There are two groups in Klal Yisrael that I cannot understand when it comes to the question of celebrating Yom Ha-atzmaut: The religious Zionists and the Charedim i.e. just about every religious community.
The Charedim: [I live among them. Dress like them. Send my children to their schools. Very connected. So I start with them.] How can one not constantly be filled with tremendous gratitude to HASHEM YISBORACH that more people are learning Torah in Eretz Yisrael than EVER in world history??!!! The yeshivos, kollelim, Beis Yaakov's, Talmud Torah for children etc. etc. are flourishing and busting at the seems. More and more and more keep opening up. [Only Elchanan Ehrman wasn't able to sustain his kollel or start the yeshiva he worked so hard on but almost EVERYONE else is able to, BARUCH HASHEM!!! 馃槉馃槉 ] There are shuls galore, mikvaos, and everything a religious Jew could ever dream of [besides the Beis Hamikdash and Geulah Hashleima].
There is unlimited religious freedom. No Arabs, Turks, Brits, Romans or any other group oppressing our people religiously. You can walk down the street wearing tefillin and singing Ani Maamin or any other song and nobody will bother you. Gone are the days where we were afraid to display our religion publicly.
We are living in a State that is at the cutting edge of technology, where there is an endless amount of food to eat, just about everybody has a refrigerator, washing machine, an electric stove and oven, home phone, cell phone [smartphones for non-charedim] for both parents and often for the children as well and countless material pleasures and comforts - too many to enumerate. We have an army whose job it is to protect us unlike the last two thousand year where we were defenseless etc. etc. etc. Things are SO INCREDIBLY GOOD HERE!!! So how come one almost never hears a good word about it from my Charedi brothers?? Yom Ha-atzmaut does not exist in the Charedi life cycle. Nothing. Actually it does - those sinful people and their holiday... How can that be? In many ways, this is the BEST period in Jewish History.
Not perfect. Far from perfect. Bombs falling in the south as I write these words. LOTS of problems, both on a material and spiritual level. But still - MUCH MORE AWESOME than the Jews had it anywhere else. EVER!!!
So I don't get the heavy negativity towards the State. This all came into being in the last 71 years since the birth of the State. We are living a MIRACLE. DAILY. HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS THIRSTY FOR OUR BLOOD and we survive!!! Nay - flourish beyond belief.
诪讗转 讛' 讛讬转讛 讝讗转 讜讛讬讗 谞驻诇讗转 讘注讬谞讬谞讜!!!
I ALSO don't get the Religious Zionist/Dati Leumi community. Like, an unmitigated day of joy. Happier than any Yom Tov. Hallel sung MUCH MORE than it is on Rosh Chodesh. A day of music, partying and shaving despite the customs to the contrary of Sefiras Ha-omer. SUCH A HAPPY DAY!!
I am not as excited....
It is WELL DOCUMENTED how averse some of the builders of the state were to saving Jews from the Nazi inferno.
To quote Yitzchak Greenbaum, the first interior minister in the State of Israel:
"One cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Europe."
"I think it is necessary to state here – Zionism is above everything. I will not demand that the Jewish Agency allocate a sum of 300,000 or 100,000 pounds sterling to help European Jewry. And I think that whoever demands such things is performing an anti-Zionist act."
Or Ben Gurion:
"The disaster of European Jewry is not directly our affair.” [See the book by Tom Segev "The Seventh Million" about the callous attitude of some of the founders of the State to European Jewry].
And what about the THOUSANDS of Yemenite children who were taken away forcibly from there parents, their what they call "simanim" [i.e. payos] were cut off, they were indoctrinated with secular Zionism and their parents were told in many cases "your child is dead". THOSE are the actions of the "heroes" who founded the State.
Can we forget the Chilul Hashem that leaders of the "Jewish State" from the beginning are people whose lives and beliefs are antithetical to our 5,000 year tradition. Is living in Israel the ONLY mitzva in the Torah? Israel only has value because it is a gift of holiness from Hashem. These people wantonly trample upon what is so holy to us. They publicly violate Shabbos. They speak against Torah and Kedusha. They built an army where it is very hard for a religious boy to maintain his purity [I have many friends who were in the army and they attest to this.] Even the so called "Nachal Charedi" is anything but Charedi.
If one loves Hashem and is passionate about our tradition it is very hard not to be heartbroken by the many many desecration's of Hashem's Name and Torah that we have witnessed in our Holy Land.
So to make a new holiday? I would leave that to the Torah leaders. They have been the ones to decide when we have holidays and they didn't decree that the 5th of Iyar is a holiday. Ben Gurion [who dabbled in Buddhism, had four mistresses and was a miserable, wretched human being by his own account - see Tom Segev's "David Ben Gurion - A State At All Costs"] and the apikorsim who didn't believe in the sanctity of the Torah can say what they want but we have other people who decide these things. The Chazon Ish was a VERY religious man and he didn't feel that Yom Ha-atzmaut is a joyous holiday. Nor did the Brisker Rov, the Chebiner Rov and the vast majority of Gedolei Torah [although on top of the Ponovitch Yeshiva they fly the flag...]. Why do people feel that is an affront to Hashem to follow His Gedolim and not celebrate Yom Ha-atzmaut? It is a huuuuuge question in my mind when the people who the most serious about keeping Torah, whose lives revolve around Torah, who spend years and years learning with great material sacrifice, don't celebrate Yom Ha-atzmaut and accused by people who are [in many cases] far less devout of being inferior in their Judaism because they don't keep Ben Gurion's [and his cronies] holiday.
On the other hand - to completely ignore the tremendous unprecedented chesed Hashem that we experience on a daily basis is to my mind a truly puzzling attitude that I cannot wrap my head around no matter how hard I try.
So why be extreme? Why not have a balanced view, appreciating the positive [there is pleeeeenty of that] and thinking of ways to fix the negative. Without anger, without condescension, without antagonism. With love of Am Yisrael, Torah, Hashem and ultimately - all of humanity and all of the cosmos. Because their tikkun is contingent upon us.
