Upon capturing Yerushalayim fifty years ago, Motta Gur uttered the now iconic words, “Har Ha’bayit b’yadeinu, the Temple Mount is in our hands.”  Those who ascend the holiest place on earth, might disagree.  Since taking the Old City in 1967, Israeli law has barred Jews from praying on Har HaBayis, or even from bringing a religious item like a siddur, tehillim, or tefillin there.

 

In September 2015, Itamar Ben Gvir was touring the holy site when a Muslim woman shouted, “Allahu Akbar” at them. He responded by shouting back, “Am Yisrael chai.” After being held for breaking the law, Itamar sued for wrongful detention.

 

This week an Israeli court ruled in his favor and permitted visitors to the Temple Mount to call out, “Am Yisrael chai” because it is a patriotic slogan, and not a prayer.

 

It is unclear who first introduced the phrase Am Yisrael Chai.  There is a recording of the liberated Jews of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp singing Hatikvah on April 20th 1945. When the anthem ends, there is a brief silence and then a single voice, that of British Army Chaplain Rabbi Leslie Hardman, cries out, “Am Yisroel Chai!”

 

When Golda Meir visited the Great Synagogue in Moscow as the Israeli Ambassador in 1948 the crowd of 50,000 ecstatically welcomed her with shouts of “Am Yisrael Chai”.

 

In 1965, Jacob Birnbaum was looking for songs to energize the Soviet Jewry movement.  He asked Shlomo Carlebach to compose something, and Shlomo wrote the famous Am Yisrael Chai that climaxes with the pasuk, Od Avinu Chai, our Father is still alive.

 

In 2009, Prime Minister Netanyahu visited Wannsee Villa in Berlin, where the “Final Solution” for the destruction of Europe’s Jews was planned in 1942 by Hitler and leaders of the Third Reich. In the visitors’ book he wrote just three words in Hebrew and then translated them into English: “Am Yisrael Chai – The people of Israel live.”

 

As a slogan, Am Yisrael Chai affirms that despite the systematic attempts to exterminate and annihilate the Jewish people, thanks to Hashem’s guiding hand and our tenacity and resilience, we stubbornly persevere.

 

While I am happy with the outcome of the Israeli court’s decision, I humbly disagree with its reasoning.  Am Yisrael Chai must not remain a patriotic slogan alone.  It needs to simultaneously be a prayer, a longing for a united Jewish people living together in safety, security and with unity and harmony.

 

On the words, “V’lakachti eschem li l’am, I will take you to Me as a people,” (Shemos 6:7), Rabbi Soloveitchik writes:

 

The political-historical unity as a nation is based on the conclusion of the covenant in Egypt, which occurred even prior to the giving of the Torah at Sinai.  This covenant forced upon us all one uniform historical fate.  The Hebrew word עם, nation, is identical to the Hebrew word עם, with. Our fate of unity manifests itself through a historical indispensable union…No Jew can renounce his part of the unity…Religious Jews or irreligious Jews, all are included in one nation, which stands lonesome and in misery in a large and often antagonistic world…

 

In the ashes of the crematoria, the ashes of the chasidim and pious Jews were put together with the ashes of the radicals and the atheists.  And we all must fight the enemy, who does not differentiate between those who believe in God and those who reject Him.

 

This past week we celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut, marking the miracle of Israel’s independence. While it should be a day that unites us in gratitude and appreciation, unfortunately, for too many it is a day that divides.  For some, it is the annual opportunity, both online and offline, to sit in judgement of those who observe it differently or choose not to observe it at all.

 

Full Hallel, half Hallel, with a bracha, no bracha, no Hallel?  Shave, haircut and music or music, no shaving or haircut, or no music or shaving or haircut?  Every combination of observance exists and so do the eye rolls, sarcasm and judgment from each camp of those doing it differently.

 

These are all halachic issues and don’t necessarily reflect a worldview or a lack of recognition of the religious significance of the founding of the State of Israel. Could anyone really believe that because Rabbi Soloveitchik didn’t recite Hallel with a beracha, he wasn’t a great Zionist?  Would someone have the audacity to argue that because the Rabbanut endorses Hallel with a bracha, they are less committed to halacha?  We must learn to live and pursue our convictions without having to expect them from, or force them on, others.

 

The secret to a strong Am Yisrael is a sense of Im Yisrael, being in it together, united, loyal, giving one another the benefit of the doubt and judging each other favorably.

 

Am Yisrael Chai cannot be a slogan alone, it must also a prayer, because we still have a long way to go to fully be an Am, a united family.  Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, standing in Auschwitz-Birkenau at the March of the Living several years ago said, “We always knew how to die together. The time has come for us to know also how to live together.”

 

Am Yisrael Chai! May the people of Israel learn to live with one another in harmony and unity!

 

There is a large, flat monitor mounted in the lobby of Israel’s Knesset that displays headshots of all the current members of Knesset.  Interestingly, in an effort towards transparency, the screen indicates which members are present in the building at any given time.  As I looked over the pictures, it occurred to me what a diverse group assembles and works together.  Among the members are Chareidim and secular, Jews and Arabs, men and women, left wing and right wing.  Many of these individuals are unlikely to interact socially or belong to the same community.  And yet, here they appear as part of one united entity.  Why? What brings them together?  Whether in the coalition or in the opposition, these MK’s who in many ways couldn’t disagree more, all participate in the same body because they have a simple choice to make.  They can sit on the sidelines as critics and antagonists, passive spectators to their own destiny, or they can work to have a seat at the table and collaborate alongside people with extremely different interests and lifestyles, so that they can contribute to shaping the future of their community and all of Israel.

I have been to Israel countless times, but on the extraordinary trip I just returned from, I saw, heard and experienced things I had never before.  My dear friends, R’ Kirshner, R’ Eger and I went on a journey with thirty students from reform, conservative and orthodox rabbinical schools as part of The Leffell Israel Fellows program.  This AIPAC two-year fellowship, made possible by the Lisa and Michael Leffell Foundation, trains rabbinical students on Israel education and advocacy.

 

For some, participating in an AIPAC mission was politically uncomfortable because of the perception that it leans politically to the right.  For others, joining a group with rabbinical students from other denominations was complicated.  Almost all the participants, though, shared the experience of leaving their comfort zone to be exposed to, and connect with, people with extraordinarily different religious and political views than their own.

 

Together, through the people we met with and places we visited, we were reminded that as much as we all love and are devoted to Israel and focus on her beauty, there are complicated and difficult issues she faces going forward.  Mohammad Darawshe challenged us on the rights of Israeli Arabs. A visit to south Tel Aviv forced us to confront the issue of migrants and refugees from other countries seeking asylum in Israel.  A review of the IDF’s code of ethics with one of its authors made us consider the ethical dilemmas our soldiers face daily.  Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion briefed us on the state of Israel’s security and Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin shared with us the nuances of Israeli politics.

 

When we visited Kibbutz Nahal Oz and heard from Oshrit what life is like under the threat of rocket fire, we never imagined a mortar would land and explode the next day in the very spot that we stood.  Aryeh Lightstone, senior advisor to Ambassador David Friedman, offered an inside look at the US-Israel relationship and Col. Gilad Eisin shared his perspectives on the future of Gaza.  A panel discussion on the challenges of religion and state included diverse perspectives; a session with activists from the Ethiopian, Chareidi, LGBT and women’s rights communities opened our eyes to their efforts and the obstacles they face.  An early morning visit to a Palestinian crossing followed by a meeting with a high-level PLO official and a Palestinian survey researcher brought perspectives we rarely, if ever, are exposed to. A session with Ambassador Daniel Taub, a member of Israel’s negotiating team, provided a behind-the-scenes look at negotiations.

A panel comprised of Oded Revivi, the Mayor of Efrat and a leader of Yesha, and Yariv Oppenheimer, former CEO of Peace Now, modeled how two people with diametrically opposed views could debate rigorously and vociferously, while maintaining genuine warmth and friendship.  We were briefed by an expert on Iran and better understood not only the JCPOA, but the real time protests happening in the streets.  We toured the northern border with Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi, who helped us understand the threat of Hezbollah and we learned about Israel’s multi-layer missile defense from one of Iron Dome’s engineers, Ari Sacher.  We visited Syrians being treated in Ziv Hospital in Tzefat, and heard from Dr. Einat Wilf about different definitions of Zionism.  In one week, we covered enormous ground and had the privilege of meeting with David Horovitz, Rabbi Dr. Danny Gordis, Yossi Klein Ha’Levi, and Dr. Gil Troy as well.

 

As one of the rabbis in residence of the trip, I spent time getting to know almost every student. I was specifically interested in their reactions to what we were seeing and experience.  It was easy to shmooze with those who share similar positions to my own, but it was particularly eye-opening and startling to hear positions and perspectives I had never been exposed to and in some cases, didn’t even know existed.  Whether it was the students who described being embarrassed by Israel’s egregious moral sin of the continued “occupation,” or the student who explained to me that intermarriage is not losing Jews, it is expanding the boundaries of Judaism, I found myself listening to positions and perspectives I never understood or considered before, and would usually simply dismiss.

 

To be clear, none of my religious or political positions shifted or changed.  My commitment to Torah, halacha, and mesorah are unshakeable.  My conviction in our ancient ties to our homeland and my understanding of modern Israeli history and its implications on Israel’s security needs are firmly held.  These are my truths.  They come from my teachers, my tradition, my family, and my own exploration and experience.  Nevertheless, this trip forced me to confront, in ways I never have, the question of how to relate to other people’s truths, even when to me they ring false.  It was very clear to me that both in religion and politics, the students with whom I disagreed believe in their truths with similar conviction and confidence.

 

We cannot simply will or wish other people’s positions away.  When we fail to respectfully persuade them, we cannot resort to trying to stifle or silence them.  So what can we do?

 

Rabbi Soloveitchik describes another Knesset, not the parliament of the modern State of Israel, but Knesset Yisrael, the Jewish people (“Community,” Tradition XVII, Spring, 1978):

 

The community in Judaism is not a functional-utilitarian, but an ontological one. The community is not just an assembly of people who work together for their mutual benefit, but a metaphysical entity, an individuality: I might say, a living whole. In particular, Judaism has stressed the wholeness and the unity of Knesset Israel, the Jewish community. The latter is not a conglomerate. It is an autonomous entity, endowed with a life of its own. We, for instance, lay claim to Eretz Israel. God granted the land to us as a gift. To whom did He pledge the land? Neither to an individual, nor to a partnership consisting of millions of people. He gave it to the Knesset Israel, to the community as an independent unity, as a distinct juridic metaphysical person. He did not promise the land to me, to you, to them; nor did He promise the land to all of us together. Abraham did not receive the land as an individual, but as the father of a future nation. The owner of the Promised Land is the Knesset Israel, which is a community persona.

 

Imagine if Knesset Yisrael, the Jewish people, followed the model of the Knesset and found a way to work together, despite our diversity and strongly held opposing views.  Being a Member of Knesset doesn’t demand uniformity or embracing someone else’s truth as your own.  There are separate parties, and while some maintain their differences from within a coalition, others express their disagreement by being in the opposition.  With the rhetoric and passionate debate Knesset is famous for, ultimately its members are bound by one shared destiny that is far stronger than the differences that separate them.

 

The day we visited Israel’s parliament, the members of Knesset we were meant to meet with had to cancel as they were attending the funeral of the wife of their colleague, Rabbi Yehuda Glick.  It wasn’t just members of Glick’s Likud party that weren’t available, but it was also members of Meretz, Israel’s far left, and others who went to be with their friend in his time of grief.

 

Several years ago, research showed that 65% of Israeli high school students expressed racist views against Arabs and 57% of Arab high school students held similar views of Israelis.  In 1999, an effort was made to bring Israeli teachers into Arab schools and vice versa.  While complicated, it is now being done in 840 schools with more than 100,000 students being exposed to a teacher from the “other side.”  A more recent survey showed that racism dropped from 65% to 10% for Israeli kids and from 57% to 8% for their Arab counterparts.

 

A similar phenomenon has occurred within the chareidi and secular segments of Israel.  The more segregated, the greater the judgment and hostility.  The more integration and exposure, the greater the affinity and affection.  Rav Shlomo Wolbe zt”l explains that someone is an achzar, cruel, when they see the other as ach zar, just a stranger, the other.

 

The lesson is clear – the less we engage with one another, the easier it is to draw hostile conclusions and take adversarial positions.  By simply interacting professionally and socially, barriers are broken down and relationships are formed.  Relationships don’t deny the other person’s truths, they enable us to transcend them, even while we debate them.

 

I will forever cherish the week with my new friends and family from across the denominations. These students, including the ones I fervently disagree with, are smart, thoughtful and passionate. Amazingly, we never felt the need to be apologetic in our debates, but always felt responsible to be respectful. I think the most important factor in our incredible time together was that our conversations centered on policies and positions, never on people or personalities. On many topics I could not disagree with them more, but at the same time, on the whole, I could not be more excited about the relationships we formed and how they have enriched my thinking, perspective and ahavas yisroel.

Like the screen in the lobby of Knesset, the tapestry of the Jewish people is a mosaic of very diverse faces from different backgrounds and embracing incredibly different practices, lifestyles and views.  When it comes to the crucial need to work together for the good of the Jewish people, only some will show as present, while far too many will be absent.  Which will you be?

 

Six million is an impossible number to fathom.  We can picture 60 or 600 people in a room, and maybe even identify with being among 6,000 or even 60,000 in a stadium, but beyond that, the number is simply beyond our experience and therefore our comprehension.  That is why, standing in Majdanek last week in the barrack filled with shoes, I suggested to the members on our BRS trip that they fix their eyes on one shoe.  Examine the size, color, design, and picture the person who wore that shoe. Try to imagine what went through their mind when they walked in that shoe into this horrific place.

In her testimony about arriving at Majdanek, Judith Becker talks specifically about shoes:

 

Shoes are the most important thing you owned, if you owned it, in the camps, because if you didn’t have shoes your feet got sore and once you had sores on your feet, they didn’t heal.  You couldn’t keep up the pace and you might as well have died.  You were finished… I am sure that every survivor’s story has something about shoes because they became a matter of life and death.  (Yad Vashem Archives)

 

The importance of shoes in the camps had extra resonance for me on our trip because just a few days before we left, I unexpectedly underwent minor surgery to remove a foreign body from my foot.  Baruch Hashem, I was able to wear a shoe just in time, but each step was painful and I wobbled around the sites we visited, moving slower and more gingerly than usual.

 

Standing in that barrack of shoes at Majdanek, and later in front of the display of shoes at Auschwitz, I couldn’t stop thinking about the prisoners who were denied decent footwear and the pain, suffering and degradation they endured from that alone.  What happened to someone who stepped on a foreign body in those places?  If Judith Becker is right, they were finished, they couldn’t keep up the pace and, they might as well have died.

 

Every morning we say the blessing, “she’asah li kol tzorchi,” blessed are you God who has provided my every need.  We follow it up by acknowledging God as the One who is, “ha’meichin mitzadei gaver,” who firms man’s footsteps.  Though we say these as part of the series of Birchos HaShachar, morning blessings, the Talmud (Berachos 60b) actually prescribes the recitation of these blessings in conjunction with putting on our shoes in the morning.  In proclaiming them, we acknowledge Hashem’s benevolence in allowing us to function independently and to be mobile so that we can accomplish, achieve, travel, and enjoy His world.

 

In one of the barracks of Birkenau, our trip’s remarkable educator, Dr. David Bernstein, held up two contrasting pictures to illustrate a poignant point.  The first is a 1942 scene of a helpless man wrapped in a tallis being cruelly taunted and tortured by the Nazis in the village of Lukow in central Poland. The man, whose yarmulka has been removed, is looking down, with his hands in the air, as if surrendering.  He was murdered a short time later.

 

The second picture is of that man’s grandson.  He is wearing a uniform.  It is not one of a prisoner in a concentration camp, but the uniform of the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces.  His name is Meir Dagan a”h and he rose to become a general in the Israeli army and then director of the Mossad.  Throughout his career, he kept the photograph of his grandfather on the wall of his office.  When eulogizing General Dagan, Prime Minister Netanyahu referred to the picture of his grandfather and said, “Meir was determined to ensure that the Jewish people would never be helpless and defenseless again and to this end he dedicated his life to building up the strength of the state of Israel.”

 

Our week in Poland was physically and emotionally grueling.  Visiting mass graves, former ghettos, and walking through death camps tore us apart and gave us a tiny glimpse into the suffering, torment, and devastation our people went through.  Traveling with many children of survivors enhanced the trip greatly, as the stories they told made the places we visited much more vivid and real.  Obviously, the Holocaust must be studied, mourned, and shared as a discrete part of our communal, collective history.

 

Nevertheless, the recognition of just how blessed we are to live in the time of the miraculous modern State of Israel is inescapable, even—or perhaps especially—on a trip like this.  Our ancestors had no place to run, no one to welcome them with open arms, no place to provide refuge and nobody to protect them.  While many lacked shoes literally, they were also metaphorically barefoot: immobile, vulnerable, and utterly dependent on others.

 

Israel and the IDF are the shoes of our people, providing us all with protection, independence and safety, not only in Israel, but around the world.  When Jews are held hostage in Entebbe, it is the IDF who pulls off a courageous and miraculous rescue.  When Jews are finally able to escape from behind the Iron curtain, it is Israel that absorbs them.  And when Jews need to be transported from Ethiopia, it is Israel who brings them home.

 

I was in Poland when I read about the escalation of controversy coming from Israel due to two recent decisions.  I am greatly sympathetic to the pain and anguish of so many of our Jewish brothers and sisters as a result of these policy decisions and from the reneging on the deal that was struck and agreed to.  No matter how complicated these issues, I understand their desire to be recognized and to have access.  I respect their right to advocacy and to pursue their agenda vigorously.

 

What I cannot possibly understand, however, and frankly find unconscionable, is any call for withdrawing support of Israel.  As American Jews are struggling with unprecedented levels of assimilation and intermarriage, threatening our very future in this country, is anyone in America really in a position to withdraw support of Israel?

 

These complicated issues deserve to be addressed more fully and to a better conclusion, but in the meantime, American Jews must never make the mistake of thinking that Israel needs us more than we need her.  If God forbid tides would turn and we in America would be in danger, it is Israel and her powerful military that we would rely on to come to our rescue.  If we needed to flee and find refuge, it is Israel that we would expect to open her arms, no matter our denomination.

 

Support for Israel must never be a negotiating tool or a point of leverage.  We don’t tolerate calls for boycotts of Israel from our enemies and we cannot, and must not accept them from our friends, no matter the reason or motivation.  A weaker or compromised Israel is a weaker and more vulnerable Jewish people globally.

 

Seventy-two years ago, the greatest atrocity in history was followed a short three years later by the greatest miracle in nearly 2,000 years. Pledging to never forget means not only preventing another Holocaust, but remembering how fortunate and blessed we are to have a strong State of Israel and therefore, doing all we can to support Israel, unconditionally.

 

With a strong Israel, never again will we walk without shoes.

 

The Klausenberger Rebbe zt”l, R’ Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam, lost his wife and eleven children in the Holocaust.  After the war, he gathered a small community of followers who had also survived, and from that small group eventually rebuilt a beautiful community.  Rabbi Shlomo Riskin describes a visit to the Beis Medrash of the Klausenberger Rebbe in the summer of 1952 when he was just 12 years old:

 

Then came the Torah reading. In accordance with the custom, the Torah reader began to chant the Warnings in a whisper. And unexpectedly, almost inaudibly but unmistakably, the Yiddish word “hecher – louder,” came from the direction of the lectern upon which the rebbe was leaning at the eastern wall of the synagogue.

 

The Torah reader stopped reading for a few moments; the congregants looked up from their Chumash in questioning and even mildly shocked silence. Could they have heard their rebbe correctly? Was he ordering the Torah reader to go against time-honored custom and chant the tochacha out loud? The Torah reader continued to read in a whisper, apparently concluding that he had not heard what he thought he heard. And then the rebbe banged on his lectern, turned to face the stunned congregation and cried out in Yiddish, with a pained expression on his face and fire blazing in his eyes: “I said louder! Read these verses out loud! We have nothing to fear; we’ve already experienced the curses. Let the Master of the Universe hear them. Let Him know that the curses have already befallen us, and let Him know that it’s time for Him to send the blessings!” The rebbe turned back to the wall, and the Torah reader continued slowly chanting the cantillation out loud. I was trembling, with tears cruising down my cheeks, my body bathed in sweat.

 

I could hardly concentrate on the conclusion of the Torah reading. “It’s time for Him to send the blessings!” After the Additional Service ended, the rebbe rose to speak. His words were again short and to the point, but this time his eyes were warm with love leaving an indelible expression on my mind and soul. “My beloved brothers and sisters,” he said, “Pack up your belongings. We must make one more move – hopefully the last one. God promises that the blessings which must follow the curses will now come. They will come – but not from America. The blessings will only come from Israel. It is time for us to go home.”  And so Kiryat Sanz – Klausenberg was established in Netanya where the rebbe built a Torah Center as well as the Laniado Medical Center.

 

The tochecha in our parsha describes the devastating result of siluk ha’Shechina, when God removes and withdraws His countenance and providence from us.  While its graphic description is, thank God, unimaginable to us, the Klausenberger Rebbe felt the tochecha was an apt description of what he and so many others had actually endured.  But it isn’t just the Holocaust that appears to be the fulfillment of the terrible consequences foretold in the tochecha. In many ways, the Jewish condition during much of the last 2,000 years, punctuated by pogroms, crusades, the inquisition and countless expulsions, provides examples of the embodiment of the harsh and cruel description the tochecha.

 

In the middle of the tochecha that we read this week, the Torah says:

 

וַהֲשִׁמֹּתִ֥י אֲנִ֖י אֶת־הָאָ֑רֶץ וְשָֽׁמְמ֤וּ עָלֶ֙יהָ֙ אֹֽיְבֵיכֶ֔ם הַיֹּשְׁבִ֖ים בָּֽהּ׃

 

“I will make the land desolate, and your enemies who dwell in it will be desolate upon it.”

 

Chazal see a silver lining, a ray of hope and optimism, even within this harsh promise.  The Sifra writes that when we are exiled from our land, it will remain desolate.  Despite being occupied by others, it will remain in ruins, and they will not succeed in making it bloom.  It is striking how accurate this promise of our parsha has been.  Over the last two millennia, despite countless efforts to make it blossom by crusaders, the Mamelukes, the Ottomans, the Turks, the Arabs and the British, Eretz Yisroel was in a virtual state of ruin.

 

In the mid-1800’s, Mark Twain traveled the world and wrote a book recording his impressions and experiences called “The Innocents Abroad.”  Listen to what he writes about his experience in then Palestine and compare it to what you think of when you picture traveling around Israel today.  He writes:

 

Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince.  The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are un-picturesque in shape.  The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation…It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land…Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes.  Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies.  Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its grandeur, and is become a pauper village.

 

Six hundred years before Twain, in his commentary on our parsha, the Ramban writes:

 

And your enemies will be desolate upon it is a good tiding.  It proclaims in every generation that our land does not accept or enemies.  This is a great proof and promise for us, for you will not find in the entire world another land that is so good and spacious and was always inhabited but is now in such a state of ruin.  Ever since we left it, it has not accepted any other nation; and they all try to settle it, but are unsuccessful.

 

Indeed, the gemara (Sanhedrin 98a) quotes Rebbe Abba who teaches –

 

ואמר רבי אבא אין לך קץ מגולה מזה

 

And Rabbi Abba says: You have no more explicit manifestation of the end of days than when produce will grow in abundance in Eretz Yisrael; it is an indication that the Messiah will be coming soon. (See more in R’ Moshe Lichtman’s “Eretz Yisroel in the Parsha”)

 

R’ Yoel Bin Nun, the great Tanach teacher in Israel today, was a member of the now famous 55^th brigade of paratroopers who liberated Yerushalayim.  When his commander, a Shomer Ha’tzair kibbutznik, asked him how he felt after taking Har Ha’Bayis, he responded “alpayim shenot galut nigmeru, two thousand years of exile are now over.”

 

If for the Klausenberger Rebbe, the Holocaust represents the fulfillment of the tochecha, the consequences of siluk ha’Shechina, Divine withdrawal and hiddenness, then 1967, the miracle of the Six-Day War and the reunification of Yerushalayim, represent nothing short of giluy ha’Shechina, the intense presence and the powerful revelation of the hand of the Almighty.  If the Holocaust engenders all kinds of compelling questions, then the Six Day War provides all kinds of undeniable answers.

 

Those of us with no memory of May 1967 and earlier don’t know what it means to feel truly fragile and vulnerable as a people. Those of you who do remember will confirm that just over 20 years after losing 6 million of our people there was a collective panic and sense of urgency that there was going to be another Holocaust.  Rav Yehuda Amital recounted that before the Six Day War there were American Jewish leaders who pleaded with the Israeli government to evacuate the children from Israel, since the annihilation of Israel was expected. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel had designated public parks as burial sites and almost 100,000 graves had been dug in anticipation of the mass casualties.

 

But instead of a massacre, a miracle occurred.  On June 5, Israel launched a preemptive strike. In a single day, it destroyed almost the entire Egyptian air force. Jordan and Syria both declared war. In six days, Israel defeated all three armies, each larger than the size of its own. The Israelis retook Sinai, captured the old city of Jerusalem, Yehuda and the Shomron and the Golan Heights.

 

This sweeping military victory against all odds continues to defy explanation and leaves experts confounded.  R’ Berel Wein tells the story of a cadet at West Point who asked why the Six-Day War was not part of the curriculum.  The high-ranking teacher silenced the questioner and demanded he speak to him following the class.  The soldier approached the general and again wondered why Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War wasn’t studied.  The teacher explained that the Six-Day War is not studied because at West Point they study strategy and tactics, not miracles.

 

Yossi Klein Ha’Levi tells the powerful story of his father who was from a very religious chassidishe family and gave up on God and on religion after surviving the Holocaust.  Even after the founding of the State of Israel, he was still so traumatized from his devastating loss that he couldn’t find God.  In June of 1967, however, after witnessing with the world the miracle of Israel not only surviving, but thriving, he took his family to Israel and went directly to the Kotel.  After seeing the hand of God, he was ready to forgive Him and to have a relationship once again.  They moved to Israel and his father came back to religion.

 

Yossi Klein Ha’Levi explains that 1967 turned Israel from a secular to a sacred landscape.  Yes, in 1948 we gained sovereignty over our own country, but we still had no holy sites.  After the miracle of ’67, overnight, we returned not only to the Kotel and Har Ha’bayis, but to our Mama Rochel imeinu, to Chevron and Ma’aras Ha’Machpeila.

 

In our parsha, God promises us:

 

וְזָכַרְתִּ֖י אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֣י יַעֲק֑וֹב וְאַף֩ אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֨י יִצְחָ֜ק וְאַ֨ף אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֧י אַבְרָהָ֛ם אֶזְכֹּ֖ר וְהָאָ֥רֶץ אֶזְכֹּֽר׃

 

“Then will I remember My covenant with Jacob; I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.”

 

God has indeed made good on that promise to remember our land, and with it, we have access again to our forefathers.  The first Jew to enter the Ma’arat Ha’Machpeila, the burial place of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in some 800 or 900 years, was General Moshe Dayan. When he entered, he did not know exactly what to do. But instinctively he straightened up, offered a snappy salute, and said “Shalom” to Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov.

 

Following the Six-Day War, Jews around the world felt as if they were 7 feet tall, confident, proud, almost invincible. Jews walked the streets of New York, Paris, London, Johannesburg, Melbourne, with their heads held high, the envy of their neighbors.  Everyone wanted a piece of this special nation, a connection to the Jewish people.  And the Jewish people felt a giluy ha’shechina, revelation of God Himself, and wanted a greater connection with Him.

 

A few summers ago, I attended a Rabbinic conference in Israel where Rabbi Chaim Druckman, Rosh Yeshva of Ohr Etzion and the Rabbinic head of all Bnei Akiva.  He talked about the paragraph we say before benching, chapter 126 of Tehillim,  Shir Ha’Maalos b’shuv Hashem es shivas tziyon hayinu k’cholmim.  When Hashem will return the us to tziyon, we will be like dreamers.  What does it mean to be like a dreamer, he asked?  He quoted a number of interpretations of the classic commentators but then he gave his own and it touched me very deeply.

 

He said, picture a teacher at the front of the classroom who is teaching when he or she suddenly calls on a child in the classroom and asks a question.  The child is startled and is caught off guard because they weren’t paying attention to the teacher.  They were, what we would call “day dreaming.”   Day dreaming is when you are eyes are open, you are looking at the person talking, you see, hear and feel everything going on, but you are so checked out and distracted that you don’t really register what was said or what just happened.

 

Hayinu k’cholim, said Rav Druckman, means that after 2,000 years of persecution and suffering, Hashem will perform miracles and bring us back to our land.  After being the scorn of the world, we will be the envy.  It will be so surreal, that we may be like day dreamers who see and hear what is happening but are so distracted that it doesn’t truly register; it doesn’t move us the way it should.

 

Every time I visit Israel, I find a way to spend a few minutes sitting in the square in the Old City of Yerushalayim.  I don’t sit in the big square with all the pay phones that tourists all walk through.  There is another square where the residents hang out.   This square is no ordinary gathering place.  Etched in the stones on the side of the square are the ancient words of our prophet Zecharia.  Our ancestors read these words as depicting a fantasy, a fictional description.   We, the most blessed generation in 2,000 years, can read those words and witness their very fulfillment before our very eyes.  I love watching the older people walk by with their walkers and canes and listening to the sounds of the children running and playing and then reading:

 

כֹּ֤ה אָמַר֙ יְהוָ֣ה צְבָא֔וֹת עֹ֤ד יֵֽשְׁבוּ֙ זְקֵנִ֣ים וּזְקֵנ֔וֹת בִּרְחֹב֖וֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָ֑ם וְאִ֧ישׁ מִשְׁעַנְתּ֛וֹ בְּיָד֖וֹ מֵרֹ֥ב יָמִֽים׃

 

וּרְחֹב֤וֹת הָעִיר֙ יִמָּ֣לְא֔וּ יְלָדִ֖ים וִֽילָד֑וֹת מְשַׂחֲקִ֖ים בִּרְחֹֽבֹתֶֽיהָ׃

 

“Thus said the Lord of Hosts: There shall yet be old men and women in the squares of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age. And the squares of the city shall be crowded with boys and girls playing in the squares.”

 

My friends, if the Klausenberger Rebbe described living through the curses we just read about, then we are meriting to live through the fulfillment of the blessings.  This week when we mark a little over 50 years since that summer of Divine revelation and God’s miracles, we dare not day-dream through it.  We dare not sleepwalk through this milestone as if it is an ordinary everyday event.  We must awaken ourselves with a sense of hallel v’hodaah, profound gratitude and boundless appreciation.  We must once again tap into the feeling of having experienced yad Hashem, the guiding hand of the Almighty.

 

V’ha’aretz ezkor – We are in the generation that after millennia of waiting has witnessed God’s remembering His people and His land. The question is, will you remember Him?