Yom Hazzikarón and Yom Haatzma'ut

Tonight and for two days Israel celebrates its two most important secular holidays: the first of them is Yom Hazzikaron (The day of rememberance) in which the country remembers all the fallen soldiers and the victims of terror. The TV stations that broadcast "entertaining" things shut down or dedicate their waves to memorial programs of specific families: following their grief, sharing with the entire country the memory of your boy or girl who fell in this war or the other. The same thing with radio. The whole country is one huge bleeding wound, one single remembering soul. Tomorrow, when the sun sets, the gloom of Yom Hazzikaron will be raised by the cheer and the fireworks of Independence Day (Yom Haatzma'ut). The stages that have held, some twenty four hours previous, grieving families will be filled with dancers and children, baloons, and flags (ubiquitous blue Stars of David on a sea of white). Sackcloth will be turned into dancing, grief into joy. In any other country such mingling of the most contradictory feelings in the human heart would seem schizophrenic and grotesque. However, in Israel it seems natural and logical. The continuing existence of the State (59 years tomorrow) is guaranteed, sadly, only by the efforts and sacrifices of these brave men and women. May it be His will that in the very close future this will not seem so blatantly obvious!

חג שמח