As published in the Rabbi's Report of the South Head Synagogue Annual Report for the Year Ended 2012

Israel’s Sixty-Fifth Year

I am writing these lines during Sefirat HaOmer -  a period that commemorates both a) the crushing of the Bar Kochba revolt and the dispersion of the Jewish People from their Land in the second century of the common era and b) the return of the Jewish People to their Land in the twentieth century.

The defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt - or as our Sages call it Churban Betar - was more than a national tragedy in which 600,000 of our best sons, among them the 22,000 students of Rabbi Akiva, were killed. It was more than a human catastrophe in which so much Jewish blood was spilt that the Romans didn’t have to manure the captured fields for decades.

Churban Betar was the beginning of 1900 years of exile from Jerusalem and dispersion from Judea!

Churban Betar signalled the beginning of expulsions, pogroms and humiliation of Jews culminating in the Holocaust! Although the Holocaust was certainly unique in its ferocity and its scope, it was the inevitable nadir of a succession of events that began with the 2,000 year dispersion that followed the defeat of Bar Kochba.

And it is precisely when we commemorate the tragedy of Bar Kochba - the period between Pesach and Shavuot - that Jewish pride and sovereignty were returned to us: on the fifth of Iyar 1948 and on the 28th of Iyar 1967.

What is Israel?

For some Israel is a place of refuge. At the end of Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark, he has a survivor ask a Jewish Russian officer: "Where shall we go?" The officer responds, "Don't go west, I can tell, you, they hate us; but you also better not go east, they don't like us much there either!"

For others, Israel is a place of Jewish pride. In Israel a Jew can say what he wants. In Israel a Jew can do what he wants. In Israel a Jew is at home. In Israel a Jew doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. Is there a Jew in the world who doesn’t feel on every visit to Israel that he is going home?

Israel's impact has had an affect far beyond her borders. Israel and her victories have given Jews pride in every country in the planet. It was a result of the six day war that young Jews in America began to rediscover their Jewishness. It was after the six day war that massive immigration from the Soviet Union commenced.

There are of course, those, for whom Israel is a major milestone on the road towards redemption, that began the moment after the destruction of the Temple and will continue until the coming of Moshiach.

Although Israel is all these things, and more, to me, Israel, more than anything else, is the BIG TURNAROUND! Even Moasu HaBonim hoyso l’rosh Pina - the "stone" that was so despised by all the empire-builders of our world, has begun the process of becoming the "cornerstone" of that very same world.

Or to put it in another way - the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in Israel, after two thousand years of Negative Miracles, represents the commencement of Positive Miracles.

Let me explain:

Everything about the Jewish people is miraculous - our tragedies as well as our successes, our highs as well as our lows.

In one verse G-d says to Jacob: "And your descendants will be as the dust of the earth, and they will spread out to the west, to the east, to the north and to the south". In another, G-d says to Abraham: "Go forth and count the stars - if you can possibly count them - so will be your seed!"

Which is it, asks the Midrash, are Jews as the "stars of the Heaven" or are they as the "dust of the earth"?

The Midrash responds:

When they fall, they fall lower than the earth; they are trodden into the dust. But when they rise, they rise higher than the stars!

The Jews are either higher or lower - never "normal", never like everyone else.

The Maharal writes:

Were you to describe the tragedies of the Jewish People, no one would believe you - they so defy the limits of credibility! (The  Maharal wrote this even before the Chmielnicki massacres that devastated Eastern European  in the seventeenth century and before the Holocaust in the twentieth that all but put an end to it.)

But, unbelievable and as incredible as they were, the tragedies did happen!

Maharal continues: G-d said "Let there be a sign on your hand, opposite your hearts" - tephilin shel yad - and our enemies made us wear a Jewish star on our hearts. G-d said, "Let their be a sign on your forehead between your eyes" - tephilin shel rosh - and they made us wear a pointy hat on our heads. G-d said you shall adorn yourself with royal blue clothing - tallit - and Jew-haters made us wear a Jewish cape. G-d said you will be a "banner above the nations" and we became the derision of the nations. What is this, if not a Negative Miracle?

For reasons best known to G-d it appears that this is the order of the Jew - first a supernatural fall, and only subsequently, a miraculous rise.

And it was with the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in Israel that the tragic string of negative miracles ceased, and the stream of positive miracles commenced.

If we look back over the past 65 years, we cannot but be overawed by the open miracles before our eyes:

• The miraculous military victories of 48, 56, 67 and 73
• The Epic of Entebbe
• The miracle of 39 scuds falling on Israel during the Gulf War without a single direct Jewish fatality
• The ingathering of our people from the four corners of the earth
• Israel today is a regional superpower and one of the most dynamic economies in the world It boasts lower unemployment than Australia, leadership in successful start-ups, and is a foremost exporter of technology.
• On the spiritual side, there are more young people studying in Yeshivas in Israel today than there were at any time, anywhere, since the destruction of the Temple.

For those who are unbiased, the State of Israel ranks as one of the great wonders of the modern world.

During the nineteenth century, the famous Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Yosef searched for a proof for G-d's existence. Various proofs were offered but left him unimpressed. Finally, one of his courtiers exclaimed, "Your Majesty - the Jews!”, and he was convinced.

Indeed, our very existence after the travesties visited upon us, and certainly our miraculous success, testify to the existence of G-d.

Israel therefore, is not only our simcha, but G-d’s as well. For just as the prophets wrote that there is no greater desecration of G-d’s Name than the Exile and derision of the Jew, so too, there is no greater sanctification of G-d’s Name than the reassertion of Jewish pride and sovereignty.

Let us therefore not underestimate the power of acknowledging G-d's providence in bringing us to a point where nothing remains save the complete and ultimate redemption through Moshiach For there was another time in our history, some 2,500 years ago, when G-d wished to make the righteous King Hezekiah Moshiach. Why didn't he? Because the people failed to appreciate the role of G-d in their miraculous salvation.

With the benefit of that wisdom and experience, it behoves us to exclaim thanks to G-d, or as King David wrote in Psalms three thousand years ago:

I give thanks to You, for though you caused me to suffer, you have now become my salvation!

The rock that was despised by the builders, has become the cornerstone of the building!

It is from G-d that this has come, it is wonderous in our eyes!

This day was wrought by G-d, let us be glad and rejoice in it!

Rabbi Benzion Milecki OAM