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ISRAEL AT SIXTY-FOUR
This week will mark the sixty fourth anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. That fact by itself represents a monumental achievement. There were great people in the Jewish world who were skeptical of the entire enterprise. There were those who were convinced that the state somehow would not survive for more than fifteen years let alone fifty.
Ringed by violent enemies, threatened with extinction by one of the then super powers in the world, forced to accept millions of destitute refugees, plagued by deep and stubborn internal religious and ideological confrontations, hobbled by a socialist economy that discouraged economic development, the situation looked to be a bleak one. Yet all of the doomsday prophets have been confounded.
The Arab world is currently in deep disarray, economically, politically and socially. All of the champions of Israel’s destruction, the Grand Mufti, Nasser, the Assads, Arafat, etc. are all in the dustbin of history. The Soviet Union is no longer and much of Soviet Jewry now finds itself settled in Israel and doing quite well on the whole. The ingathering of the exiles has been the difficult process that the Talmud predicted that it would be, but, again, to a great extent it has been accomplished.
There is still a great deal of work to do on that front but we certainly have come a long way even on that difficult issue. Israel is a first world country, economically, socially and politically. And perhaps for the first time in Jewish history there are six million Jews living in this small but great place. This is no small miracle.
There were also those in the leadership echelons of the nascent state who were convinced that religious practice and Torah study in the new state were doomed to attrition and eventual extinction. Marx was destined to be the new Moses and the old ways of observance and tradition, customs and Torah study were to be discarded. I remember that in the United States then there were leading rabbinic figures that also held that pessimistic view of the Jewish religious future and I am certain that this was the case in Israel as well.
They painted the new state in dark colors, convinced that secularism as an ideal had triumphed and that ironically Torah study and its values and life style would be unable to survive, let alone thrive in Israel. But again, the very existence of the state has confounded that dour view of the future of the state. The Lord promised us that the bond between the Jewish people and Torah would never be completely severed and that promise has proven itself valid once more in our time and in our state.
After decades of indifference and ignorance the Jewish population in Israel, across the entire wide spectrum of its makeup, has renewed its interest in Torah and in being Jewish. Even if one is not observant, one can still be Jewish in loyalty, outlook and hopes. And anyone who has the privilege of living in Israel very soon realizes that in spite of all of the noise, static and negative rants, one is living in a very Jewish state.
Well, you will correctly point out to me, “What about Iran? What about Shabat in Tel Aviv and Haifa? What about civil marriage laws being proposed, and what about our Palestinian cousins? What about the Jewish boycotters and doomsday prophets and how about the UN and the EU?” Well, I will certainly admit that the Lord has left us with a rather full plate of issues and problems.
But on the whole I am convinced that somehow we will be able to deal with all of these assorted exisistential issues. After all, we now have sixty-four years of experience in dealing with these matters. In the Torah discipline of gematrya, where letters serve as numbers and vice versa, sixty four represents the Hebrew letters of samach and dalet. In Jewish tradition samach and dalet represent the words siyata dshaya, meaning with the help of Heaven.
There is no doubt that we will need Heavenly aid to confront all of the problems that are before us currently. But upon reviewing the enormous difficulties that Israel has overcome in its first sixty-four years – the wars and terror, the enmities and hatred, the distortions and lies, etc. – there is much room for optimism and hope. History has shown that our enemies always came to a bitter end and so shall it be in the present and future as well. Heavenly help will somehow be available.
Shabat shalom.
Berel Wein
