Page 11 - Mizrachi RZC Sefer Berachot 5778 (2017-2018)

Israel and the Art of Appreciation

A Dayeinu song for our generation

The establishment of the State of Israel and the reunification of Jerusalem are
undoubtedly the most important events of salvation and deliverance in Jewish history
since the time of Chanukah almost 2,200 years ago.

Miracles of Biblical Proportions

The remarkable reality of a sovereign State of Israel and a united Jerusalem cannot
be overstated. The establishment of an independent state so soon after Auschwitz;
the creation of a place of refuge to gather millions of Jewish exiles from every corner
of the globe after millennia of wandering; transforming the Land of Israel from an
arid and barren backwater into a flourishing oasis of agriculture and ecological
marvel; reviving Hebrew from an ancient and static textual language into the living
lingua franca of Jewish society; building a thriving and sustainable economy from
the bankrupt and starving old Yishuv; a handful of young pioneers and Holocaust
survivors overcoming impossible political and military odds to defeat much larger
and better trained national armies; the reunification of Jerusalem and the return of
Jewish sovereignty to the Old City, Kotel and Temple Mount for the first time since
the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 C.E.; a war of potential imminent
destruction which should have taken weeks and months, ending inexplicably with
miraculous salvation in only six days, thus “delivering," twice in 19 years, "the
many into the hands of the few”; the rebuilding of the Torah world with perhaps
more Torah learners today than any other time in history – all come together to
create modern-day sovereign Israel and Jerusalem which stands at the centre of
Jewish religious, cultural and political life. More than anything, Israel has revived
the spirit of a broken people so soon after the devastation of the Holocaust,
reinvented hope in place of despair, faith in place of tragedy, life in the face of death
and the belief in a bright future over the reality of a devastating past.

Complexity

The days of Yom Haatzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim were instituted by the Chief
Rabbinate of Israel, and reinforced by all subsequent Chief Rabbinates, as days of
great religious and Halachic significance. They were to be days of Hallel - praise
and thanksgiving to Hashem in appreciation for the enormity of these times. Despite
the seemingly undeniable miraculous nature of these events, not everyone has
embraced Yom Haatzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim in this spirit. A central reason
that many in the religious world have yet to do so is that Zionism and Israel were
born in a very complex spiritual, cultural and political context. Many elements of the