|
Happy (?) Jerusalem Day
By Herb Keinon
There are still many people - mainly from the national religious camp - who will give thanks for the unification of Jerusalem, even if its political unity might be in question.
'On the 28th of Iyar, the Arab armies, which schemed to wipe the seed of Israel from the Land of Israel, were smitten hip and thigh by the Israelis,' writes Eliyahu Kitov, in his popular book on the cycle of the Jewish year entitled The Book of Our Heritage.
'The siege of the enemies around the borders of the land was lifted, and the Eternal City of Jerusalem, whose most holy precincts had been occupied by Arabs and out of reach for Jews, was restored as one city to her natural inheritors.'
This was written in 1978, just 11 years after the Six Day War. The language, style, and imagery used by Kitov to explain Jerusalem Day is similar to that used to explain other Jewish holidays, such as Purim, Pessah, and Tisha Be'av. For Kitov, Jerusalem Day - declared by the chief rabbis not only as a day of thanksgiving for the reunification of Jerusalem, but also as a general day of commemorating the victories of the Six Day War - is imbued with religious meaning.
'Two days before, on the 26th of Iyar, there had stood surrounding the borders of Israel, all the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq, which then had nearly 200,000 troops supplied by Russia with an arsenal of mighty weapons. In the ears of the whole world they arrogantly declared: 'We are set upon destroying the Jewish state and murdering its inhabitants! They will have no escape, for we come with our great forces from the south, the east and the north and we shall drown them in the sea on the west!''
Kitov's phrasing is downright biblical, the words put in the mouths of the Arab armies sound like those that may have been uttered by the pharaohs of Egypt, or the kings of Assyria or Aram.
Kitov continues: 'But this was not to be. The army of Israel, though greatly outnumbered, destroyed the besieging armies and seized vast stretches of enemy-held territory. On the 26th of Iyar the war began and on the second of Sivan the thundering roar of battle ceased. During these six days, the Israelis were victorious in all of their engagements and achieved all of their objectives. They defended and saved the People of Israel and drove its enemies back deep into their own lands.
'Although the 28th of Iyar did not mark the end of all the fighting, it is still marked as a day of thanksgiving and celebration, because of the wonders God showed us in that war, and because of the reunification of Jerusalem which took place on that day, to many, the crowning achievement of the Six Day War.'
In other words, a modern-day Hanukka.
For Kitov, and those who share his theological mind- set, there is no doubt that the war was not some explicable military victory, but a modern-day miracle.
'It was a clear act of God that drove the troops of the kingdom of Trans-Jordan [sic] into a war of madness, an act of God which restored to the Children of Israel the cities of the lands of Yehuda and Shomron and the holy city, Jerusalem,' Kitov writes, evoking with his words images of how God hardened Pharaoh's heart in the Book of Exodus.
'On the third day of fighting, the 28th of Iyar, there came the historic announcement: 'All of Jerusalem is in our hands!' The shofar was heard at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, proclaiming: 'Here we are, at the place from which the Divine Presence has never departed, here we are to stay! Never again shall we depart from this holy place!' The joy of Jews throughout the world ascended to the heavens.'
But what now? How do those like Kitov, who saw so clearly the hand of God in the victories of the Six Day War, celebrate Jerusalem Day when much of the fruits of the war - 80 percent of Judea and Samaria, according to some reports - are likely to be given to the Palestinians?
How will religious Zionists - who on Jerusalem Day traditionally dance late in the evening around the walls of the Old City and to the Western Wall - rejoice now that the Knesset has decided that Abu Dis, just a few hundred meters away from the Temple Mount, will be given to the Palestinian Authority?
How is Jerusalem Day celebrated when different proposals for sharing Jerusalem are being bandied about in all kinds of forums?
'There is still reason to celebrate,' says Rabbi Dov Begun, head of Jerusalem's Machon Meir yeshiva, and one of those who fought in the city in 1967. 'We must distinguish between the current situation that changes, and the historical dimensions of the war. This is not something that changes with the headlines. After 2,000 years the Jewish people merited to have Jerusalem come under its sovereignty. That is very significant.'
So significant that the chief rabbis at the time - Isser Yehuda Unterman and Yitzhak Nissim - mandated that just as the sages declared that the Hallel prayer be recited on Hanukka as thanksgiving for Divine redemption, so too should that particular grouping of psalms be recited - with a blessing - on Jerusalem Day in appreciation of the miracle that God wrought for His people Israel. The victory over the Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, and Iraqis in 1967, they determined, was no less significant than the victory over the Greeks in 164 BCE.
In practice, however, only segments within the national religious camp faithfully recite this prayer.
'Jerusalem Day never turned into a general holiday like Independence Day,' says Shmuel Katz, a Jerusalem rabbi who has researched extensively the history and development of Independence Day and Jerusalem Day as religious holidays. According to Katz, the holiday is primarily marked in the educational institutions of the national religious camp, but not that much elsewhere.
Indeed, he says that until Hanan Porat passed the Jerusalem Day Law in the Knesset two years ago, the day received little official sanction from the government. That law stipulates that employees can take Jerusalem Day as an elective holiday. It also calls for special educational activities on the day.
The law, however, does not mandate that it is a universal day off from work, something that Katz says would have rammed it into the country's consciousness. As is, most of those outside Jerusalem - except for people who fought in the capital or who lost relatives in the Six Day War - are hardly even aware that the holiday exists, Katz maintains.
Porat says that Jerusalem Day has failed to penetrate into the national consciousness because people don't realize at what stage the nation is on the road to redemption.
'That there are those willing to withdraw from all parts of Eretz Yisrael is a sign that the message of Jerusalem Day has not penetrated,' says Porat.
But Katz has a more mundane explanation for why Jerusalem Day has not been widely accepted as a holiday: 'The problem is that it lands so soon after Independence Day and Pessah,' he says. 'Also, it was never declared a day off. If it had been made a vacation day, Jerusalem Day would feel completely different today.'
Though Jerusalem Day was never granted by the state the recognition it needed to become a widespread holiday, it did receive, within a year of the war, the Chief Rabbinate's stamp of approval. But that sanction was not recognized much beyond the national religious camp. For instance, in a special meeting of the Chief Rabbinical Council called in the euphoric spring of 1968 to set an order of prayer and customs for Jerusalem Day, no leading rabbis from Agudat Yisrael bothered to attend, despite attempts by the national religious rabbis to get them involved.
Nevertheless, Katz says, 'In some ways Jerusalem Day is easier for the haredim to accept than Independence Day, because it is connected to the liberation of the Wall, to the Temple Mount, and to visible miracles.
'The haredim were here at the time, felt the experience, the miracles, and the hand of God.'
Still, the haredim never took Jerusalem Day upon themselves as a religious holiday. At most, says Katz, the day is marked in some haredi communities by refraining from saying certain penitential, sorrowful prayers, such as Tahanun. They do not, however, recite Hallel.
Among the objections voiced by haredim over the years to the insertion of prayers on Jerusalem Day - or for that matter on Independence Day - is that one does not initiate holidays based on newspaper headlines, and that prayers should not be pegged to current events. What happens, they ask, when the events change? Should the order of the prayers then change as well?
The current situation in Jerusalem is a case in point. How are people to stand and give thanks for the unification of Jerusalem, if its political unity may very well be in question?
Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, editor of Tradition magazine, says that today's news shouldn't cause people to delete the prayers they say on Jerusalem Day. Nevertheless, says Feldman, 'one should not rush to insert prayers based on current events. Prayers are supposed to be timeless and eternal. You don't rush to insert them too rapidly.'
Rabbi Yosef Artziel of Kedumim is active in the Rabbinical Forum for Eretz Yisrael which is headed by former chief rabbi Avraham Shapira and is ideologically committed to holding on to all of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.
'Nothing halachic has changed this year' regarding Jerusalem Day, says Artziel, and there are to be no changes in the way the holiday is celebrated as a result of the Abu Dis decision. 'Those who say Hallel with a blessing on Jerusalem Day should continue to do so.'
Artziel also notes Jerusalem Day was declared to celebrate not only the unification of Jerusalem, but also in thanksgiving for the victory in the Six Day War.
Accordingly, he maintains, 'The victory in the Six Day War is a great miracle, and is not something that changes. The halachic base for saying Hallel on this day is to give thanks for the miracle.'
That Israel may now be relinquishing the fruits of that miracle may be 'stupid,' Artziel argues, but it does not mitigate the very miracle itself. The Hasmonean commonwealth was lost a little more than a century after Hanukka, he points out, yet the Jewish People continues to this day to celebrate the Festival of Lights.
'We see the Six Day War as another stage toward redemption,' Artziel says. 'An act of Divine kindness.'
If the Jewish People does not take full advantage of the gift, Artziel maintains, that is only because of their own 'foolishness' or inability to grasp what God gave them in the Six Day War.
But this human folly 'does not contradict that need to thank God for what was certainly the miracle of the Six Day War. We need to remember that the government asked [then chief-of-general-staff] Yitzhak Rabin how many casualties to expect during the war, and he said to prepare for 10,000 soldiers and 25,000 civilian casualties. We have to understand the proportions of the miracle that happened to us then.'
Theologically, Artziel comes to terms with the dissonance between celebrating the conquest of Jerusalem and the West Bank given the current political reality the same way he reconciles the contradiction between praying for the State of Israel - referred to in national religious circles as the 'dawn of redemption' - and living in the state where many of its actions, and the actions of its leaders, seem so anti-redemptive.
'The way we relate to the state and to Jerusalem is to recognize that their significance is bigger and more important than any one action taken in them or in their name,' Artziel says.
In other words, there is the ideal, and then there is reality. That the reality does not live up to the ideal does not lessen the ideal, rather just hammers home the notion that the nation has a long way to go to get there, Artziel says.
Sounding very much like the student of rabbis Avraham Yitzhak and Zvi Yehuda Kook that he is, Artziel argues that redemption is a long process with peaks and valleys, and that the capture of east Jerusalem in 1967 was but one step - albeit a milestone - in that process. It is a step that still deserves to be celebrated, no matter what has happened in the meantime.
Or, as Begun put it, 'The reality we live in is complicated, it is a mix of light and shadows, ups and downs. But if you do a final reckoning, the results so far are positive.
'I fought in Jerusalem in 1967,' Begun says. 'I know the reality then and now - they can't be compared. With all the problems, Jerusalem is still in the process of development. I don't only look at the short term, but also the long term: 50 years from now. I don't think there is room to stop saying Hallel on Jerusalem Day. On the contrary, we have to be joyous for every new house built, every new neighborhood constructed.'
Reconciling with optimism the apparent contradiction between the reality he sees and the faith he lives by, Begun says, 'Things in the Middle East change all the time. There will be difficulties, struggles, battles. But I don't think there will be a redivision of the city. Now there is a struggle, but we have to distinguish between the struggle and the final outcome of that struggle.'
Regardless of what happens in Jerusalem, says Porat, a member of the paratrooper brigade which liberated the Old City, 'There will still be a reason to celebrate Jerusalem Day as a day of salvation from our enemies who sought our destruction. We still have to give a big thanks, even if, God forbid, not all the achievements of the war remain in our hands.'
In Porat's mind, there would have been a need to declare a holiday to celebrate the 1967 victory even had Jordan's King Hussein not attacked Israel, and Jerusalem not been reunited.
Rabbi Chaim Eisen, who teaches Jewish thought at Jerusalem's Yeshivat Hakotel, says that not giving thanks on Jerusalem Day because of today's headlines would be a sign of great ingratitude.
Nevertheless, he says that his emotions are mixed this year. 'Sometimes you can be living in a situation where you really don't feel like celebrating, but still feel a responsibility to do so. This is not a matter of glib partying, but rather a calculated, considered, methodological evaluation of what we merited to witness; something which for 2,000 years our ancestors did not merit to witness. As a result, the sense of thanksgiving becomes an obligation.'
Yet, he adds, 'It is difficult to conjure up a worse form of ingratitude than if we undo the miracle by our own actions. It would be like someone giving us a present, and then us taking it and destroying it right in front of his face.'
But what will happen to Jerusalem Day if parts of the city, not just Abu Dis, are given to the Palestinians? Will Hallel be recited on this day in the future if some shared condominium of power develops in Jerusalem, with a Palestinian flag flying - perhaps even alongside an Israeli flag - over the Temple Mount?
'That,' says Eisen, 'would mean that we have by our own hands undone the effect of the miracle. But, on the other hand, God's beneficence is still something we experienced. This is a very tough call. If by our own hand we reject the miracle, then it is almost an outrage to continue to say 'Thank you.' Yet we still witnessed the miracle.'
Both Porat and Begun say that relinquishing parts of the Old City would force a reevaluation of Jerusalem Day.
'Jerusalem Day was based on the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, and the Old City being - like Mordechai Gur said - in our hands,' Begun says, referring to the famous announcement by Gur, who commanded the division which liberated the capital.
'If that ever ceases to be the case, it would be a problem; it would be as if we went into exile again.'
But, says Katz, Jerusalem Day is celebrated today even though - contrary to Gur's famed pronouncement - the Temple Mount is for all intents and purposes not completely under Israel's control. 'As long as the Western Wall is in our hands, celebrating Jerusalem Day will not be a problem,' he says. 'But if we go back to the 1967 lines, then it is likely everything will be revoked.'
And then, as if he had uttered some sort of blasphemy, Katz concludes his thought with the same words Begun, Feldman, Porat, Artziel, and Eisen all used when asked to think of such a possibility: 'God forbid.'
---------------------------------------------------------
« JPost Front Page
| Other
JPost publications »
|
