Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Who Has The Power

When I saw this passage from a shiur of Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, I fell off my rocker:

The Yom Ha-atzmaut military parade is clearly not about the כוח of Hashem and very much about the כוח of man. Also, it is hard to say that the Ran says that there is a MITZVA to say that it was our might. Let us look at the original. 

He calles it an "אמת בצד מה" that a rich person might say. Not that it is a MITZVA initially to say such a thing. The entire thrust of the psukim is NEGATING the power of man and attributing everything to Hashem. 

Look also at the Rambam and Ibn Ezra who say that the psukim are telling us to remember how we left Egypt as poor slaves and yet Hashem still led us through. 

I don't mean to completely negate man's active role in the Divine drama of history or the importance of having an army. But to say that one should go to the secular Yom Ha-atzmaut parade because of this Ran is a stretch.

I think the time would be better spent learning or ... saying tehillim for the chayalim.