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Yom HaAtzmaut –

75 Years

The Third Generation

Rabbi Jeremy Gimpel

ransitioning from Yom HaZikaron watched as the Jewish people were slaves warning: “venoshantem baAretz,” “when you
to Yom HaAtzmaut is like fold- in Auschwitz, only to witness their libera- grow old in the Land.”
ing all of Jewish history into one tion and resurrection in the Land of Israel.
Tframe in time. From our incep- From slavery to redemption, the Jewish These words would soon come true. After
Yehoshua died, we learn: “A new genera-
tion as a people, we were forged into being people were saved and the oppressors
through pain, suffering and tyranny. The defeated. In the time of Moshe they sang tion arose after them that did not know
first Jewish shtetl we made for ourselves in shirat haYam, the Song at the Sea. In 1948, Hashem, nor the deeds that He had per-
formed for Israel” (Shoftim 2:10). With
Goshen became the first Jewish ghetto of we were singing Hatikvah in Tel Aviv.
slaves in ancient Egypt. That was the dark the passing of the last of the children
who survived the holocaust of Egypt and
womb that gave birth to the Jewish people. But the Exodus has another deep message
for us as we celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut. It later entered the Land, the next generation
Every day we remember, “zeicher liytziat took three days of freedom from Egypt forgot, became corrupt, lost their vision,
mitzrayim,” “To remember our exodus until we started to doubt. We doubted our- veered from the path, and the fall began.
from Egypt.” Every day is a kind of Yom selves and doubted our victory. “Is Hashem Years later, when Israel finally anointed
HaZikaron, for everyday we remember the among us, or not?” (Shemot 17:7). kings – Shaul, David and Shlomo – it was
struggle and sacrifice it took to achieve
our freedom. Chazal say that those three days repre- after the third generation that the fall
began and the nation split apart. During
Each year at the Seder, we struggle val- sent three generations. After liberation, the second Temple era, it took three gener-
iantly to see ourselves as though we freedom and independence, we must be ations – Matityahu the Kohen Gadol, Judah
came out of Egypt. It’s hard to truly feel wary of what can happen after the third the Maccabee and Shimon – for the Has-
the pain of suffering we never knew. But generation. monean dynasty to start to decay. When
everyone in Israel knows the pain of Yom Before we entered the Land of Israel, the living miracle of Chanukah became
HaZikaron. Moshe repeated the warning once again. mere “history” to be commemorated, the

We all know the story of Exodus, and the “For when you will have children and fall began.
truth of “ma’asei avot siman labanim” – that your children will have children and This year we are celebrating 75 years
somehow, the stories of our past are tem- you will have been long in the Land, you of our freedom and independence. We
plates for what future generations will will become corrupt…” (Devarim 4:25). are modern Israel’s third generation. In
experience. Indeed, that is what we have The third generation, and all “third gen- our lifetimes, the child survivors of the
seen in the modern era. The whole world erations” to come, are given an eternal Holocaust will be gathered unto their

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