Jewish Holidays

It is a well-known Torah truism that a third destruction, following those of the First and Second Holy Temples, will never occur. There will be no Exile following the beginning of the Redemption that we have been experiencing these recent decades and more.

Our independence day is a happy day, but is it a holy day? We established a state but why do we see it as a day of some special spirtual event?

Though the Hebrew calendar date of Israel Independence Day was decided upon by the Israeli government a year after the establishment of the State, their choice of day - the 5th of the Hebrew month of Iyar - received a divine stamp of approval in that this very day filled the missing link in a Rabbinic puzzle of centuries.

Rav Tzvi Yehuda Hakohen Kook, saw the terrible destruction of the Shoah in the context of the great construction of the Redemption. While the Exile was being all but destroyed, he Nation of Israel was being built up in its homeland.

Israel is a roller-coaster, a thrill ride; We are currently in the "sandwich," in the segment between the twin triumphs of our glorious redemption from Egypt, and "Exodus 1948," when we re-established ourselves as a sovereign country.

Two ideas permeate our nightly enumeration: 1) The linking up of Pesach & Shavuot & 2) The semi-mourning practices associated with this time of the year, due to the deaths of the students of Rabbi Akiva. Is there a connection?