D'var Torah
Nisan - Iyyar 5767
Never Take
Me for Granted
Reflections on Yom ha-Atzma-ut
While there are those who remember and recall a world without Israel, for many Jews, baby-boomers, generation Jones (a large, anonymous generation once included with either boomers or X’ers), generation X’ers, Generation Y’ers (a.k.a.The Net Generation, Reagan Babies, Millennials, Echo Boomers <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_Boom> , iGeneration <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGeneration> , Second Baby Boom, the D.A.R.E. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.A.R.E.> Generation, Google Generation <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Generation> , MySpace <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace> Generation, MyPod Generation (from the fusion of "MySpace <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace> " and "iPod <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod> "), Generation Next, Grand Theft Auto <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto> Generation, Nintendo Generation, Me Generation and the Cynical <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynical> Generation), there has always been a State of Israel.
For many of us, our identity as Jews has been shaped and formed by that reality. For many others, however, Israel does not play any significant role in their lives or priorities. We would do well to recall Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s radical amazement at the creation of a Third dependent Jewish commonwealth in 1948, and the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967. He wrote:
Unprecedented. A people despised persecuted, scattered to all corners of the earth, has the audacity to dream of regaining authenticity, of being free in the Holy Land.
For nearly two thousands years and many times a day in joy and sorrow we prayed for you, Jerusalem, and our prayers never turned pale…. Despoiled and dispersed, abased and harassed, we knew we were not estranged forever. We mourned you, we never wept you away. Hope was hatched in the nests of agony. The love of this land was due to an imperative, not to an instinct, not to sentiment. There is a covenant, an engagement of the people to the land. We live by covenants. We could not betray our pledge or discard the promise.
When Israel was driven into exile, the pledge became a prayer, the prayer a dream; the dream a passion, a duty, a dedication. Intimate attachment to the land, waiting for the renewal of Jewish life in the land of Israel, is part of our integrity, an existential fact. Unique, sui generis, it lives in our hopes it abides in our hearts. It is a commitment we must not betray. Three thousand years of faithfulness cannot be wiped off. To abandon the land would be to make a mockery of all our longings, prayers, and commitments. To abandon the land would be to repudiate the Bible
[Israel: An Echo of Eternity, pp. 43-44].
There is a reason
why Hatikvah, "The
Hope," is the national anthem of the state of Israel. Never
take Israel for granted. Lift your heart and your voice in celebrating
Israel’s 59th year of independence, and in assuring the ongoing
presence of a sovereign Jewish state.
Copyright © 2007, Barry A. Kenter