern Jewish, Zionist and democratic home in the State of Israel. That perspective inevitably begins with the fact that, until 73 years ago and for the last 2,000 years, the Jewish people had no national home. Instead, it suffered Diaspora, dispersion, degradation and disaffiliation, even near-extermination. Alas, attempts to annihilate the Jewish people in Israel and to persecute them abroad continue apace, but the People of Israel are no longer defenseless.

Despite the many current and looming challenges, Israel’s dramatic drive to succeed in all aspects of life continues relentlessly, with spectacular results: outstanding science and top-notch technology; excellent doctors and (despite acute deficiencies) first-class health care; high levels of Torah study; vibrant democracy, and a constantly expanding world of diplomatic ties – even with Arab countries.

Israel boasts a strong currency; massive foreign investment; innovative water desalination and natural gas solutions; multiple humanitarian commitments abroad; continuing (although slow) aliyah and immigrant absorption, and most of all, sensational youth activism and undimmed patriotism. Indeed, the polls affirm the optimism and patriotism of Israelis. Most Israelis (63%) believe that the country’s successes outweigh its failures. Only 8% believe the situation is the other way around, while 22% say that failures and successes are equal.

Israel also is, more than ever, a nation of believers. A renaissance of Jewish identity is underway. There is a reawakening

50 |

which can be heard in popular music based on traditional prayer, seen in outdoor kabbalat Shabbat celebrations in public entertainment spaces, and felt in all-night Torah study sessions on Shavuot – even in Tel Aviv.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, 80% of secular Israelis “believe in the G-d of Israel.” Eighty percent! In my view, that means that 80% (of the 40% of Israelis who define themselves as secular) are not truly secular. They believe in the G-d of Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov. They believe in Divine Providence over the Jewish people and a Divine presence in Jewish history.

When you add to the mix the 20% of Israelis who call themselves dati (religious) and charedi (ultra-orthodox), and the 40% of Israelis who describe themselves as dati-masorti or masorti (religious-traditional or traditional), this means that Israel is a deeply believing nation.

In other words, while not everybody practices traditional Judaism, just about everybody in Israel religiously senses that this nation is on a grand meta-historic journey which is connected to spiritual powers and moral heritage invested in the Jewish people. These assets have sustained Jews through the centuries and brought them home to the Land of Israel.

This belief in the power of Jewish history animated by ancient faith explains much about Israel today. It explains the willingness of Israelis to sacrifice for independence. It underlies the willingness of Israelis to use military force to defend the country, especially against genocidal enemies like Iran. It explains their drive to succeed in the arts and sciences and to share their advances with the world. It explains their resolute

attachment to Yerushalayim. It explains why Israeli leaders sometimes stubbornly refuse to accept rational calculations of diplomatic cost/benefit that are politely or impolitely impressed on them by allies. It explains why Israelis can shake off the bleak and sinister prognostications sometimes advanced by both friends and enemies. It explains why those who consider history only in terms of national politics and international relations underestimate or misjudge Israel. They apply temporal yardsticks of measurement to Israel but fail to fathom the processes at work behind the curtain of current affairs.

They are confused by Israel’s deep sense of historical mission, which blurs the lines between imagination and reality, between the possible and the feasible.

They fail to understand that Israel is guided by an astral calculus that is not always perceptible. As Ambassador Rabbi Dr. Ya’akov Herzog (1921–1972) said, “In the sweep of history, there have been greater battles, larger transfers and emigrations of populations, bigger construction and technological projects, more eminently impressive displays of might. So, in secular terms, Israel is not that big a deal... But as vindication of spirit, as validation of tenacious faith, as proof of the Jewish people’s right of return to its indigenous home, Israel’s establishment and advancement is a very big deal indeed.”

The Jewish people has come home, in every sense of the word.

David M. Weinberg is vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, jiss.org.il. His personal site is davidmweinberg.com.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

W H AT ’ S I N A W O R D

THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND David Curwin

National Symbols

I

srael has several national symbols.

In a previous issue, we discussed the word degel. Now, let’s take a look at the word for some of the other symbols.

HaTikva | Israel’s national anthem (‫ה ְמנוֹ ן‬,ִ cognate with “hymn”) is HaTikvah, written by Naftali Herz Imber in 1878. Tikva means “hope,” and the song reflects the Jewish people’s hope to return to freedom in the Land of Israel. The root of tikva, ‫קוה‬, means “to hope for, to wait for.”

The linguist Ernest Klein says that the original meaning of the root was probably “to twist, to stretch,” which developed into “to be stretched, be strained,” and from there to “await tensely.” This root is also the source of the homonym tikva meaning “cord,” like the one Rachav used to signify her house in Yericho: “she tied the crimson cord to the window” (Yehoshua 2:21). It is also the source of the word kav, meaning “line.”

Even though they look similar, the words tikva and mikveh aren’t related.

Mikveh means “a collection of water,” and derives from a different root – also ‫קוה‬, but this time meaning “to collect (water).” It may be cognate with the volume unit ‫קב‬,ַ which comes from the root ‫“ – קבב‬to hollow out.”

Shekel | The national coin of Israel is the shekel. Originally, a shekel was a measure of weight, about 10 grams.

Coins only began to be used as a means of payment in the post-biblical period, so all mentions of the shekel in the Bible are referring to an amount of that weight, usually silver.

The word shekel comes from the root ‫ש ֶקל‬, ֶ ׁ which also developed from “to weigh” to the sense “to pay.” Just as in

English, where “to weigh” something also means “to consider” it, so too does the verb ‫ לִ ׁ ְשקוֹ ל‬mean “to consider” or “to assess.”

For the first several decades of the State of Israel, Israel’s currency was the lira – the equivalent of “the pound.” Lira is a foreign word (related to “liter”) and is (or was) the currency unit in many countries around the Mediterranean, like Italy, Turkey and Syria. Israel adopted the Hebrew name “shekel” in 1980. However, due to massive inflation in the early 1980s, a new currency was introduced in 1985 – the “shekel chadash” – the New Israeli Shekel (NIS).

Its abbreviation, ‫ש"ח‬, ַ ׁ has entered the vernacular, and even though the old shekel was only around for five years, people still use shach when referring to money.

Duchifat | In honor of the 60th anniversary of Israel, a competition was held to name the national bird of Israel, which had not previously been determined. The winner was the duchifat, or “hoopoe” in English.

It is listed as one of the non-kosher birds in Vayikra 11:19 and Devarim 14:18. Since it was a popular vote, it can’t be said with certainty why the duchifat was chosen, but presumably due to its unique appearance, with an impressive crown on its head.

The Talmud (Chullin 63a) says the bird’s name derives from the phrase ‫ׁ ֶשהוֹ ד ּו ָּכפוּת‬ – “whose comb seems bent,” referring to its crown. Modern linguists differ as to the etymology of the word. Some say it comes from an ancient Egyptian word that meant a type of hat (which would refer to its crown). Others have found possible cognates in languages in India or in Arabic. And some, like Klein, say the name is imitative of its cry.

The duchifat might appear in one more Biblical book, although not with that name. In the book of Iyov, we find an unusual and unique word – ‫שכוִ י‬ ׂ ֶ ּ ַ‫ל‬.

“Who put wisdom in the hidden parts?

Who gave understanding to the mind [sechvi]?”

This phrase is the source of our morning blessing – ‫ֲא ׁ ֶשר נָ ַתן לַ ּ ֶשׂ כְ וִ י ִבינָ ה לְ ַה ְב ִחין‬ ֵּ ‫בין יוֹ ם ו ֵּבין לָ יְ לָ ה‬.

While the translation “mind” (or “heart”) for sechvi is common, another popular translation is “rooster.” The rooster, at daybreak, begins to crow, signaling the transition from night to day.

However, this has some difficulties. It doesn’t actually take much wisdom to see the difference between night and day. In light of this, some say the sechvi was a hawk or an eagle. But the scholar Yehuda Feliks suggested that the sechvi was actually the duchifat. The duchifat was known for its wisdom, and according to Jewish tradition even revealed secrets to King Shlomo.

So perhaps it was a good choice for Israel’s national bird after all!

David Curwin is a writer living in Efrat, and the author of the Balashon blog. balashon.com • balashon1@gmail.com.

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Six Songs That Shaped Israel IN CELEBRATION OF YOM HAATZMAUT, WE SHARE WITH YOU AN ISRAELI MINI PLAYLIST: SONGS EVERY ISRAELI KNOWS THAT HAVE SHAPED ISRAEL AND ITS CULTURE THROUGHOUT ITS SHORT HISTORY

‫ת‬

‫אבֹו‬ ָ ‫ַּד ת‬

ּ‫ה‬ ‫ְב ֶא ֶרץ ֶח ְמ‬

ֹ‫ּפ‬

PO BE’ERETZ CHEMDAT AVOT Written by Israeli poets Yisrael Dushman and Chanina Karchevsky in 1912.

When Israeli politician and MK Chaim Boger was the principal of the Gymnasia Herzliya High School in Tel Aviv, he asked Dushman and Karchevsky to write a marching song the students could sing while hiking the Land.

The song became wildly popular among religious and secular Zionists alike, and is sung every year at the Yom HaAtzmaut ceremony on Har Herzl.

This song expresses the Zionist dream of making aliyah, setting the Land and reviving the Hebrew language. ,‫ּפֹה ְּב ֶא ֶרץ ֶח ְמ ַּדת ָאבֹות ִּת ְתּגַ ֵּש ְׁמנָ ה ָּכל ַה ִּת ְקוֹות‬ ‫ ּפֹה ְּת ֵהא‬,‫ ַחּיֵ י ז ַֹהר ַחּיֵ י ְּדרֹור‬,‫ּפֹה נִ ְחיֶ ה ּופֹה נִ ּצֹר‬ .‫ּתֹורה‬ ָ ‫ ּפֹה ִּת ְפ ַרח ּגַ ם ְש ַׂפת ַה‬,‫ׁשֹורה‬ ָ ‫ַה ְּש ִׁכינָ ה‬ Here in the Land our ancestors yearned for All hopes will be fulfilled, Here we will live and here we will build, A shining life, a life of freedom, Here shall the Shechina dwell, And here the language of the Torah will flourish

52 |

‫ֹו ֵבׁש‬

‫ָּב ָל ָדה ְל ח‬

BALADA LACHOVESH Written by Israeli playwright, Dan Almagor, at age 21 in 1956.

Tune composed by Effi Netzer in 1968.

Suddenly lightning thundered, someone shouted: Wounded!

I’m already here, the medic answered.

We’ve stepped on a mine! Shouted the wounded man then, I’m here, by your side, the medic replied…

We survived, they’re coming!

The wounded man cried, But did not hear a word from the medic.

Brother, my brother! The wounded man cried, Across the river, the rustling reeds.

The song earned its success and fame when Yehoram Gaon’s rendition won first place in the Israel Song Festival in 1969. It is considered one of Gaon’s most beloved songs, and won first place in a number of other competitions.

The song is a back and forth conversation between a wounded soldier and his paramedic. Like other ballads, the hero of the song, the paramedic, meets his tragic end at the conclusion of the song. Although it was not based on one specific story, it bears similarities to other incidents which did occur. Written after the Six-Day War, the song was seen by many as representing the bravery and heroism of the Israeli soldier.

For many years, the song was played on the radio only on Yom HaZikaron. It is played at many graduation ceremonies at the Military Medical School. ‫ ִמּנֶ גֶ ד ַהּנָ ָהר וְ גֻ ָּמא‬.‫גּוע‬ ַ ‫ ַהּכֹל ָהיָ ה ָר‬.‫ֵהם ִה ְת ַק ְּדמּו לְ ַאט‬ ‫צּוע! ֲאנִ י‬ ַ ‫ ָּפ‬:‫ ֶא ָחד ָצ ַעק‬,‫ְמ ַר ְׁש ֵרׁש ִּפ ְתאֹום ַר ַעם ָּב ָרק‬ ‫ ָצ ַעק‬- !‫מֹוקׁש‬ ֵ ‫ ָעלִ ינּו ַעל‬.‫חֹובׁש‬ ֵ ‫ ָענָ ה לֹו ַה‬-‫ְּכ ָבר ָּבא‬ ...‫חֹובׁש‬ ֵ ‫ ָענָ ה לֹו ַה‬- ‫ לְ ִצ ְּדָך‬,‫ ֲאנִ י ָּכאן‬,‫צּוע‬ ַ ‫ָאז ַה ָּפ‬ ‫ ַאְך ֹלא‬,‫צּוע‬ ַ ‫ יִ ֵּבב ָאז ַה ָּפ‬- ”!‫ ֵהם ָּב ִאים‬,‫“נִ ַּצלְ נּו‬ ‫ יִ ֵּבב‬- ”!‫ ֲא ִחי ֶׁשּלִ י‬,‫“א ִחי‬ ֲ .‫חֹובׁש‬ ֵ ‫ָׁש ַמע ִמילָ ה ִמן ַה‬ .‫ ֵמ ֵע ֶבר לַ ּנָ ָהר ַהּגֻ ָּמא ְמ ַר ְׁש ֵרׁש‬,‫צּוע‬ ַ ‫ָאז ַה ָּפ‬ They progressed slowly. Everything was calm.

On the other side, the river and rustling reeds.

‫ָהב‬ ‫ְירּו ָׁש ַל יִ ם ֶׁשל ָז‬

YERUSHALAYIM SHEL ZAHAV Written by Naomi Shemer in 1967.

Probably the most famous and most moving Israeli song of all time, Yerushalayim Shel Zahav describes the Jewish people’s 2,000-year longing for Yerushalayim, referencing Tanach and Talmudic sources as well as borrowing from Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi’s Zionistic poetry. It was written by Naomi Shemer, and commissioned by Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, for the Israeli Song Festival, held on May 15, 1967, the night after Israel’s 19th Independence Day. East Yerushalayim was controlled by Jordan, and Jews had been banned from visiting the Old City.

Three weeks later, when the Six-Day War broke out, the song became a moralebooster for the Israeli soldiers. On June 7th, 1967, the IDF freed eastern Yerushalayim, the Old City and Har HaBayit from the Jordanians. At the time, Shemer was about to perform for a troop of

paratroopers. She quickly penned a new verse – instead of “Alas . . . the [Old City] shuk is empty and we cannot visit Har HaBayit,” she wrote: “We have returned to . . . the shuk; the shofar is sounding at the Har HaBayit,” a reference to IDF Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Goren, sounding the shofar after regaining Har HaBayit.

Yerushalayim Shel Zahav was proposed as the Israeli national anthem.

it instantly became a national hit and one of Einstein’s most well known and beloved songs, and won second and third place in different competitions. The idea of the song is simple: individuals have the power to change the world, little by little. ‫ ֲאנִ י וְ ַא ָּתה ָאז‬,‫ֲאנִ י וְ ַא ָּתה נְ ַׁשּנֶ ה ֶאת ָהעֹולָ ם‬ ‫ זֶ ה‬,‫ ָא ְמרּו ֶאת זֶ ה ק ֶֹדם לְ ָפנַ י‬,‫יָ בֹואּו ְּכ ָבר ֻּכּלָ ם‬ .‫ ֲאנִ י וְ ַא ָּתה נְ ַׁשּנֶ ה ֶאת ָהעֹולָ ם‬- ‫ֹלא ְמ ַׁשּנֶ ה‬ You and I, and everyone else will join

‫לֹומּה ָה ִעיר ֲא ֶׁשר‬ ָ ‫ְּוב ַת ְר ֵּד ַמת ִאילָ ן וָ ֶא ֶבן ְׁשבּויָ ה ַּב ֲח‬ ‫רּוׁשלַ יִ ם ֶׁשל זָ ָהב וְ ֶׁשל‬ ָ ְ‫י‬.‫חֹומה‬ ָ ‫יֹוׁש ֶבת ְּובלִ ָּבּה‬ ֶ ‫ָּב ָדד‬ .‫נְ ח ֶֹׁשת וְ ֶׁשל אֹור ַהֹּלא לְ ָכל ִׁש ַיריִ ְך ֲאנִ י ִּכּנֹור‬

So what? You and I will change the world

And today, I Am still alive

MODEH ANI Written by Omer Adam in 2014.

With the sound of bells In the slumber of trees and stone ‫ַחי‬

The city who sits alone, and in her heart, a wall

CHAI

Yerushalayim of gold, and of bronze and of light

Written by Ehud Manor and Avi Toledano in 1983.

The song was Israel’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1983, winning second place, and was declared “Song of the Year” in Israel.

The song begins with the exclamation that the singer is still alive; despite her thorns, she also has many flowers. The song is a metaphor for the Jewish people.

Written by Arik Einstein with music by Miki Gavrielov in 1971.

When Ehud Manor heard that the 1983 Eurovision Contest was going to take place in Munich, Germany, he wrote this song, hinting that, despite the Holocaust and the Munich Olympics massacre a decade earlier, the Jewish people are still here.

First sung by one of the most celebrated Israeli musicians of all time, Arik Einstein,

‫ ֲאנִ י עֹוד ַחי זֶ ה ַה ִּׁשיר ֶׁש ָּס ָבא‬,‫ ַחי ֵּכן‬,‫ ַחי‬,‫ַחי‬ ‫ַשׁר ֶא ְתמֹול לְ ַא ָּבא וְ ַהּיֹום ֲאנִ י ַחי‬

ANI VE’ATA

Sang yesterday to my father

‫מ ֹו ֶד ה ֲאנִ י‬

And the sent of pines is carried on the twilight wind

‫ֲאנִ י וְ ַא ָּתה‬

This is the song my grandfather

They’ve said it before us

The mountain air is clear as wine

I am a violin for all of your songs

Yes, I’m still alive

You and I will change the world

‫ֲאוִ יר ָה ִרים ָצלּול ַּכּיַ יִ ן וְ ֵר ַיח ֳא ָרנִ ים נִ ָּׂשא‬ .‫רּוח ָה ַע ְר ַּביִ ם ִעם קֹול ַּפ ֲעמֹונִ ים‬ ַ ‫ְּב‬

She is captured within her dream

Chai, chai, chai

The song Modeh Ani is a popular modern Israeli hit in the Mizrachi genre. The artist thanks G-d for his talents and his ability to create and sing music, recognizing that it is all from Him and dedicating his songs to G-d. Although Omer Adam does not consider himself religious, he turned down an opportunity to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest which was due to take place on Shabbat. He refuses to perform on Shabbat, which, together with the words of the song, show how religious messages have made their way into and become part of mainstream Israeli secular pop music. ‫מֹודה ֲאנִ י ּכֹל ּב ֶֹקר ֶׁש ֱה ְחזַ ְר ָּת ֶאת נִ ְׁש ָמ ִתי‬ ֶ ‫ּגּופי‬ ִ ‫מֹודה ֲאנִ י ַעל ֶּבגֶ ד ֶׁש ֵהנַ ְח ָּת ַעל‬ ֶ ‫ׁשֹומר ָעלַ י‬ ֵ ‫ֶׁשֹּלא יִ ְהיֶ ה לִ י ַקר ַא ָּתה‬ I thank You every morning That You’ve returned my soul I thank You for placing Upon my body, clothes You protect me So I will not be cold

| 53

GENERAL INTEREST

ONE-ON-ONE

From Russia with Love Former government minister Ze’ev Elkin spoke to HaMizrachi about his own personal Jewish journey, from persecution in the Former Soviet Union to freedom in Israel.

Tell us about your childhood in Kharkov.

I grew up in a family completely Jewish on both sides, which was not so common.

Apart from knowing that Jewish meant discrimination and problems, we lived a completely secular life. The only thing was perhaps matzah on Pesach, but we ate bread too.

My father was a mathematician, who wasn’t allowed to teach in university because he was Jewish. They wouldn’t accept his doctorate because his facilitator had made aliyah in the 70s.

How did your Jewish journey begin?

First of all, I look Jewish! Throughout school I was acutely aware of the discrimination. As a boy, I was totally immersed in books, and good at chess, two very Jewish things to do in the Former Soviet Union (FSU).

Playing chess as a young boy

I was very interested in history and read everything I could get my hands on. I read Spinoza’s biography, in which the issue of his Jewish identity features quite prominently. Another figure I idolized was Josephus Flavius. Yosef ben Matityahu. Those books opened up a whole new world of ancient Jewish history and philosophy. I began to feel a sense of pride that I was part of something far greater than my Soviet Jewish reality.

They gave me some and told me I should start teaching Hebrew in Kharkov. They sent me to a Hebrew teachers’ seminar still operating underground and warned me that if I was found out, I had no chance of going to university.

That to be a Jew was not just a curse but also a privilege and a heritage.

Was there such a demand to learn Hebrew?

At age 15, I was offered an opportunity to learn Hebrew. One of the few girls in my class of gifted mathematicians had a sister in Leningrad, connected to aliyah activists. My classmate had visited, and brought back a pocket-sized, photocopied Hebrew textbook. She said to me, “I want to learn Ivrit, let’s study together.”

Huge! The Iron Curtain was down, people could travel freely and they had a burning desire to leave. America was not an option and people were looking towards Israel. Not for Zionistic or Jewish reasons but the wish to leave the FSU sparked an interest. Not only in terms of language but history, culture and everything else.

An offer I couldn’t refuse…

It really was a Pesach-type miracle. That original seminar was in the summer of ‘89, when there were about 30 Hebrew students in Kharkov. That same October, I founded a Hebrew teachers’ organization which was soon dealing with 3,000 students!

After two weeks, she’d had enough. But I stuck to it and I was curious to discover more. I had to keep it a secret from my parents though.

Why? It was dangerous. It could have caused a lot of trouble for my family. The last trial of a Hebrew teacher in the Soviet Union was in that same year, in Kharkov, and he was sent to prison for a year.

Do you still play?

Almost every night! Even when I get home at 2 in the morning, I have to lower my adrenalin so I play online with other individuals who have nothing better to do with their time…

54 |

The next stage in my ‘Exodus’ was a class trip to Leningrad. I went to see this girl’s sister, met the activists (all religious, mostly Dati Leumi) and had an amazing day, entering another enthralling world of Judaism, Israel, and activism. And they had a mobile library stocked full of Jewish books translated into Russian.

Thankfully though, the mid-80s marked the start of Perestroika and restrictions and discrimination against Jews were lightened.

I quickly trained my own students, sent them to short courses, and in many cases the teachers were only a few steps ahead of the students. We built our own system and every teacher agreed to pool a percentage of their earnings, with which we bought more books and went on more courses. I set up a Jewish library in Kharkov and we ran a whole series of lectures on Jewish history, heritage and culture. I was still only 18!

Is that when you also began to be religious?

ONE-ON-ONE

That started in the underground seminar, because the people who ran it were Religious Zionists. In general, it was always the Mizrachi, Religious Zionist types who led the Jewish underground in the FSU. It was also they who sent the majority of shlichim in Soviet Jewry’s darkest days.

There I experienced my first Shabbat.

And I kept on reading and reading. At another seminar, two Israelis brought a pair of Tefillin from Eretz Yisrael and for the first time in my life, I put on Tefillin.

On Tisha B’Av. When my mother saw me put on Tefillin, she flipped. “What’s that thing on your head? Are you crazy? You’re a mathematician, an intelligent person, what’s all this nonsense?”

There were others like me in Kharkov and we met up for Shabbatot, walking an hour and a half each way to ‘shul’ (an 11th floor apartment – no elevator – where some old people prayed).

Gradually, I became the contact for the Religious Zionist leadership in Israel, for the whole of the FSU. Before Pesach 1990, I was invited to a European Bnei Akiva Convention in Budapest.

Most of the delegates were religious and I was only partially keeping kashrut, Shabbat. Here’s what partially looks like: “Ze’ev, I’m supposed to be teaching Hebrew on Shabbat but I’m sick. It’s either you or we’ll have to cancel the class.”

“We can’t cancel. Hebrew is sacred.

These people are about to make aliyah.

I’ll come.”

I took a tape recorder (our essential teaching tool) and walked to the class. That same day, we were hosting two secular Israeli women teachers, who had been told that the guy in charge of everything (me) was dati, so they should respect that.

And here they were, listening to the dati guy teaching Ivrit with a tape recorder on Shabbat!

Anyway, I told the convention organizers the time had come to officially launch Bnei Akiva in Russia. They thought I was

mad. “Perestroika has only just begun. It’s still dangerous…”

I didn’t give up so easily. “Two former heads of Bnei Akiva in Israel are coming to Russia for Pesach. I’ll show them what’s happening, set up a seminar with young people and they’ll decide whether to call it Bnei Akiva or not.”

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History of the Jewish People, writing my doctorate on Rav Saadia Gaon.

Ze’ev (center) at Bnei Akiva

My wife and I were newly married and living in a two-room apartment in Kharkov. We invited 30 youngsters and these two Bnei Akiva guys. How we all fit in there was another miracle… and they decided to establish Bnei Akiva.

A friend of mine, head of the non-religious Betar Movement, also wanted to be involved, so I was voted General Secretary and he was my deputy. When his superiors in Israel heard that they were fuming!

“What’s the big deal?” he said. “As a Betari, I defend the Jews making aliyah and Bnei Akiva is education, so in education I’m the deputy and in Betar I’m in charge.

We’re dealing with a Jewish renaissance here. Whether I’m head here or deputy there doesn’t matter. It’s what I’m doing that’s important.”

What was the next stage on your journey to the Promised Land?

We made aliyah just before Chanukah 1990. We started in Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, and I was immediately offered a job directing Bnei Akiva’s aliyah absorption department. I refused, because I wanted to study in yeshiva and university. I had a lot to catch up on.

After about six months, we moved to the Yeshivat Har Etzion Kollel in Alon Shvut and lived there for five years. Five wonderful years that shaped my identity as an intellectual Religious Zionist.

It was the first time in my life I’d studied Jewish thought and philosophy, Halacha, Gemara and Tanach in any sort of methodical way from the original sources.

I also completed my Math degree at the Hebrew University, and studied the

After setting up a large program for Russian academics in Israel to go back and teach Judaism in Russia, I became the advisor to the Jewish Agency’s Director of Education for Russian-language Jewish education, guiding policies in that field for seven years.

Until I entered the Promised Land of politics…

What do you see as the role of Religious Zionism today?

In the past, Religious Zionism saw itself as the hyphen between the secular Zionists and religion. Today, it no longer wants to be responsible solely for upholding religious values in the country.

The Religious Zionist, Dati-Leumi Movement wants to lead, whether in Israel or the Diaspora.

That’s a huge paradigm shift but it’s eminently possible and realistic. It may even have been the original dream of the founders of Mizrachi over 120 years ago.

Our time has come. To lead and combine worldly matters with those of the spirit, of Jewish values and heritage, in all aspects of Israeli society, in a way that is pleasant to all. I believe it is our biggest test in this generation. To leave our Religious Zionist ‘ghetto’ and have a genuine, widespread impact on the destiny of our people, wherever they are. n

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GENERAL INTEREST Rabbi Judah Mischel

The Light of the Land

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e are approaching the great day of Lag BaOmer, the hilulah, or celebration, of the Tanna Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Rashbi), when he revealed the Holy Sefer haZohar to his closest disciples before leaving the world. The Zohar is much more than just the primary textbook of Jewish mysticism, the secrets of the Torah, and a sefer of inner light and deep wisdom. It is a guidebook to navigating the world of the soul, and it allows us to see there is a reality beyond that which we can sense, measure or understand.

pain of exile and to realize the absolute impossibility for its character to fulfill its potential as long as it is oppressed on foreign soil” (Orot, p.95).

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai lived after the destruction of the Second Beit HaMikdash. When the Temple stood, Am Yisrael’s relationship with G-d was an obvious fact. After its destruction, G-d’s existence was concealed and the Shechina was exiled.

Hashgacha Pratit (Divine Providence) is clearly revealed in the fact that in the month in which we celebrate The Zohar and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, we also mark the return of the Jewish nation to its homeland, and rejoice over the restoration of sovereignty and the expansion of our borders as meaningful steps in the unfolding of Jewish destiny and redemption.

The Gemara relates that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the Holy Tanna, said: “See how beloved Israel is to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, for wherever they went into exile, Shechina imahen, the Divine Presence went with them. They were exiled to Egypt, and Shechina imahen; they were exiled to Babylon, veShechina imahen. And when Am Yisrael will be redeemed in the future, the Shechina will be redeemed with them…”(Megillah 29a).

Indeed, the secrets of the Torah and the special days in Iyar can be viewed as a single idea. As Rav Kook taught, “The secrets of the Torah bring redemption and return Israel to its Land because the Torah of truth… demands the complete soul of the nation. Through this inner Torah, the nation begins to feel the

In a world darkened by destruction, exile and Divine concealment, the Zohar reveals hope and meaning by opening our eyes to our true inner lifeforce and the reality of G-d’s plan and involvement in everything transpiring in the world. Beneath the surface of world events, there is an inner reality

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that is pulsating, alive, shining with G-d’s light.

The Navi (Melachim Alef, 6) refers to Iyar as the month of ziv, “shining” or splendor. This word is translated into Aramaic by the Targum as nitzan, “blossom.” Nitzan itself alludes to the sweet fragrance of the coming redemption of our Land and her people: ...‫ַה ִנ ָ ּ​ּצנִ ים נִ ְרא ּו ָב ָא ֶרץ ֵעת ַהזָ ִּמיר ִה ִ ּג ַיע‬ “Blossoms have appeared in the Land; the time for song has arrived…

The song of the turtledove is heard in our Land.”

(Shir HaShirim, 2:12) May the merit of Rashbi open our eyes to see the great splendor of the Torah, and awaken us to the urgent need for redemption. May the joyful songs of Lag BaOmer be heard throughout the universe, and may we bask in the holiness of Eretz Yisrael with the great return of our nation.

Rabbi Judah Mischel is Executive Director of Camp HASC, the Hebrew Academy for Special Children, Mashpiah of OU-NCSY and founder of Tzama Nafshi.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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PA R E N T I N G Dr. Yocheved Debow

How to Talk to Your Children about Intimacy

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e recognize that imparting our values to our children requires time and thoughtful education. However, in the area of sexuality and relationships, we are often silent.

This communicates an important message. Not talking about sexuality, especially when it is so prevalent in movies and the media, gives an implicit message that parents, or perhaps Judaism, is at the very least uncomfortable or, worse, has nothing positive to say about sexuality.

If our children are to view a Torah lifestyle as relevant, they must experience Torah as addressing issues that concern them. Talking about sexuality and relationships from a Jewish perspective helps our children appreciate the wisdom and relevance of Judaism to their lives.

Children need to learn developmentally appropriate, traditional Jewish concepts of social, personal, and sexual development, beginning from an early stage in their own development and continuing through childhood and adolescence.

They require a safe environment with opportunity for discussions and questions, so they can acquire Torah-based values these areas. They can then process the endless cultural messages they receive, choosing which to accept and which to reject through this prism of Torah-based values.

Here are 10 tips for talking with our children about sexuality.

1. Language is important. Not just what we say but how we say it makes a big difference. Give your children words that show respect for our bodies and our sexuality and that models a sense of dignity and beauty with regards to sexuality and intimacy.

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2. Don’t make speeches – listen! We learn a lot from asking our children questions and understanding what they think and know about intimacy and sexuality.

3. Always tell the truth. You do not need to tell the whole truth, but whatever you tell must be the truth, otherwise you lose your status as “askable” parents.

4. Help your children differentiate between private and secret. Keeping something private is usually about choosing boundaries and staying comfortably within them, so that we share certain things only with certain people on certain occasions. By contrast, keeping something secret is usually about actively hiding something, often for fear of the consequences of it being known. In general, privacy is good and secrets are not.

5. Children should learn about where babies come from in different ways at different stages of their development from their parents and not from anyone else.

6. Since children tend to develop physically earlier than they used to, they should be learning about puberty and bodily changes before they happen.

7. Tzniut is often the mitzvah that provides the greatest challenge to many of our daughters. It is unfair to measure their religiosity on the basis of the very mitzvah that provides the greatest challenge. If we can encourage their religious growth and commitment in all areas and continue to educate toward commitment to halacha, they will likely gradually move to greater commitment in tzniut as well.

8. Strive to help your children be aware that Judaism’s approach to relationships between men and women is not because Judaism views sexuality as bad; quite the opposite. It is because it sees sexuality as something so wonderful, powerful and good that it needs to be limited so as to maintain its intensity and passion.

9. Modern society is grappling with many questions about gender and sexual identity. These questions impact on and can be confusing to our children. Help your children understand by discussing these topics with them and sharing your thoughts, ideas and understandings in these areas.

10. Remember to share with your children how much the lifestyle we live is one we have come to by choice, because we believe it to be good for our bodies and our souls and because it honors the fact that each of us is created in the image of G-d – with spirituality and physicality intertwined.

Ultimately, we parents need to keep lines of communication open with our children. We can help them feel respected by confirming the very real challenges and concerns sexuality can present while believing in their ability to navigate these challenges with dignity and commitment.

Dr. Yocheved Debow is the author of Talking about Intimacy: A Guide for Orthodox Jewish Parents. She is the Academic Principal at Midreshet Emunah v’Omanut.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

R E L AT I O N S H I P S

GENERAL INTEREST Rabbi Moshe Berliner

Yom HaAtzmaut and Marriage

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om HaAtzmaut, Israel’s Day of Independence: a remarkable day, a day of Hallel for our spirit, and mangal, the traditional Israeli barbecue, for our bodies. After 2,000 years, the Jewish people have regained sovereignty. Atzmaut means independence.

We live our national life in a world of interdependent nations, each having the autonomy to act according to their values and interests. Yom HaAtzmaut marks the restoration of our political independence. It proclaims our freedom to determine our fate within the family of the nations of the world.

Our return to national independence is a Divinely-given miracle. Like all miracles, it took place in an historical context. We celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut each year to renew our gratitude to G-d for the precious gift we have received.

The word ‫ ַע ְצ ָמאוּת‬is derived from the root ‫ע ֶצם‬,ֶ which means the essence.

Inherent in Yom HaAtzmaut are two different elements, both of which are crucial for Am Yisrael to live its essential purpose.

The first is for Am Yisrael to be independent from the nations of the world.

We must be able to take responsibility for our actions within the family of the

nations. Independence also means the freedom to be the kind of nation we decide to be.

As much as Yom HaAtzmaut is a celebration of our independence from the nations of the world, it is also a crucial transformation in history which challenges us to create the ideal Jewish society in Eretz Yisrael, the peoplehood that G-d outlined in the Torah: ‫ַמ ְמלֶ כֶ ת ֹּכ ֲהנִ ים‬ ‫ – וְ גוֹ י ָקדוֹ ׁש‬a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. An independent Israel is to be the unique homeland of our spiritual renaissance. It is vital that our goal in celebrating Yom HaAtzmaut be twofold.

To maintain the sense of the miracle by restoring our political freedom, and to strengthen our resolve to build a Torah society in the Land He returned to us.

These two elements of independence are also reflected in marriage. Marriage has its own Yom HaAtzmaut – the day of our wedding. When we marry, we transform our status from single people into a married couple. Yesterday we were distinct individuals living our own lives. As separate individuals, we lived full lives with goals to achieve and values to live by. When we marry, we create a new reality. We are a couple, a married unit. We act together, separate from the

lives we lived the moment before we married. A wedding is a momentous act we celebrate each year. We mark our anniversary as the opportunity to celebrate the extraordinary transformation our marriage brought to our lives.

We embark together on a new chapter of our lives.

Moreover, celebrating our anniversary provides us with another challenge. It should also imbue us with renewed commitment to work together to build our marriage, to clarify the ideals which underpin our relationship, and to continue to craft the distinctive life which expresses those values. That is the work of a lifetime.

A wedding creates a new reality. It too is a day of atzmaut, a day of separation from the status of being a single person.

It is also a day of independence for the couple to deepen their commitment to each other and to continue to build their unique essence, as one.

Yom HaAtzmaut Sameach!

Rabbi Moshe Berliner is an author, M.S.W. and therapist specializing in family and marriage.

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GENERAL INTEREST

S TO R Y Rabbi Binny Freedman

Lessons from Tzfat in 1948

I

n 1948, things did not look promising for the Jews.

The Arab armies of Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and forces from Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria prepared to attack the newly declared State of Israel as soon as the British pulled out in May of 1948, vowing to push the Jews into the sea.

In Tzfat, where 80,000 Arabs surrounded approximately 3,000 Jews living in the Jewish Quarter, the Jews were braced for the worst. Sure enough, as the British pulled out of Tzfat, thousands of Arabs armed with hunting rifles, knives and clubs attacked the Jewish Quarter. The few hundred Jewish fighters were hopelessly outnumbered and fierce fighting broke out at the entrance to the Old City.

The Citadel, the most important position in the city, with a strategic command of the entire area, was a British fortress, which the Jewish fighters had to take in order to survive. But the Arabs, with advanced notice from the British, had already taken command of the Citadel. In a bold move, members of the Palmach (the fighting arm of the Jewish underground Haganah) planted explosives at the base of the thick Citadel walls, determined to blast their way through in a desperate attempt to save the Jews and establish a position from which to hold out against the furious Arab onslaught.

Suddenly, just as they were ready to detonate the explosives, a freak rainstorm broke out, soaking the detonation wires and preventing the explosion. This was May, the beginning of spring. The rainy season usually ends a month or two

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earlier. One of the fighters turned to one of his religious comrades asking: “Doesn’t G-d want us to come home?

How could He let it rain in May?” (Eventually fighters managed to cross the street under heavy gunfire and detonate the explosives from close range, but losing many men in the process.

The bullet holes still mark the walls where this fierce battle took place.)

Meanwhile, down below, at the entrance to the Jewish Quarter, things were going from bad to worse, and in desperation, the Jews decided to employ their last resort.

Desperately short on arms, they had developed what they hoped would be an answer to Arab armor and artillery.

The Davidka, (literally: ‘little David’) was essentially a home-built mortar.

One could fill the Davidka with rocks, nails and metal balls and, setting it off with explosives, fire a deadly stream at the advancing enemy. It was a brilliant idea, as it would allow the Jews to use readily available supplies to arm themselves. Unfortunately, it did not work, barely knocking a man down at close range. It did, however, produce an incredibly loud explosion, and the Jews at this point had nothing to lose.

Faced with thousands of Arabs, and without even enough bullets to fire at them all, they fired the Davidka just as the rain began pouring down. And to their amazement, the Arabs stopped, turned and ran.

Not quite understanding what was happening, they fired the Davidka three more times until the entire Arab army had fled the quarter, and the miracle legend of Tzfat was born.

This week’s parasha, Tazria, focuses on the issue of tzara’at. Tradition teaches that tzara’at was the direct consequence of lashon hara and rechilut, evil speech and gossip, and as such it was an opportunity for a person to do some introspection and consider the error of his ways.

The Sefer HaChinuch points out (mitzvah 168) that this particular process enabled us to recognize the power of Divine Providence, and relates to the larger issues of destiny, reward and punishment, and the balance between the nature of miracles and the miracle of nature.

As an example, one of the many signs of tzara’at for which an expert Kohen had to be consulted, was when a hair on a person’s body turned a particular shade of white (“like snow”) or yellow (like winter grass; see Vayikra 13:30).

And the Kohen’s challenge was not only to find the correct shade, but to ensure that indeed there were two hairs which had turned white, and not one, because when only one hair had turned white, the person was not confined but remained in a state of ritual purity.

Think about it: the difference between being a metzora and being pure was one hair on a person’s body.

The Midrash in Vayikra Rabbah (15:3) shares a magnificent insight related to this detail of halacha: “You will not find a single strand of hair for which G-d did not create an appropriate follicle in the skin, so that one (hair) should not benefit from what ‘belongs’ to another.”

Consider the importance of this Midrash. I can learn to become a more ethical human being simply by studying the hairs on my forearm! After all, if every hair on my arm has its place, then how much more must I consider that every human being, and every event, however challenging, has a place in G-d’s plan.

The Baal Shem Tov points out that we often make the mistake of missing the messages sent our way. If you see someone desecrating Shabbat, do not assume it is because you are meant to exhort them on the error of their ways. Rather, assume it is a message to you regarding an error of yours. Imagine if we really lived life this way, struggling with what we need to fix in ourselves, instead of spending so much time figuring out what we need to fix in everybody else.

What a different world it would be!

On the other hand, if I took the time to analyze every leaf, twig, insect, and sound that came my way, I would never get to shul in the morning. Yet to ignore the many powerful messages that often cross our path is to risk living a life of callousness and lose so many opportunities to grow as a person and as a society. How does one find the balance?

And more: if everything is G-d-sent, where is man’s role?

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 72a) states: ‫הבא‬ ‫ – להורגך השכם להורגו‬If a person comes to kill you, arise and kill him first. Indeed, when Abraham’s nephew Lot is captured by the five kings, he does not wait for G-d to perform miracles – he musters an army and saves Lot himself.

How are we to find this ever-elusive balance, trusting in G-d and recognizing his master-plan on the one hand,

and being active partners in building a better world on the other?

This question was at the root of a controversy that remains a prominent social issue in Israel even today. If after 2,000 years, G-d has decided it is time to bring us home, who are we to try and take it into our own hands? Maybe the best thing for a young man or woman to do is to be immersed in Torah and good deeds, and leave the destiny of the Jewish people (and the defense of the Land of Israel) up to G-d?

Clearly, we need to be willing to trust in G-d that life will send us what we need to receive, as well as to be partners with G-d in making that happen. As the Vilna Gaon suggests, faith without hishtadlut is not really faith. It bespeaks a certain arrogance; who says I have earned the right to have faith that G-d will help me? On the other hand, the assumption that I can do it all, and that it all depends on me, stems from this very same arrogance.

Ultimately, once I have done my bit, then I have the right to believe that G-d, in one way or another, will do His.

Perhaps, like the metzora, we need to take some time for introspection, to consider how best to find that balance.

It was only after the war they found out what had really happened in Tzfat.

It seems the Arabs’ greatest fear was the fact that most of the people behind the development of America’s atomic bomb were Jewish (most notably Einstein and Oppenheimer), and the Arabs had heard a little bit about acid rain. So they assumed the Jews had just set off an atomic bomb, and the rest is history!

Every tour guide worth their salt will show their tourists this spot and with a smile, ask the same question: was this a miracle? Or just a freak of nature? In Tzfat, there are no miracles, because all of nature is miraculous, and miracles surround us every day…

Rabbi Binny Friedman is the Rosh Yeshiva of Orayta.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau mizrachi.org/speakers

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HaMizrachi

Family Pages Yom HaAtzmaut Quiz 1. On what Hebrew date was the Independent State of Israel declared in 1948? a. The 4th of Iyar b. The 5th of Iyar c. The 6th of Iyar d. The 7th of Iyar 2. In which city did David Ben-Gurion announce the independence of the new State of Israel? a. Yerushalayim b. Tel Aviv c. Beer Sheva d. Yaffo 3. Where was the first Knesset? a. Where the Knesset is currently, in Yerushalayim b. Beit Dizengoff in Tel Aviv c. Beit Salmon in Yaffo d. In the Old City of Yerushalayim 4. At the time of Israel’s independence, how many people lived in Israel? a. Over a million b. 600,000 c. 734,000 d. 50,000 5. Which country was the first to support Israel in the UN Resolution? a. The United States b. Australia c. England d. India 6. In what year was the IDF founded? a. 1928 b. 1947 c. 1948 d. 1949

b. 3. b. 4. c. 5. a. 6. c

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1. a. 2.

Answers

In Our Own Words

Daniella Lev Age 10 From Yeruch a

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Hi! I moved to Israel in 2019 . One thing I about Israel is love the sites - th e craters in th South, the K e inneret in th e North, and the Kotel! An o f co urse, other one of the things I lik Israel is the f e about ood! I also lik e the indepe have in Yeru ndence I cham. I can b e out al l Shab my parents kn bat and ow I’l l call or just come ho after Shabb me at. I love my w elcoming com and last year munity , when our fi rst Yom HaA Israel was af tzmaut in fected by CO VID, our frien us a scavenge ds made r hunt where each answer sent to a dif was ferent perso n. I love Israe and I can’t w l, my home, ait until we ar e able to exp even more al erience l around Israe l!

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Family Discussions for Yom HaAtzmaut Spark a family discussion during your Yom HaAtzmaut picnic or barbecue with these thought-provoking questions for parents and siblings: »

Ask your parents or grandparents to describe the miracle of the founding of the State of Israel from their point of view.

»

Are there any wars they remember or experienced? Ask them to tell you about it.

»

How would you have felt to be in Israel in 1948 and hear David Ben-Gurion declare Israel’s independence?

»

Imagine what your great-great-grandparents would feel like if they would be alive today.

What would they say or do? Act it out!

»

Why is it so important for Israel to be an independent country?

»

Why is Israel important to Jews living outside of Israel?

»

Yom HaZikaron is the day before Yom HaAtzmaut. How can we make such a big jump between sadness and mourning to happiness and celebration?

»

We pray for a geula shleima, a full redemption. What can we do to bring it closer?

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