Latest / Kerem B'Yavneh Parsha Podcast / How to Celebrate Yom Yerushalaim 5786 | Rabbi Menachem Mendel Blachman

Transcript

How to Celebrate Yom Yerushalaim 5786 | Rabbi Menachem Mendel Blachman · Kerem B'Yavneh Parsha Podcast

• 0:08
  Hi,
• 0:09
  this is ערב שבת קודש במדבר and especially it's ערב יום ירושלים.
• 0:17
  I've already spoken about this in the past,
• 0:19
  but I think it's so significant,
• 0:21
  I think we should review this.
• 0:25
  יום ירושלים has diminished into a municipal holiday.
• 0:32
  I mean the fact of the matter is that here in Israel,
• 0:34
  I don't know what it's like in the גולה,
• 0:36
  but here in Israel the only people that actually celebrate this are the youth
• 0:43
  of the דתי לאומי Judaism.
• 0:48
  For other people it's a regular day of work.
• 0:53
  They may say הלל in שול but then they run off.
• 0:57
  I mean there's no,
• 0:58
  it's not really a day that people are contemplating and thanking God for anything.
• 1:03
  I repeat,
• 1:04
  it's good for the adolescents.
• 1:05
  You look carefully at who runs around Jerusalem on that day you'll see it's
• 1:11
  usually high school children.
• 1:13
  And obviously ישיבות are there but really as soon as they go to work,
• 1:18
  they go out to the regular world,
• 1:19
  somehow this dissipates.
• 1:21
  I find that in חוץ לארץ it seems to be more significant.
• 1:24
  Very interesting to see why,
• 1:26
  but when it comes to ארץ ישראל it's a municipal holiday.
• 1:32
  Like no one's celebrating it in Tel Aviv and no one even remembers it
• 1:35
  in Haifa.
• 1:37
  It's purely local.
• 1:39
  And there's a terrible question as to why and I think something historically has
• 1:44
  been misconstrued and has caused this what I think a very not positive reality.
• 1:50
  But for whatever reason it be and I'm not going into the historical reality
• 1:56
  somehow they chose to celebrate the tremendous victory and miracles of salvation and extension
• 2:04
  of our borders and return to our נחלת אבות on כ"ח אייר,
• 2:12
  the day of liberation of the כותל,
• 2:15
  of ירושלים and not at the end of the war which was actually three
• 2:21
  days later,
• 2:22
  I mean the war in the Golan normally started then and this focused on
• 2:27
  ירושלים,
• 2:28
  which understandably why emotionally it's clearly understood,
• 2:34
  but this has taken the focus of the day to a slightly myopic dimensions.
• 2:42
  Let me tell you what I feel when I look at יום ירושלים and
• 2:46
  I see it as an extension of יום העצמאות.
• 2:51
  Years ago I was in Paris on י"ז בתמוז and I had to be
• 3:01
  there for a day or two,
• 3:02
  my in-laws live there.
• 3:04
  I went to the Louvre the great museum and I decided to go through
• 3:10
  the different Roman pavilion halls to see a bust of Titus,
• 3:16
  I wanted to see what Titus and Vespasian looked like,
• 3:20
  after all they're depicted in a certain way in the Talmud in גיטין they're
• 3:25
  depicted differently totally by Josephus.
• 3:29
  I'd like to see what they looked like.
• 3:31
  I go there whatever I saw I saw,
• 3:33
  then I sauntered into a hall and there was a bust a beautiful statue
• 3:37
  actually a replica of something which is found on the facade of the great
• 3:42
  cathedral in Strasbourg and it's a very famous piece of art,
• 3:47
  it's called Ecclesia and Synagoga,
• 3:49
  the Church and the Synagogue.
• 3:51
  And it's literally a beautiful statue of two beautiful young ladies,
• 3:57
  twins,
• 3:58
  but one of them has a crown on her head a scepter and with
• 4:04
  an orb and on the orb obviously the church she was depicting Mother Church
• 4:09
  and her twin was blindfolded no crown obviously her her dress was torn and
• 4:18
  she had a broken staff.
• 4:19
  And this was Judea,
• 4:22
  this was Synagoga.
• 4:25
  I sat there for a long time contemplating that statue.
• 4:28
  It really brought me to tears and then I did my research and I
• 4:32
  learned about this.
• 4:33
  This is actually the depiction of the Christian theology called supersessionism,
• 4:40
  something which was elaborated in by Justin Martyr or Augustine of Hippo in his
• 4:47
  book The City of God,
• 4:49
  the idea that God had finished,
• 4:53
  broken,
• 4:53
  call it what you want,
• 4:54
  the covenant with the children of אברהם יצחק ויעקב and now Mother...
• 4:59
  church became the New Testament as the new covenant,
• 5:05
  they're the new Israel.
• 5:06
  And we only exist because we are to somehow be testimony to the veracity
• 5:16
  of the of the Old Testament leading to the life of this fellow called
• 5:23
  Jesus of Nazareth.
• 5:25
  But we would no more be a nation,
• 5:28
  we would be dispersed and therefore that is the story of our גלות as
• 5:32
  a punishment for not accepting his divinity.
• 5:37
  I looked at this and this is what I saw,
• 5:40
  this is something which was a cornerstone of the church for years,
• 5:44
  centuries and the foundation of Christian anti-semitism.
• 5:52
  This is what חז"ל say דעתידים אומות העולם לומר אנו ישראל in the future
• 5:57
  the nations of the world say we are the Jews.
• 6:01
  This is actually a מדרש,
• 6:03
  a פסוק in יחזקאל,
• 6:04
  I'm not going in it at the moment but yet this has been foreseen
• 6:06
  centuries before.
• 6:12
  One has to understand that when the Zionist Congress specifically through Theodor Herzl who
• 6:18
  wanted to renew our sense of Jewish nationalism and national identity that we're not
• 6:27
  just a people and a religion but actually we are a kingdom and we
• 6:31
  are a nation and we have a land and a language and so on
• 6:35
  and so forth,
• 6:37
  the greatest opposition to it was the Christian church.
• 6:42
  For the Christian church believed that this can never be for theologically there's no
• 6:46
  such thing,
• 6:48
  literally saying סר שבט מיהודה the שבט of authority of מלכות is no more
• 6:55
  by Judea and it moved to Christian church.
• 7:00
  Well then on יום העצמאות God basically sent a very big message to the
• 7:06
  world that לא יסור שבט מיהודה ומחוקק מבין רגליו that no,
• 7:11
  we are a nation and we all of a sudden came out literally as
• 7:15
  the phoenix out of the ashes and regained our national identity in our natural
• 7:21
  country and would you believe it we even have our old language back again.
• 7:27
  The external כלים of מלכות have returned to כלל ישראל.
• 7:35
  Oh yes,
• 7:35
  this is what רב קוק discusses in his מספד בירושלים of מלכות of משיח
• 7:41
  בן יוסף.
• 7:43
  The externalities of a national definition have been returned.
• 7:51
  Oh yes,
• 7:51
  we're still waiting for משיח בן דוד.
• 7:54
  We still have to fill that national identity and those כלים of land,
• 7:59
  culture,
• 8:00
  history with our original culture of לדעת כי ה' הוא האלקים אין עוד מלבדו
• 8:06
  this is what will happen ומלאה הארץ דעה את ה' כמים לים מכסים,
• 8:11
  that's the next stage.
• 8:13
  And we see it coming slowly but surely,
• 8:16
  but first and foremost the great revolution telling the world that supersessionism is wrong,
• 8:24
  God never left this covenant and we have always been his nation.
• 8:30
  But that you should you know that the Catholic church did not recognize the
• 8:34
  state of Israel.
• 8:35
  Still remember when this Pope what was his name again,
• 8:39
  Pius or Paul,
• 8:41
  Paul,
• 8:41
  Paul,
• 8:42
  did not want to come into Jerusalem and and רב נסים the chief rabbi
• 8:47
  was not willing to go meet him on the on the border between Jordan
• 8:51
  and Israel because he didn't want to show recognition to supersessionism.
• 8:58
  Yes,
• 8:59
  and then and they claimed you know this isn't really a nation because we
• 9:03
  don't have biblical Judea and Samaria.
• 9:08
  We basically own the coastline which is basically ארץ הפלשתים or the Galilee.
• 9:15
  And then came 1967 and within a short period of time we recovered
• 9:27
  all of יהודה and שומרון.
• 9:30
  Yes,
• 9:31
  the war in the Golan continued further,
• 9:33
  but that has security ramifications but not really theological ramifications.
• 9:40
  Yes,
• 9:41
  כ"ח אייר became basically the day of recapturing biblical Israel.
• 9:48
  This created a major rupture in the church until finally John Paul,
• 9:55
  what is his name,
• 9:56
  the second,
• 9:57
  was a good man,
• 9:59
  he basically...
• 10:00
  Convened his congress,
• 10:05
  whatever they have over there,
• 10:07
  and they redefined that they walked away from the extreme supersessionism and all of
• 10:12
  a sudden the Jews are no more they are a nation which must be
• 10:15
  represented recognized and they do have a covenant with God and the church no
• 10:21
  more replaces us but rather is our twin and then they have a מחלוקת
• 10:26
  is it two covenants for one for us one for them וכולי וכולי וכולי.
• 10:31
  You know what this is?
• 10:33
  In 1967 God said the Jews are a nation and my covenant is intact
• 10:43
  and this is our land and this is our language and this is משיח
• 10:47
  בן יוסף.
• 10:52
  We displaced Catholic Christian theology and brought back the פסוק of לא יסור שבט
• 11:01
  מיהודה ומחקק מבין רגליו.
• 11:05
  This my friends is the theological importance of יום העצמאות leading to יום ירושלים.
• 11:12
  It came in stages גאולתן של ישראל קמעא קמעא.
• 11:17
  Yes it went in stages.
• 11:19
  It started with the Holocaust and ended up with ה' אייר תש"ח and gave
• 11:25
  to a great climax כ"ח באייר תשכ"ז.
• 11:32
  Yes it's really worth celebrating.
• 11:34
  It's worth taking out that flag.
• 11:37
  It's worth saying הודו להשם כי טוב כי לעולם חסדו יאמרו גאולי השם because
• 11:44
  this is a great day.
• 11:45
  It's the day of remembering that we are a nation and God's covenant is
• 11:49
  with us forever.
• 11:51
  Have an impactful יום,
• 11:54
  I wouldn't even call it יום ירושלים,
• 11:56
  יום חידוש הברית,
• 12:00
  יום גילוי הברית.
• 12:03
  This is the great day,
• 12:04
  it coincides obviously with יום ירושלים,
• 12:07
  but actually it's much more than that.
• 12:09
  It's not ירושלים.
• 12:11
  It's not just יהודה ושומרון.
• 12:14
  It's the day of לא יסור שבט מיהודה ומחקק מבין רגליו.
• 12:19
  Have a great impactful holiday and a good שבת.