Let me tell you a story. Can you picture the scene? It is the second Friday of May 1948, in a packed room at the Tel Aviv Museum filled with people and a sense of destiny, a diminutive man standing barely five feet tall with two tufts of hair poking out from the sides of his head strides to the front of the room. He ascends the stage with a clear sense of purpose. A pin drop can be heard in the silence that falls as soon as David Ben Gurion begins to speak.
Just a few words but these words will alter the course of world history and the effects will still be felt nearly 70 years later. His words were broadcast over the airwaves and electrified those listening on radios around the world.
"I shall now read to you the founding document of the State of Israel…The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books…This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State…Accordingly we, members of the People's Council, representatives of the Jewish Community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel".
Oh to be a fly on the wall on that beautiful day in May. What feelings must have been felt by those in the crowd as they digested his words? Euphoria at the realization of a millennia old dream. Pride at their newfound autonomy. Fear at the unknown especially as they had heard about the Arab armies of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan poised upon the border.
Let’s go back to that gathering in 1948, hearing the astounding news of an independent Jewish state in the land of Israel! The final words in this historic document.
“Placing our trust in the ‘Rock of Israel’, we affix our signatures to this proclamation at this session of the provisional council of state, on the soil of the homeland, in the city of Tel-Aviv, on the Sabbath eve, the 5th day of Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948).”
These words were followed by an emotional prayer recited by Rabbi Maimon, the first minister of religion to the newly established state of Israel.
"Blessed are You, Lord,our G-D, King of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us and enabled us to reach this occasion".
That is the story of Israel's Independence Day.
What does it mean to be independent? The Oxford dictionary has the following definition:
Independent; adjective
Free from outside control; not subject to another’s authority
Well now I’m really confused. Isn't independence a decidedly non-Jewish value? After all don't the Jewish people acknowledge multiple times a day G-d’s sovereignty? Is that not a contradiction to independence? Why should we celebrate independence?!
Another definition in the Oxford Dictionary is quite helpful and says as follows “Not connected with another or with each other; separate”. Separate.
That is interesting as the first Jew, Abraham, was called an Ivri (Hebrew), from the word Ever meaning the other side. As Abraham stood opposed to the culture of his time, making himself a separate entity from them. He was a man who established himself and his family as different. A man who rejected his social conditioning. A man who questioned the very axioms of the society he was brought up in, the results changing humanity forevermore. A man who was not content with merely being a part of the world but wanted to change it in the most profound way. Separate.
So is independence a Jewish value? Yes, if true independence. Please permit me to explain. True independence is finding what you believe in and sticking to it. True independence is having the courage and moral fibre to be a burning torch in a world filled with darkness. True independence is the ability to go against the flow and live by what one knows to be true, regardless of the whispers around us. That can mean living with a set of values increasingly unpopular in the world, or establishing a national homeland for the Jewish people.
A dream of millennia come true. Not since the first Temple have the Jewish people had full independence from another ruling power. What amazing things could happen next?
Our dreams could now be realised without us having to worry about the next Pogrom, a land where we could ever increasingly fulfil our jobs as ambassadors of light using our platform in the community of nations to teach how humanity should live no matter how unpopular the idea.
If only things had been so simple, as we have been under a perpetual state of war ever since but at least for one fleeting moment immortalised in history we were ready to achieve as a people what so many of our ancestors had done as individuals. True Independence.
What happens next is in our hands.
