Israeli Independence Day - יום העצמאות

Close to 50,000 students in haredi schools will be studying even though the State declared Independence Day as a national holiday -- Israel - Charedi Schools Ignore Independence Day

Why do most charedim not celebrate Yom Ha-aztmaut?  First of all, IMHO, it's a modern holiday that is during the sefirah, when we are still mourning for the fallen students of Rabbi Akiva until Lag B'Omer. What is there to celebrate? Secondly, it's a holiday that is based upon the founding of a secular Jewish state, devoid of Torah and mitzvos, aka Zionism. Today's celebration of Yom Ha-atzmaut among most Israeli Jews is to salute the IDF, the power and might of the Zionist state, instead of Hashem, who brought about the statehood, not out of peace and joy, but out of wrath.

That which you imagine will never take place, that which you say, "Let us be like the nations, like the families of the lands, to serve wood and stone ..." I swear as I live, says Hashem, the L-rd, that with a strong hand, an outsretched arm, and outpoured wrath I will rule over you .. I will take you out from the nations and gather you from the lands to which you have been dispersed, with a strong hand, an outstretched arm, and outpoured wrath -- Yechezkel 20:32-34

So, what is there to celebrate really? There has been no peace in the State of Israel since its founding. We are still fighting against terrorism. In fact, the IDF has been on an advertising blitz lately about citizens being prepared for war AGAIN.

Israeli Independence Day is a good day to review the history of Zionism and the founding of Medinat Yisrael.  An excellent article can be found here at Torah.org.

First of all, as noted above, it is only a segment of the Torah-committed population which identifies with (and participates in) these national celebrations. It is worth our while to investigate why the "Torah world" has not fully embraced the opportunity to mark these days in a significant manner.

Independently, we may wish to ask why so much of the Orthodox community outside of Israel (especially in North America) allow these two days to go by without so much as a mention?

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Generally speaking, when we refer to the "Zionist dream", reference is made to that specific vision shared by the progenitors of the Zionist movement of the late 19th century. Ardent socialists who found that they could not built their utopia in Eastern Europe, they directed their energies towards our ancient homeland, Palestine. They were avowed secularists, whose Zionism was as much the product of their disaffection from the established (read: religious) Jewish community (as they were swept along in the exhilaration of the Enlightenment) as it was an outgrowth of their "Jewish roots". They envisioned a Jewish state that would offer all that is noble about Judaism - essentially the finest of Western culture and academia - to the world and would be a haven where all Jews could come to participate in that great enterprise. The great ideals of socialism would be realized on Jewish native soil, as the Jewish people would achieve their destiny of being a "light unto the nations." Since this is not chiefly a historic piece, I will not include here a summary of the development of the Zionism movement, the various Congresses etc. Suffice it to say that the vision shared by these early Zionists was not infused with - or even informed by - Torah sensibilities. Political Zionism was very much the daughter of the Zeitgeist of the second half of the last century and, as such, was caught up with the heady arrogance of that exciting time. There was no need for the "old ways", so closely identified with the mentality of "Galut". A "new Jew" was going to be created; a Jew unbound by centuries of tradition and belief, a "modern" Jew who would be able to sit at the table (literally as well as figuratively) with the member of any other nation and look at him as an equal.

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Religious Jews had been living in Eretz Yisra'el for nearly a century before the first Zionist Congress took place in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897. Truth to tell, there were small (but not at all insignificant) communities of Jews in Israel who had been there for countless generations - some claiming that they never left!

At the beginning of the 19th century, followers of the Vilna Ga'on (d. 1797) and R. Shneur Zalman of Lyady (the first Lubavitcher Rebbe - d. 1813) made Aliyah. In both cases, unlike the communities which had been there for several centuries, these new Olim saw themselves as the vanguard of the Mashiach. In a lengthy treatise, Kol haTor, authored by R. Hillel of Sh'klov, the Vilna Ga'on's many teachings regarding the special nature of the times and the steps needed to be taken to inspire the coming of the Mashiach are outlined. The students of the Ga'on settled in Tz'fat and Yerushalayim; whereas the main Habad community was in Hevron.

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The Land is, indeed and just as God promised us, filled with all manner of good things. And the gold of that Land is good - teaching that there is no Torah like the Torah of Eretz Yisra'el and there is no wisdom like the wisdom of Eretz Yisra'el. (B'resheet Rabbah 16:4) But those great goods can only be realized when Am Yisra'el achieves its destiny, not operating as a an amalgamation of pious individuals, but as a kingdom of Kohanim and holy nation.

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Great nationalist movements have often placed such an overwhelming stress on the success and weal of the group that the moral development of the individual - as well as his welfare - have no place in the national agenda. Jewish nation-building, conversely, is a process of balancing the needs of the individual (the P'rat) against those of the community (the K'lal).

In order to build a righteous nation, which can serve as a an theistic-ethical beacon for the nations of the world, we need to insure that the individual members of the group are successfully facing their own "plagues" ("personal" Tzara'at) , as well as those which affect their interactions with others (Tzara'at haBeged).

We now understand why the Torah presents the various forms of Tzara'at in this order - for we must first develop righteous individuals and a holy society if we are to have any hope of creating and maintaining the nation which carries God's Name and enshrines Him in their midst.

Jewish Statehood (I), by Yiztchak Etshalom