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Six Additional

Knocks

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky

n Yom HaAtzmaut in 1956 – Israel’s eighth Independence maneuvered into a series of fatal and foolish mistakes and Israel
Day – Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt”l presented a memo- regained control over its biblical heartland and the Old City of
rable address later published as Kol Dodi Dofek, The Voice of My Yerushalayim. That we have unfortunately squandered many
OBeloved Knocks. The Rav highlighted six divine “knocks” on fruits of that victory and more than 90% of the territory does not
our communal consciousness to which Jews should pay attention detract one iota from the feelings of exultation at witnessing the
– knocks precipitated by the establishment of the State of Israel triumphs of the Ba’al Milchamot, the true Master of War.
that revealed G-d’s hand in history.
Nine years later came the third knock – the miraculous raid
There was the “political” knock in which, uncharacteristically, on Entebbe. After an Air France plane that departed Israel was
the United States and the Soviet Union in the early years of the hijacked and diverted to Uganda, Israeli special forces swooped
Cold War both voted in favor of a Jewish state in the Land of into Entebbe Airport and rescued the hostages. UN Secretary-Gen-
Israel; the “military” knock, in which a tiny outnumbered Israel eral Kurt Waldheim, later revealed to be an ex-Nazi, condemned
prevailed over its powerful neighbors; the “theological” knock, the rescue as a “serious violation” of Ugandan sovereignty, not
in which the new State of Israel refuted Christianity’s theory having lifted a finger to save one Jew. But Israel did, reinforcing
of the eternal wandering Jew; the knock on the hearts of our the notion that Israel is responsible for the fate of all Jews across
youth, who perceived the divine role in history and redemption the world.
after the concealment of the Holocaust; the knock of “self-de- The fourth knock is so blatant that we tend to gloss over it: kibbutz
fense,” in which our enemies realized for the first time in two galuyot, the ingathering of the exiles. As pious Jews continue to
millennia that Jewish blood is not cheap and Jews will fight back pray for the realization of this majestic, prophetic vision, it is
aggressively; and finally, the creation of a refuge for Jews and the actually happening before our eyes. Jews have returned to the
beginning of the end of the Exile. Land of Israel from well over 100 countries and forged a society
The Hand of Providence was already visible then. In the ensuing that can get raucous at times but has become a melting pot of
decades, and now as we celebrate Israel’s 75th anniversary, it is Jews of different backgrounds, customs and historical expe-
appropriate to highlight six additional knocks in which G-d’s riences sharing one common denominator: we are Jews who
presence in Israel’s history and statecraft has been manifest. have come home, precisely as was prophesied by Yishayahu,
Yirmiyahu, Yechezkel, Zechariah and many others. There is no
The first knock was the capture, trial and execution of Adolf louder knock that should cause us to open our eyes and behold
Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust. It was a brilliant oper- G-d’s wonders.
ation that defied international legal norms and was denounced
by the United Nations and the New York Times. But it established The fifth knock is the religious revival that has occurred. Israel’s
a new norm: the State of Israel is the custodian of Jewish his- socialist founders assumed that devotion to talmud Torah and
tory, represents all Jews, and will exact justice against our past observance of mitzvot would wane in a generation or two, to
tormentors. be replaced by the new Jew, the secular Israeli. But the yeshivot
hesder program began in 1953, the Charedi world was rebuilt and
The second knock is perhaps the most obvious, as it has shaped the religious population exploded. The Six Day War catalyzed a
Israel’s history ever since: the Six Day War. It was a miraculous teshuvah movement that brought myriads back to Torah. There
victory of the few against the many that followed several weeks are more Jews learning Torah today in Israel than at any time in
of dread and apprehension across the Jewish world as Arab any place in Jewish history. And the full integration of halacha
armies massed on Israel’s borders. But the Arab nations were in a modern society is well underway, even if it is still a work in

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