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This week, especially on Monday and Tuesday, the words of Kohelet spoke to me. We read in the book of Ecclesiastes:
“There is a season that is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven. A time for birthing and a time for dying, a time for fighting and a time for healing, a time for tearing down and a time for building up, a time for weeping and a time for laughing, a time for wailing and a time for dancing; a time for embracing and a time for shunning embraces; A time for seeking and a time for losing, a time for keeping and a time for discarding; A time for silence and a time for speaking; A time for loving and a time for hating; A time for war and a time for peace.”
Many asked the question this week: "How can Israel and the Jewish people celebrate Israel’s Independence when she is at war in an existential battle for her future? Are we in a time of joy or heartbreak? Laughing or weeping? Wailing or dancing?"
The holidays of Yom HaZikaron, Israeli Memorial Day, a day when Israel remembers all fallen IDF soldiers and victims of terror, and Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, marking the establishment of the modern state of Israel on May 14, 1948, observed on the 5th of the Hebrew month of Iyar, represent two extremes. On Yom HaZikaron, Israel remembers the lives taken, mostly lives of young men and woman whose whole lives were in front of them, but who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country and our people. On Yom Ha’atzmaut, we celebrate the miracle of the return of Jewish sovereignty to Israel after 2,000 years of exile, arguably the greatest event in Jewish history since the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem. The truly incredible aspect of these holidays is that they come one after another with no transition. Israeli Memorial Day seamlessly blends into Israeli Independence Day. Although Israeli Independence Day is a day of unbridled joy, one cannot be faulted for bringing a piece of the sadness of the previous day before with us into the joy.
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