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Shabbos Kedoshim • May 13, 2016 • 5 Iyar 5776 • Candlelighting 7:45 pm (Luach page 19) • Vol 15, No 19
The Newspaper of our Orthodox communities
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:UHVWOLQJ ZLWK WKH FKDOOHQJHV RI ,VUDHO DIWHU PLUDFXORXV \HDUV VIEW FROM CENTRAL PARK to the Kotel, where archeological excavations were underway. It was a warm evening and I was just standing there, drinking in the holiness of the spot, experiencing the connection to the past. Suddenly I heard the voice of a woman at my side. Her head completely wrapped in a kerchief associating her with the very religious of Jerusalem, she said: “He (G-d) is hakol yachol, omnipotent. Just remember, he is hakol yachol.â€? We stood there a few moments and shared the silence of the night, a sense of faith in the words she had just uttered; a practically tangible sense of connection to the history of our people through the millennia was laid before our eyes, staring back at us. We decided to share a cab ride out of the Old City. Somehow a conversation ensued that lead to the topic of Zionism. At one point she said something about the Kotel, to the effect, “Who says it is ours again at this stage of history? There are no prophets. We don’t know that we deserve it again. Just because it was conquered, that doesn’t mean it is meant to be ours again.â€? I asked her why she feels comfortable going to pray there, and she said, “Well, as long as we can, why not, but it doesn’t mean it’s really ours. It doesn’t mean it’s the right time in history. And it doesn’t mean it’s permanent.â€? he next day at work, my ďŹ rst job working with secular Israelis on an ongoing basis, a bottom line in a similar vein was expressed when they heard I had been at the Kotel the previous evening. It was more of a dismissal, with someone saying something to the effect: “It’s over. That part of history is over. Whether we have that or not is irrelevant to the crux of Israel.â€? I was young and it was my ďŹ rst time meeting people who held this perspective about Israel, completely antithetical to mine. I felt Continued on page 6
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SUPER SPECIALS This week on pages 16-17
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TEHILLA R. GOLDBERG
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om Ha-Atzma’ut, Israel’s Independence Day, has always been a complex day for me. As a child growing up in Jerusalem, would I be taken to join the live musical festivities or, because it was seďŹ ra, the period of semi-mourning between Pesach and Shavuot, would live music be avoided? I ended up at the live music. But when I got older and understood the nuances of the day, my appreciation for another way of acknowledging the day — reciting Hallel in morning prayers — was the custom I followed. In elementary school, I was immersed in the teachings and the atmosphere of Noam, the girls division of the famed center for learning of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kuk, the ďŹ rst chief rabbi of Palestine. His passionate Zionist ideology was the guiding light and raison d’etre of the school. The neighborhood I was raised in was mixed: religious Zionist, haredi, with a bit of secular. The high school I attended, Bais Yaakov, was anti (modern day) Zionist. Only as I got older did I understand that there was a place where the progressive, secular, anti-Zionist community on the one hand, and the right-wing, religious, anti-Zionist community on the other, converged. While their motivations were different, bottom line anti-Zionism fueled each of their perspectives toward modern-day Israel. I remember a peaceful evening in my late 20s, standing at the side of the gate leading