On Yom Ha'atzmaut, It's Not Just About...

by Sivan Rahav-Meir
April, 2021

Original posting in Torah Tidbits
torahtidbits.com

Uri Melamed wrote: "It's not just about smoke from a barbecue, not just about plastic hammers made in China, not just about the International Bible Contest hosted by Avshalom - how he never gets older! - Kor, not just about 180 families gathering for a picnic on a piece of grass next to the Golani Junction. It's not about a car with Israeli flags on three windows since the wind took the fourth flag heaven knows where, not about a hit parade of Yair Rosenblum songs, not about a flyover above the Air Force Museum in Hatzerim near Be'er Sheva.

This is not about the torch-lighting ceremony, not about the President's House where the outstanding soldier award is bestowed upon a new immigrant from Argentina whose sister just happens to be a participant in the Bible contest, not about a cooler filled with kabob, chicken, sausages and of course steaks, not about children spraying foam, not about the helicopter that takes Sarit Hadad from the stage in Kiryat Gat to the stage in Or Akiva, not a long chain of Israeli flags sponsored by a bank.

Well, yes, it is about all of this. But Independence Day is mostly about what the prophet Amos says:

'Behold days are coming, says the Lord, when the plowman shall meet the reaper and the treader of grapes the one who carries the seed, and the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

And I will return the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall rebuild desolate cities and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their produce. And I will plant them on their land, and they shall no longer be uprooted from upon their land, that I have given them, says the Lord your God'".

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Sivan Rahav-Meir is a media personality and lecturer. Married to Yedidya, the mother of five. Lives in Jerusalem, and formerly served as the World Mizrachi Shlicha to North America. Sivan lectures in Israel and overseas about the media, Judaism, Zionism and new media.