For almost all of every year, it seems to us in the Diaspora, Israel is a source of worry, a sibling in danger, a cause to be defended, a locus of problems that need to be solved.
For most of the year, we who love Israel are consumed with its tzuris. We fight with those who want to destroy it, and fight with each other over what kind of country we want it to be and over how best to defend it.
Yet once a year comes the celebration of Israel’s Independence Day, Yom HaAtzmaut. And that can and should be a time to try to step back from the battles and the problems, to admire and celebrate all that is wonderful and even miraculous about this soon-to-be-58-year-old state.
Yes, it appears that too many Jews, especially younger ones, don’t seem to have deep, in-their-kishkes (guts) attachment to the modern state and awe at its existence.
To many born since 1948, or even since 1967, Israel has been a fact of life, a part of the Jewish community’s physical and intellectual landscape just as the city of Washington, D.C., is part of the American. Yet Washington was and is a marvelous creation, a city built on a vision of what a democratically-elected republican form of government could be.
Israel is no less awe-inspiring; indeed, even more. Its first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, saw it was so even in the 1950s. “We have gathered up human particles … and combined them into the fruitful and creative nucleus of a nation revived,” he said in an address in 1953.
“[In] the desolate spaces of a ruined and abandoned Homeland, we have … built villages and towns, planted gardens and established factories; … we have breathed new life into our muted and abandoned ancient language. … Such a marvel is unique in the history of human culture.”
Of course, Israel’s achievements have gone far beyond that by 2006. Israel today is a cultural, military, scientific, technological and economic powerhouse, whose strength even its enemies reluctantly are forced to acknowledge.
In fact, even the hostility it generates can be considered a backhanded tribute. On a planet inhabited by some 6 billion people, what other country of merely 6 million people on such a tiny strip of land so troubles the counsels of seemingly everybody else?
Indeed, the world should do well to heed a passage from midrashic literature (Esther Rabbah) that seems to foretell what is going on now: “Myrtle is sweet to the one who smells it, but bitter to the one who bites it; so Israel brings prosperity to those who grant it kindness, and depression to those who afflict it with evil.”
Chag Yom HaAtzmaut sameach.
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