“On the Inherent Sanctity of Independence Day”

The title of this essay is taken from the title that my revered teacher, R. Zvi Yehuda Kook (from whom I was privileged to learn at the Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva), gave to a speech he delivered at his yeshiva on Israel’s third Yom Ha-atzma’ut. R. Zvi Yehuda was one of those who established the day as one that has spiritual and religious significance, in addition to its national significance.^[1] His attitude informed the customs related to this holiday, which took shape in his yeshiva: recitation of special prayers, prayer for the welfare of the State of Israel, and Halel.

After the Disengagement and the incidents at Amona, there were voices within the religious Zionist community that questioned our relationship with the state and our relationship to Yom Ha-atzma’ut in particular. Some even called for the end of the special prayers and from waving the flag. These people raised various claims about the spiritual meaning of Yom Ha-atzma’ut. Some went even further, calling on the community to “disengage” from the state and from participation in its military.

Claims and challenges about the spiritual significance of Yom Ha-atzma’ut have been raised in the past and are nothing new, but during the first years of the state no questions were raised about celebrating Yom Ha-atzma’ut; the state’s declaration of independence on 5 Iyar, 5708 (May 14, 1948), a few short years after the Holocaust, generated a torrent of spontaneous celebration amongst all segments of the people. There was a feeling that we have been privileged to see the moment that had been anticipated throughout 2,000 long years of exile – “to be a free people in our land.” Even the greatest rabbis of the Haredi community spoke of the state using expressions like “the first flowering of our redemption.” Over time, however, questions were raised about the permanent establishment of the holiday for several reasons, including:

1. Once the state became a routine fact, the spontaneous joy diminished.
2. Over time, numerous flaws in the state’s administration were exposed, pertaining especially to issues dear to the religious community. This caused many to wonder if the state we have is indeed the state we had hoped for, and whether one may celebrate the birth of a state that, in some ways, contravenes the Torah.
3. Some claimed that there is no spiritual or theological value to Israel’s independence from foreign rule, only national value; there can only be spiritual or theological value to a state that adheres fully to the commandments of the Torah.

Those who raised questions more recently are part and parcel of the religious Zionist camp and grew up within it. Although we must give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that their questions grew out of their deep pain over the condition of the state, its institutions, and the way it is being governed, these questions must not dull our passion for Yom Ha-atzma’ut as a day of thanking the Almighty for the great gift He has given us and the great kindnesses He has done for us through the establishment of the state – as will be specified.

One of Israel’s greatest rabbis compared the obligation to express gratitude to God on Yom Ha-atzma’ut to a couple that has a child after many barren years: the happy couple wholeheartedly thanks God for the amazing gift He has given them. It later becomes apparent that the child suffers from a birth defect that forced him and his parents to undergo prolonged treatment and no small amount of suffering. Should the parents therefore be ungrateful to God and complain to Him that His gift was imperfect? Certainly they would give full-throated thanks to God despite their suffering. So too on Yom Ha-atzma’ut: we thank God for the great gift he has given us – a state that manifests the dream of generations – and although we do not ignore its flaws or the physical and spiritual suffering it occasionally causes, our obligation to thank God for this gift is not mitigated in the slightest. On the contrary, we must marshal our strength to repair and resolve its flaws and thus become God’s partners in this endeavor.

The questions and doubts that have arisen about “the power of the sanctity of our day of independence” obligates us, for our own sake, to repeat and review this matter as it was explained in great breadth and depth in the words and writings of our great masters, whose halakhic and ideological responses to the events as they occurred remains relevant today. In particular, R. Zvi Yehuda devoted dozens of essays and gave numerous speeches about various aspects of this issue.

The fundamental question about the spiritual value of this day is: of what significance is this day of 5 Iyar. After all, at first glance the only thing that happened on it was the act of declaring a state – mere words that changed nothing in reality. Absolutely nothing. No territorial borders changed from what had been the day before, nothing changed as far as the military reality; even as far as the prevailing regime was concerned, nothing really changes, as the Provisional Government was virtually identical to the existing national institutions.

1. R. Zvi Yehuda analyzed the practical and spiritual ramifications of the declaration: the establishment of a sovereign national political entity by representatives of the people of Israel ended sovereign rule and initiated the sovereignty of the Jewish people over the entirety of the Land of Israel. This change had significant ramifications for one of the most central mitzvot of the Torah: the mitzva to possess the land, which is equal to the entire Torah. Ramban explains that this mitzva has two components: a. settling in the land; b. exercising sovereignty over the land.^[2] According to Ramban, this is a central mitzva, which requires the political entity to even declare war, if necessary, to possess the land – and such a war would be a milhemet mitzva – a war that is a mitzva – even if it would place the lives of soldiers at risk (of course, this refers only to reasonable endangerment of life, as determined in advance by the king and the leaders of the army). The mitzva of possessing the land is a unique mitzva that, unlike the Torah’s other commandments, is not superseded by piku’ah nefesh, the endangerment of lives. Thus, the great joy of Yom Ha-atzma’ut stems from our great fortune at the renewal of this mitzva: “Blessed is He who has supported us and sustained us and brought us to this time, to the true fulfillment of this great, holy, and fundamental mitzva.”^[3]

It is worth noting that commentators on Rambam explain that even according to Rambam exercising political sovereignty over the land fulfills a mitzva.^[4]

While R. Zvi Yehuda was still alive, some asked: is it proper to rejoice over the renewal of rule and sovereignty when this sovereign government uses its power to go against the Torah? R. Zvi Yehuda responded, citing Rambam, that the joy of Hanukah and the recitation of Halel on it were due to the great miracle of the restoration of Jewish sovereignty and dominion for two centuries:

The Hasmonean High Priests prevailed and killed them and saved Israel from them. They appointed a kohein as king, and dominion was restored to Israel for more than two hundred years, until the second Destruction.^[5]

It is well known that the Hasmonean dynasty did not always comply with the Torah (according to Ramban, appointing a non-Davidic king is a serious sin, for which the Hasmoneans were punished), and for a time was even Sadducee, waging war against the Torah. King Yannai murdered the entire Sanhedrin of his day! And still, we rejoice and thank God for the miracle of restoring the monarchy.^[6]

In this context, it is worth noting that the founding of the state and the approval of its institutions set the stage for the establishment of a unified military: the Israel Defense Forces (when earlier all of the underground militias operated independently). The establishment of the IDF significantly impacted how war was waged against the Arab armies that attacked the nascent state with full force. It can be averred that this saved many Jewish lives. For this miracle of being rescued from slavery to freedom and from death to life, we must thank and praise God (according to Hatam Sofer, this obligation is de-Orayta, deriving directly from the Torah).

1. R. Zvi Yehuda also emphasized our debt of gratitude to God for the great miracle of the ingathering of the Diaspora. Although we no longer see how all of these exiles were brought into the fledgling state, and our daily troubles cause us to forget this great wonder, we must remind ourselves of this unprecedented miracle of the return of a people to its soil after thousands of years of exile.

We sometimes become obsessed with the current reality, so we must remind ourselves how much pain and travail the Jewish people suffered in exile, culminating in the terrible Holocaust, in order to appreciate the transformation wrought by the establishment of the state. Then, even if we see that the glass is partially empty, we would not ignore the part of the glass that is full! Was there ever a time in Jewish history when as many people studied Torah and there were as many Torah institutions? Doesn’t the Jewish state maintain and support this system? The list goes on.

Does celebrating Yom Ha-atzma’ut mean that we should ignore the bad things that have happened or make peace with imperfections? Absolutely not! We do not ignore them, and we all experience their pain in full. Our joy stems from deep introspection that distinguishes between our duty to thank God for the miracles He wrought and the need to identify and fix imperfections – and certainly not to accept them. We fight for the image and character of this country, trying with all our might to influence its course, but we do not disengage from it or from the Jewish people even if our path is long and frustrating!

1. R. Zvi Yehuda did not ignore the flaws and failures of the state and its functioning; he stood at the head of those who fought to fix it. But he emphasized that the flaws do not negate our duty to thank God for the great miracles He did for us at the time of the establishment of the state or to strengthen ourselves to fulfill our duty, doing as much as we can to advance the spiritual condition of the state and society of Israel. We must recall that independence and sovereignty are as hard to acquire as gold and as easy to destroy as glass (based on Hagiga 15a); we have only had them for a brief period of Jewish history, so we must do our utmost to protect them.

On Yom Ha-atzma’ut, the state’s birthday, we must undertake to fix what needs fixing to the best of our abilities. By doing so, we will give strength to the State of Israel and bring the final redemption even closer.

In the prayers for Yom Ha-atzma’ut, we say: “He Who performed miracles for our ancestors and redeemed them from slavery to freedom – may He soon redeem us and ingather those of us who have been pushed to the four corners of the earth. All Israel are comrades, and we say, ‘Amen!’”

On this day, the entire community gathers together to pray and to thank God. We rejoice over the present, and we pray for the perfection of all flaws and imperfection as we greet each other by saying: “A happy holiday for a full redemption – mo’adim le-simha le-ge’ula sheleima!”

[1] In his Netivot Yisrael I:181.

[2] Commentary to Sefer Ha-mitzvot, Positive commandments omitted by Rambam, No. 4

[3] R. Zvi Yehuda, note 1 above.

[4] See Megilat Esther on note 2 above, R. Tzadok Ha-cohen’s Divrei Soferim §14, and Responsa Yeshu’ot Malko §66.

[5] Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Hanukah 3:1.

[6] Incidentally, this is also proof that independence has spiritual value. See Maharal, Netzah Yisrael, ch. 1.