Eran Sternberg
How can I celebrate?
In order to celebrate future Independence Days, we can't pretend all is well
To celebrate or not to celebrate? That is the question buzzing around the homes of many Gaza evictees this Independence Day. The question has many implications – should we recite celebratory Hallel prayers? Should we fly the flag? Should we display any outward signs of happiness over the existence of this country?
The opinion of the haredi anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta, which asserts that the State of Israel is the work of Satan, meant to mislead believing Jews, is mere idiocy.
Here in the "orange" camp, there is no debate that the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel over the past 120 years is nothing less than amazing, a process that requires us to be thankful. As a religious man, I am thankful to God for gathering in His exiled children and, according to all signs, for beginning the process of redemption.
Independence Day
Efrat Weiss
Yesha Council rabbis hand out pamphlets at synagogues saying that despite painful eviction from Gush Katif, it is obligation to rejoice, praise Lord on Independence Day. 'This country is permanent and eternal, its regimes are only temporary'
Feelings vs. thoughts
Rationally, the destruction we endured last summer need not cause us to reduce our celebration on Independence Day. But feelings are a different matter.
I know many people who feel they should fly the flag, should thank God and should celebrate the day as they always have, but simply cannot bring themselves to do so.
Not long ago, I watched as a friend of mine was offered a flag to stick on his car, but rejected the "gift." Several months ago, he said, the home and the life he had worked so hard to build flicked away like so much dust, cruelly erased by uniformed personnel with no conscious. They wore that flag on their caps and vests. "It will take many years before I am ready to wave that flag again," he said.
But more than the personal, the inner struggle stems from the crisis of values that was revealed during the last destruction. Independence Day is more than a celebration to thank God for giving us an independent country; it is a "package deal" that includes identifying with organs of this state, such as the court system, IDF and police, that have sinned against us and are slowly becoming political tools in the hands of a corrupt body politic.
The fact that many in the "orange" camp took part in last summer's expulsion even though they believed it was a criminal act shows (at least it shows me) just how much that "package deal" is intolerable.
Suicidal tendencies
More than anything, our feelings of despair stem from the fact that worst of all – the destruction of Judea and Samaria, which will lead to the destruction of the entire country – is yet to come.
Of course, there is no comparison between our situation today and that of the Jewish people following the Holocaust and the War of Independence. But the trends are particularly worrying.
From this perspective, we can be compared to a man committing suicide by jumping off the 100th floor of a building, but briefly celebrating the fact that he's currently higher than the person walking up the 100 flights, while enjoying the breeze for the moment.
I agree with Moshe Feiglin: Independence Day can be compared to a birthday party for a terminally ill patient. You've got to come and say "happy birthday," and try to be happy.
And all this, even after it became clear once-and-for-all that promises of a "better security, political, economic and demographic reality" as the result of disengagement were just so much babble, and that the "success" of the move is measured only in terms of having kicked people out of their homes. And yet, the country continues to gallop forward towards the next destruction.
Therefore, it is a suicidal process, one that declares the destruction of Jewish towns the country's highest priority, one that must be carried out, even if it brings the entire country down. It is simply frightening.
So what do we do?
How, then, should we mark Independence Day? With a black flag? An orange one? With the Israeli flag? All of them together? No flag?
Every one of us will act in accordance with his or her conscious. Personally, I have decided to solve this inner conflict by delving deep into the meaning of Independence Day, without expressing any outward signs of rejoicing.
Our sages, in permitting us to violate Shabbat in order to save a human life, instructed us to "violate one Shabbat in order to enable many more Shabbatot to be observed." Paradoxically, we can paraphrase this against the current tendency to suicide: Flying the Israeli flag only brings closer the destruction of all that that flag represents.
For me, and for many of my friends, that will certainly not be happening this year.
Specifically because we love this country so much, and out of a deep desire to celebrate future Independence Days, we must entrench our feelings of "never forgive, never forget," in order to ensure "never again."
After the destruction of Yamit, Avi Parchan may have flown the flag, but in doing so he gave a clear impression that "everything is okay." That event, in turn, was used to "okay" last summer's destruction.
Now, after yet another destruction has been brought upon us, we have no choice but to scream out.
