- Shabbat and Holidays
- Yom Haatzmaut
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How to mark such a birthday is always debatable. Many humans mark their birthdays with cakes and parties and merriment. Others prefer to ignore the passage of time in their lives. Still others wait for a magical number of years to pass in order to commemorate a birthday. The State of Israel has a ritualized form of commemoration of its birthday. But like all officially ordained modes of celebration, spontaneity and enthusiasm associated with such a celebration is often lacking. Perhaps simply recognizing and internalizing the existence of this milestone in the life story of the Jewish people is in itself a sufficient commemoration of the event. If the individual Jew alone does not feel the specialness of the occasion within one’s own consciousness then no official commemoration will fill that void. Basically put, Hillel stated this truth when he said: "If I am not for me then who or what will ever be for me!" If the existence and success of the State of Israel is not felt on an emotional and spiritual level but merely on a visceral and objective level then in my opinion the whole point of the enterprise is missed. It is this short-sightedness more than anything else that fuels the attitudes and behavior of the anti-Israel Jewish Left. And no public ceremonies or ritualized commemorations can influence such wrongful convictions.
The prophet Yechezkel warned the Jewish people twenty-five hundred years ago against thinking themselves to being somehow like all other nations and peoples. Israel Independence Day is not the same as Bastille Day or Dominion Day or the Fourth of July. Once it is relegated to that exact status then it loses all emotional and spiritual meaning. And with it, the very existence of the State of Israel also becomes a "mistake," a wrong turn, an ill conceived decision. People have short memories and sixty-three years is a long time for most of us. The inability to teach the lessons of the past that created the State of Israel and saved the Jewish world from incurable depression after the Holocaust is one of the great failings of our society and its educational systems. And again, no public commemoration no matter how impressive in presentation and extravagant in cost will help ameliorate this woeful situation. Somehow education that can reach the Jewish heart and soul and not just the mind and eyes is necessary. For millennia such education was present and transmitted from generation to generation. It needs to be revived in our current world and society. On Israel Independence Day Israel prizes are distributed to people accomplished in the arts and sciences, public welfare and communal leadership. However I believe that the true Israel Prize is to be given to the one who experiences Israel in one’s heart and spirit all of the days of the year.

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