Our Hearts Are In Israel: Commemorate Yom HaZikaron And Celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut With The OU

By BJLife Newsroom
Posted on 04/13/21

A message from Orthodox Union Executive Vice President Rabbi Moshe Hauer

Maharal of Prague identified three characteristics of the exile experience: dislocation, subordination, and dispersion. As we commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the founding of Medinat Yisrael, we are filled with gratitude for the fulfillment of the prayers of generations for the return to our precious and holy land, Eretz Yisrael, for the restoration of our sovereignty, and for the ingathering of so many of the exiles.

Each of these gifts would be enough to celebrate, דיינו, and our generation has merited them all. הודו לד' כי טוב כי לעולם חסדו.

Yet what he have experienced in our time is not just a physical ingathering, but the reestablishment of a profound sense of national identity and destiny. Our dispersion cultivated a mindset that pursued personal, communal, or religious survival. The restoration of our dominant national home has stirred a stronger sense of belonging to our people, to Klal Yisrael.

There may be no greater display of this phenomenon than the commemoration of Yom HaZikaron. On this day when Israel remembers its fallen soldiers and victims of terror, the country holds aloft and is inspired by the individual stories of the remarkable men and women who gave their lives for the security and safety of Klal Yisrael. Everywhere that teens gather they consider their own futures in the shadow of those that came before them and they ask themselves what they will do for their country and their people.

As Jews who see our Torah as the core of our identity, we may sometimes view nationalistic feeling as an inappropriate and shallow alternative. This need not be the case. Torah was given to us as we stood at Sinai as one man with one heart, sharing a sense of purpose and of destiny that began with a firm sense of belonging to a nation. The gift of Medinat Yisrael has restored to us, young and old, that greater sense of identity and of belonging to Am Yisrael.

That is a great gift. That is the beginning of our redemption, אתחלתא דגאולה.

May each of us be inspired by the memories of the thousands who gave their lives to restore Israel to the Jewish people and the Jewish people to Israel, and may it move each of us to strengthen our personal identification with Klal Yisrael and its mission, one nation upholding G-d’s Torah in our holy land.