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Yom Hazikaron & Yom HaAtzmaut: Israel 's unique two-day sequence

By Rabbi Michael Fessler

 

YomHazikaron & Yom HaAtzmaut: Israel 's unique two-day sequence
For an American Jew, one of the real pleasures of living in Israel for an extended time is the opportunity to experience a society where the rhythms of the week and the year are Jewish. The first time you plan a trip around your Sukkot vacation, or rush to finish your Friday grocery shopping before the store closes for Shabbat, you sense how the rhythms of Jewish life, so challenging to maintain here, are simply taken for granted in Israel.

One of the most memorable periods in Israeli life is the two-day sequence of Yom HaZikkaron, the nation's Memorial Day for fallen soldiers, and Yom HaAtzmaut , Israel 's Independence Day. The power of these two days, and the transition between them, is extraordinary.

One of the most memorable periods in Israeli life is the two-day sequence of Yom HaZikkaron, the nation's Memorial Day for fallen soldiers, and Yom HaAtzmaut , Israel 's Independence Day. The power of these two days, and the transition between them, is extraordinary.

Yom HaZikkaron is a solemn day of mourning. In a country with a citizen army and a history of fighting wars in every generation for its right to exist, it is a rare family that has not been touched in some way by war and its terrible price. Television and radio programming for the day takes on a somber cast - one TV channel is devoted to nothing more than a procession of the names of all those fallen, like an electronic Vietnam Memorial. The most arresting moment of all is the sounding of the air raid siren across the country. As the wail arises, all motion stops. Pedestrians stand at attention, cars pull over and their drivers get out standing, buses stop as if the siren was a roadblock and their passengers rise in remembrance.

The transition at sundown from Yom HaZikkaron to Yom HaAtzmaut is, by contrast, subdued, but the emotional transition is profound: from expressive mourning to equally demonstrative celebration.

In 1998, I spent Israel 's 50th Independence Day in Jerusalem . Downtown, tens of thousands of people filled the streets, dancing to bands playing everything from salsa music to Chasidic rock-and-roll to big-band swing. There were fireworks, teenagers chasing each other through the crowd with Silly String and foam hammers, all-night folk dancing outside the municipal complex at Kikar Safra. Late into that night, and the next morning at a minyan at the Western Wall, I savored my feeling of awe. After two thousand years of exile, Jews were living in a free Jewish society and speaking Hebrew not just to pray but to buy toothpaste and talk to bus drivers as well. I found myself deeply grateful to be alive at a time when this was possible.

There are two Jewish texts that for me perfectly capture that tension between the two days - between pain at the sacrifice that Jewish self-determination has demanded, and pride at the fruits of that enterprise. The first is Ezekiel's famous prophecy of the dry bones and their resurrection, the prophecy of the rebirth of a nation that had lost all hope and all will to live (Ezek. 37). Ezekiel's images of death yielding to new life are particularly evocative and poignant in the wake of the Holocaust.

The second is a poem by Nathan Alterman, written not long after Israel 's birth. Its title, “The Silver Platter,” is a play on Chaim Weizmann's epigram that “A state is not handed to a people on a silver platter.” In it, a nation, battle-worn and looking toward the future, is approached by two young people, a man and a woman, who are casualties of war. The final stanza:

Through wondering tears, the people stare.
"Who are you, the silent two?"
And they reply: "We are the silver platter
Upon which the Jewish State was served to you."
And speaking, fall in shadow at the nation's feet.
Let the rest in Israel 's chronicles be told.

For me, the grimness of the pair's loss is redeemed by the final line, the pivot on which the poem turns: “Let the rest in Israel 's chronicles be told.” Tragic loss joins there with heroism and hope for the future: had it not been for the sacrifice embodied by these two, “ Israel 's chronicles” would have ended. This hinge is like the siren that separates Yom HaZikkaron from Yom HaAtzmaut: Our history, like our lives, can be understood only as an unbroken whole; the sorrow and the national vision inextricably linked.

Before their redemption, the bones of Ezekiel's vision say, “Our hope is lost” - “avda tikvateinu” in the Hebrew. The Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, turns this phrase on its head, declaring: “Od lo avda tikvateinu…” - “yet our hope is not lost / our hope of 2000 years / to be a free people in our land.” May that hope continue to live - and may the Jewish people continue to have the extraordinary privilege to struggle with the moral and existential choices that national independence presents - as Israel continues its second fifty years of life.

From: http://www.jfpsnj.com

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