Memorial and Celebration
Israel's Independence Day immediately follows Memorial Day. How? Why?
Sunday evening, May 12, 2024 and Monday, May 13, were Israel’s Memorial Day. Monday evening and Tuesday, May 14, 2024, are Israel Independence Day.[i] The conjoining of these two events—one sad and one happy—is curious to outsiders, but they make perfect sense to Israelis.
Our Memorial Day honors the many who have fallen in the defense of our country as well as those who have fallen as victims of terrorism—not while fighting, but while going about their every-day lives. Nearly every family in Israel has been affected by these deaths, if not within the immediate family, then in the extended family, workplace, or community.
The day is commemorated by ceremony and sharing. My first experience was when I was administrator of the Rabbinical Association of Greater Dallas and felt it important to attend community-wide events sponsored by the association. At the commemoration of Israel’s Memorial Day I was literally moved to tears by the unashamed tears of strong men as well as women as they talked about their loved ones who had died defending the land or as martyrs—true martyrs whose lives were taken by enemies, not fake martyrs who choose to kill themselves in order to kill others. In true Jewish fashion, they spoke not only of love and loss, but of the life lessons their loved ones had left behind.
If Jews are anything, we are survivors. Two generations back, six million (one-third of all Jews in the world) were killed in the Holocaust. A high percentage of the survivors went on to build families, even those who had lost spouses and children in the war. Many became successful businessmen, scholars, and writers, both in Israel and the west.
For our national day of remembrance to be prelude to a season of sadness is unthinkable. Yes, tears fall freely, as they should: these souls were taken too soon for our hearts. But life continues. We Jews have taken a lesson from our holiday of Simchat Torah. On that day we both finish reading the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, and begin again[ii]. Over the history of our people, this holiday has taught us that life is cyclical. We finish one thing and begin again, immediately.
So after the sadness of remembering our dead, the love they gave, their heroism, the sterling aspects of their characters, and the lessons they taught us, we celebrate the joy of being independent in our own land. The joy which the sacrifice of so many made possible.
In 2023, Simchat Torah was the day of the October 7 massacres and the beginning of this war against Hamas. But our enemies miscalculated. The holiday is a day of endings and beginnings. It ended the tenuous peace we had with Gaza and began this war; but it also ended our acceptance of continual rocket attacks against our cities and towns. This very short cat video says it all.
During this long war, many social boundaries have fallen. Many secular soldiers have seen open miracles on the battlefield. Some have been private, such as one my former student, a combat soldier, told me: while driving a humvee she was about to open her window. She removed her hand from the button a second before a terrorist threw a large stone at the window, breaking it. Had the window been open she would have been seriously injured if not killed in the ensuing accident, but being in an armored vehicle, while the window broke she was unhurt.
Some miracles have been larger, such as the incident told by a Hamas terrorist who was being interrogated. He reported that he had been told to burn down a yeshiva (a religious boy’s school), but flames were already engulfing it when he and his team approached. In fact, there was no fire in spite of the fact that flames were seen by the terrorists. Many Israelis who have been uninterested in the religion of their forefathers have begun practicing Judaism because incidents in their own lives and those of their companions have shown them that there is a God who is protecting us, and they are showing their gratitude by beginning to follow His laws.
The walls between secular and ultra-Orthodox and Jews and Israeli Arabs that in September seemed impermeable have begun to fall in these months of war. Several thousand young men who were exempt from military service due to their devoutness have volunteered for the army or are serving in the home guard for their communities. In the early days of the war, while the army was still reeling from the unexpected, massive attack, women from many of these very religious communities began preparing complete Sabbath meals for soldiers in their regions whose encampments could not yet provide hot food.
A Druze woman, mother of a soldier who died early in the war, had a small restaurant. She obtained kosher supervision so that she could provide food for Orthodox soldiers stationed in her area. Even the waiting room of my Arab dentist was warmer this week, with Arab-speakers smiling at me when they sat in the waiting room, and smiling at me when I smiled at their children’s antics. In the past, they were more likely to b stone-faced. Jews are making condolence visits to the families Israeli Arab soldiers and Israeli Arabs are visiting our mourning families. With the war, we are in this together; the rockets Hezbollah fires does not distinguish between us.
Usually, fireworks in most communities mark the beginning of Independence Day. This year, due to the war—none of us wants to hear booms and see streaks in the sky—there will be no fireworks. But there will be groups sitting around small fires and singing patriotic and religious songs as well as silly baby songs so the youngest can participate. And the next day there will be barbecues—cooking on the fire, al ha-esh—in backyards, on balconies, and in parks. Usually my city has an exhibit of various military vehicles. Children love climbing through the ones their fathers and mothers have used in their service.
This exhibit is accompanied by balloons and someone making balloon animals, maybe a strolling guitarist, and of course food booths offering cotton candy, drinks, kabobs, and ice cream. I expect in larger cities there are also falafel and shwarma stands. This year the exhibit will be in one of the community centers for security reasons. Last year the air force fly-over was in the north. My friend’s son piloted the last helicoptor in the display. This year the fly-over will be our capital city, Jerusalem.
The celebration of our independence includes a ceremonial torch-lighting in Jerusalem, usually in a huge arena viewed by a huge crowd. People who have done important things in many areas of life will each light a torch as a narrator explains their activities. For security, the torches will be lit indoors and the ceremony broadcast this year.
In these two important days, we will commemorate the loss of over 2,000 Israelis since this war began—the equivalent, as a percent of population, of over 80,000 Americans—as well as all the deaths due to terrorism and war since the beginning of the nation. A few minutes later, with renewed vigor, we will celebrate that we are one independent nation, all together, united in this crazy thing called Life.
[i] We have a crazy and unpredictable enemy, and there is always a chance that something unforseen will occur. I am putting this into cyberspace on Sunday, May 12 and do not know what the news will be on the 14th, but am assuming the best.
[ii] The Torah is divided into sections that are read sequentially and studied ,one section each week, from the first chapter of Genesis through the last chapter of Deuteronomy. On Simchat Torah we read in the synagogue both the last chapter of Deuteronomy and the first chapter of Genesis. Books can be simply turned over, but the Torah we read in synagogue is a hand-written scroll. In many synagogues the whole scroll must be rerolled in the middle of the service. Synagogues with more than one Torah usually have a second scroll already rolled to the beginning, but watching the re-rolling is an important visual lesson to children, in my estimation. It brings home clearly that endings are followed by beginnings.
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