A French Oleh on Israel's Miracle & What Europe Might Learn from it

Coincidentally yet not inappropriately on the day France goes to the polls, here's a guest blog by French oleh Jean Vercors.

I've added the emphasis (bold font), on his text and below.




Writes Jean Vercors:

'On the evening of Monday, May 1st, we celebrated Yom Ha'atzmaut, the 69th anniversary of the State of Israel. The return of the Jewish people to its ancestral land is a real miracle; it regains its sovereignty in Israel on May 14, 1948, the 5th Iyar of the year 5708 of the Hebrew calendar.
 
Surprisingly, the month of Iyar is the only month that bears a Hebrew name, the other months being Aramaic.

The Book of Kings calls it ziv (1 Kings 6: 1 and 6:37), or "shine," for it is the moment when the trees shine with all their "splendor" (Rashi and Radaq).

According to Rabbi Yehoshua, the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob were born during the month of Nissan, which brought new light to the world (in Hebrew zohar, ziv in Aramaic). And it was the following month, that of iyar, which first benefited from this new era of light following their coming into the world (Rosh hashana 11a).
 
The miracle began with the Lovers of Zion (Hebrew: בבובבי ציון, Hovevei Tsion), a popular, social and national Jewish movement that was active between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and aimed at renewal from the people of Israel, through the return to Zion and the reconstruction of their homeland.

Then it was successive Aliyot (to ascend) that built the nation and made the new desert become the start-up nation, where 20 per cent of the foreign companies listed at the NASDAQ are Israelis. 

Another miracle.
 
According to the essence and faith, to the people, to the return of its natural state and to the definition of the Maharal of Prague, the normality of a people must meet three conditions:

1-He must live on his land, 
2-Free and independent,
3-Together in non-dispersed.
 
The prophet Ezekiel (chapter 28): 

"'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When I gather the people of Israel from the nations where they have been scattered, I will be proved holy through them in the sight of the nations. Then they will live in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob. They will live there in safety, they will build houses and plant vines."

 Indeed, there is a great mitzvah to inhabit the land of Israel. According to Rashi and Rambam, this is a mitzvah of the Torah, the Torah is Zionist, and Hashem is Zionist.

Since the end of the 19th century, it has been a series of miracles. Despite a hostile and chaotic neighborhood, Israel continues to grow. It's great to be a free and independent country for 69 years.
 
The Jewish national calendar of Israel is embellished with new festivals that Israel has placed at the center of its national Jewish consciousness and which define the most important moments of the year of Israeli society.
 
Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day), Yom Hazikaron (Day of Remembrance of Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism) and Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day) celebrate the celebrations in a single week.

Independence Day is a celebration of the renewal of the Jewish state on the land of Israel, the birthplace of the Jewish people.
 
In the land, the Jewish people began to develop its distinctive religion and culture some 4,000 years ago, and little is known about it, has retained an unbroken physical presence there, for centuries as a sovereign state, as formerly under domination Foreign exchange.

Throughout its long history, the desire to return to its land has been at the center of Jewish life. 

Theodor Herzl, leader and founder of the Zionist movement, kindled international recognition for the need for a Jewish state.
 
Since its creation, Israel continues to be a homeland for the thousands of people who come to live there each year. All its citizens enjoy the same democratic rights delimited by the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel.

Despite terrorist attacks and threats of war, Israel creates and innovates every day in every field, whether medical, scientific, or high-tech.
 
The small agricultural nation that declared its independence 69 years ago is today a superpower, the 8th largest in the world, a world leader in the fields of biotechnology, the environment, and very present in the field of culture And art.

On Yom Ha'atzmaut we express our political independence and our security.
 
As Rav Kook has stated, Jewish nationalism does not depend on the state; The basis of our nationality is our spiritual holiness.  He writes :

"There are righteous people, philosophers, and holy men in the world, but there is no nation whose inherent soul can be fulfilled only by the purpose of the divine plan in the world - other than Israel.

Individuals are everywhere, but an entire nation that represents G-d does not exist. It is our uniqueness.

Since the days of the Hasmoneans (Greek Domination, 32 to -142), for nearly 70 generations, until the liberation of part of the land of our ancestors in our war of independence and the restoration of a Jewish state within its borders, no new holiday  has been added to our annual cycle of joyful days. 

The return of Israel to the land of his ancestors is predicted in the Bible: 'Hashem Your Lord shall bring you into the land which your fathers have possessed, and ye shall possess it "(Deut. 30: 5).

In other words, on the day of Yom Ha'atzmaut, I must not only remember the past, but I must strengthen my present with the same energy that is renewed in the universe at this precise moment. 

That is, to strengthen my roots with my land, my people, my Torah and myself.
 
This is the true meaning of Yom Ha’atzmaut following Yom Hashoah and Yom Hazikaron. He redefines Israel as a family that weeps together, and by remembering the price we paid to be free Jews, it redefines the meaning of Israel.
 
A people decimated by the Nazi Final Solution experienced a sovereign regeneration only three years after the Holocaust. A nation facing a war of extinction from the very first day of its creation - and relentlessly thereafter with more wars, waves of terrorism, economic boycotts, incitement to mortal frenzy, its legitimacy - and never gave up or surrendered. 

Despite the ever-present threats, the Israelis have embraced life to the fullest, have not succumbed to a siege mentality, nor lost the aspiration for lasting peace and normality.

When we turn to Yom Ha'atzmaout, we do it with a deep sense of responsibility. Our country was not given to us on a silver platter.
 
Israel must be the one who remembers, and through this memory he constantly commands himself to be worthy of the price we have paid. It is a memory that obliges us to embrace life and challenges us to live it to the fullest, to build lives individually and collectively. This is Israel's task. It is the legacy of our past and the challenge of our future.

Through courage, inspiration, sacrifice and innovation, and the challenge of every chance, the Israelis built a remarkable country in their ancestral home.
 
Again, the work is incomplete and the challenges are many.

But in 69 years, the Israelis proved strongly that Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was right when he said: "In Israel, to be realistic, you have to believe in miracles."

Regardless of how you feel about Israel as a nation, or the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is not possible to deny that Europe has much to learn from our successes. 

By resisting the cultural Marxism and Islamization that have seized a large part of humanity, Israel has given itself a strong chance of survival. The very young Europe and its young people would do well to imitate what Israel and its very old people do if they hope to survive.
 
Their fate is in great danger while that of the Jewish people continues its way intact.'

I don't know Monsieur Vercors's views on the current French presidential contest, but I do know that if Emmanuel Macron truly believes in "Open Borders" then he is dooming his country to a bleak future, as indicated in my previous post.

Here's another searing indictment of Macron, in summary.

 France: Emmanuel Macron, Useful Idiot of Islamism by Yves Mamou  •  May 7, 2017 at 1:30 am

 Emmanuel Macron, a "Useful Infidel," is not a supporter of terrorism or Islamism. It is worse: he does not even see the threat.

 Louizi's article gave names and dates, explaining how Macron's political movement has largely been infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood militants.

Is Macron an open promoter of Islamism in France? It is more politically correct to say that he is a "globalist" and an "open promoter of multiculturalism". As such, he does not consider Islamism a national threat because the French nation, or, as he has said, French culture, does not really exist.

Read the full article here

And here's an incisive analysis of what ails Europe's leaders today.  Not that it's fair to blame Europe's seemingly inexorable plunge into the destructive vortex solely on childless politicians.

There are plenty of childless people, including some of the best and most courageous political pundits (a number of whom are openly gay), who fear as much as any parent worried for their children's future the creeping islamisation of the European continent.

It's not necessary to have children to dread an Islamic future for one's country or continent. What is necessary is to recognise the superiority of Western civilisation and of Judeo-Christian values over benightedness and barbarity, and to see society as a social contract between past, present and future.

The enablers of population replacement and islamisation are not only betraying the next generation and those that come after it; they are betraying their ancestors and themselves.

 Europe's Childless Leaders Sleepwalking Us to Disaster by Giulio Meotti  •  May 6, 2017 at 5:00 am

As Europe's leaders have no children, they seem have no reason to worry about the future of their continent.

 "Europe today has little desire to reproduce itself, fight for itself or even take its own side in an argument". — Douglas Murray, The Times.

 "Finding ourselves' becomes more important than building a world." — Joshua Mitchell.

Read the full article here

Update:

The Secret of Israel's Eternity

This is a cross-post by Avraham Reiss of Jerusalem.  It originally appeared at http://jcwatch.wordpress.com/the-jewish-thought-series/the-secret-of-israels-eternity/

“You have deprived the Jews of air, they have thus been preserved from rottenness, you have strewn the salt of hatred into their hearts, their hearts have thus been kept fresh. You have imprisoned them for the whole long winter in a cellar, and stopped up the cellar door with dung; but you, exposed to the frost, were half frozen to death.”
- Ludwig Borne (1786-1837), as quoted from the historian Heinrich Graetz in his monumental History of the Jews (Volume 5, Chapter XIV, pages 539-540).
(View at: http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/heinrich-graetz/history-of-the-jews-volume-5-ear/page-44-history-of-the-jews-volume-5-ear.shtml)

Graetz says of Borne: "…Borne despised the Jews of his time, and spoke of them as if he were their arch-enemy" – but despite this, Borne (pictured, who was Jewish) seems to have captured the secret of the Eternity of Israel.

However, to delve more deeply into such a cosmic subject, we need to view authentic Toranic sources. And to define our targets of interest. What exactly are we looking for?
[Note: where we give years in BCE or CE terms, the absolute Jewish year follows in brackets.]

The Jewish Time Line Encyclopedia says that Bnei Yisrael – “The Children of Israel” crossed the Jordan into the Land of Israel in the year 1273 BCE (2488). Assuming the destruction of the Second Temple and start of the long exile in 69 CE (3829), and subtracting 70 years of exile after the destruction of the First Temple, we find that the People of Israel lived in the Land of Israel – Eretz Yisrael – for 1271 years. If we now add 100 years or so of the current Zionist Renaissance, then Am Yisrael has lived in its land for 1371 years, while it has been in exile for roughly 2000 years. (I haven't delved too deeply into the accuracy of the above numbers, but in principle they correctly portray the situation.)

We therefore examine the behaviour and survival of Am Yisrael in exile for two reasons:

(1) This was the longest period of its existence, and

(2) Survival in exile requires much more effort than survival in one’s own land, owing to all the external forces acting against it - both hostile and friendly – antisemitism and assimilation.

What was the reason for, and the purpose of the exile?

A number of reasons and purposes have been given.

(1) Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, first Chief Rabbi of Eretz Yisrael, in his book Orot (“Lights”) that has become the “flagship” of his modern Zionistic philosophy, contradicts the generally assumed understanding that the two Temples were destroyed because Am Yisrael sinned twice.

Rav Kook explains that when Am Yisrael sinned for the first time, and the First Temple was destroyed, it was then decreed that Am Yisrael would go into exile for two millenia. The reason being, says HaRav Kook, that Am Yisrael had become at least partially corrupt at the private, personal level, and had it maintained itself as a state, the corruption would have spread to the national levels. So the state was to be disbanded, Judaism would descend or revert to the individual level where it would correct itself at these levels. The individual level means no state, no army, courts of law, or any other of the components of a state.

However, it would have been impossible to send Am Yisrael into a 2000-year exile starting from the year 423 BCE (3338) – at that time the nation did not possess the tools, properties and capabilities that would ensure its long-term survival as a nation-in-exile. The Second Temple was thus built and served as a preparation for the long exile. It was at the time of the Second Temple that the Oral Law was written; this was the Mishna, which would be followed by the Gemara (Talmud), and would later – in exile – evolve through the Gaonim, Rishonim, Achronim and Poskim. Thus intense Judaic legal activity and creativity would accompany Am Yisrael through its long exile, its foundations having been laid during the period of the preparatory Second Temple.

We will return further on for additional commentary by HaRav Kook.

(2) From Orot (“Lights”) we now move to Or (Light”): The Or HaChayim (“The Light of Life”).

From Wikipedia – Chaim ibn Attar:

"Chaim ben Moses ibn Attar, also known as the Ohr ha-Chaim after his popular commentary on the Pentateuch, was a Talmudist and kabbalist; born at Mequenez, Morocco, in 1696. He was one of the most prominent rabbis in Morocco. In 1733 he decided to leave his native country and settle in the Land of Israel; died in Jerusalem July 7, 1743."

(BelowI have translated his words freely, and not literally, so that they will be more understandable. The same will be true for other translations in this post.)

Numbers Chapter 24, verse 23:

“He took up his parable and said, Alas! Who can survive these things from God?”

On this verse the Or HaChayim  comments as follows:

“The reasons for Israel’s exiles is to identify and gather the sparks of holiness that are to be found amongst the dwellers of the lands of exiles. And this is hinted at in Ecclesiastes 8,9 where it is written:'All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: there is a time wherein one man ruleth over another to his own hurt.'”

“To his own hurt”, says the Or HaChayim,

 “refers to the idol-worshipping oppressor who is ruling over another man, for the good part of the oppressor is taken by the oppressed, and the bad part of the opressed is transfered to the oppressor; and we have already said many times that absence of the good part of a person is his death, for it is the good part that maintains him in life, and the bad part is called 'death'”.

For wherever G-d places Israel, there they will remove from the residents all the sparks of holiness which are keeping them alive.”

[End of Or HaChayim's commentary.]

We emphasize here that the above refers specifically to oppressors of Israel.

(3) The same idea is expressed in the book Zidkat HaZadik by Rabbi Zadokof Lublin.

From Wikipedia: Zadok HaKohen:

“He was born into a Lithuanian Rabbinic family and then became a follower of the Hasidic Rebbe, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica … He is a classic example of a Litvish Jew turned Chasidic … In 1888, Zadok Hakohen agreed to take over the leadership of the Hasidim … Rabbi Zadok was a prolific writer in all areas of Judaism, halakhah, Hasidut, Kabbalah, angelology, ethics; he also wrote scholarly essays on astronomy, geometry, and algebra."

In article 256 of his book, pages 220-221, he says:

“Just as every nation has its own specific evil, so also does it possess a spark of holiness which is its force of life. And the exile (of Am Yisrael) is about this – to absorb the goodness (the sparks of holiness) for Israel, as it is written [in the wisdom of mysticism] that when (Am Yisrael is) in exile abundance goes to the nations of the world, and (from them) Israel absorbs the essence.”

[End of Rabbi Zadokof Lublin's commentary]

I add here a commentary I read many years ago and unfortunately cannot now find the source.

Exodus 12, 41:

”And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.”

The commentary said that “all the hosts of the Lord” (which would have been better translated as “all the armies of the Lord”) refers to all the camps of holiness that existed in Egypt. And with the exit of all the “sparks of holiness”, what we have above termed “the good part”, Egypt collapsed.

(4) Returning to HaRav Kook, we now hear an explanation of our survival in exile that is based on a physical example.

In his commentary on the siddur (prayer book) Olat Rei’yah, vol 1, pages 230-231, HaRav Kook speaks of the physical problem of Perpetua Mobile – Perpetual Motion. There, Rabbi Kook says (in my free translation):

“Perpetual Motion could only become possible if all matters opposing the motion (such as friction with the air) that tend naturally to slow down the motion, could be ‘harnessed’ in such a manner as to add strength to the motion.

The qualities and character traits found amongst the nations, which have subdued and oppressed Israel, have been impressed upon Israel by them; these qualities and traits must serve holiness and perfection, such as bravery and revenge in the right places, and are extracted by Israel from the nations around it, thus honing Israel to general perfection.

Thus Israel achieves eternity by drawing strength from that which will oppose it, (enabling it to survive Babylon and other oppressing nations).”

I would clarify Rabbi Kook’s words by saying that each nation has a particular quality. For example, the British are polite, Americans generous, the Swiss precise, the Scots thrifty, the Germans – let’s not talk about them …

Israel amongst the nations thus absorbs these qualities whilst exiled amongst them, and will eventually become a nation possessing all the qualities that are spread around the world. (Elsewhere, Rabbi Kook says that G-d did a kindness with the world, by not concentrating all the national qualities and characteristics, as well as geological and geographic richness, all in one nation and in one land).