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Dreaming Into Israel: Commentary on Yom HaZikkaron and Yom Ha’Atzma’ut 5785
By Rabbi Jonah Rank, Rosh Yeshivah of Hebrew Seminary
A good Jewish book is never fiction. Good Jewish stories may lack historical truths, overflow with factual inaccuracies, or even reflect the wildest dreams of the most imaginative authors. But pure organic fiction takes place so many worlds and epochs away from our earthly reality that we could never relate to an utterly fabricated story.
The guilt of having not prevented the unthinkable atrocities of the Sho’ah (שואה)—which English-speakers usually recall as the Holocaust—undoubtedly weighed heavy on the hearts of many humans regardless of their religious identity. The most basic credo of Zionism—that Jews deserve to live securely and autonomously in a home of their own—appealed not only to Jewish pioneers settling in the historic Land of Israel but to ambassadors of the United Nations and to many allies of a beleaguered people. This diverse cast of incredulous miracle-workers eked out the pained, even war-torn, birth of the modern State of Israel in 1948—featuring for the first time in nearly two millennia an autonomous Jewish government in this historic homeland.
The Zionists who founded the new nation were not fully prepared, and anti-Zionist neighbors among Arab and Muslim populations were certainly unwilling to accept this historic moment. In 1954, lecturing in New York City, Rabbi Dr. Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881–1983)—the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism—observed:
One might… formulate… a philosophy of Jewish history, beginning with the Exodus from Egypt, which found our ancestors unprepared for entry into the Promised Land, down to our own day, when we Jews find ourselves unprepared as a people to avail ourselves fully of the opportunity presented us by the establishment of the State of Israel. (“The Crisis in Zionism as Crisis in Judaism,” in Kaplan, A New Zionism, p. 11.)
Amidst history’s surprising twists and turns, Israel has entered numerous agreements—ceasefires, peace treaties, and trade deals—with neighbors once (or still) considered a threat to the Jewish State’s future. Nonetheless, the national conscience of the State has remained in such a state of heightened concern that, since 1949, the Israel Defense Forces have held the authority to recruit all capable citizens to protect the country. Though peace has been found, cycles of violence recur, and—against the odds—Israel hosts one of the most technologically advanced militaries in the world, all while being centered in one of the most volatile regions of the world.
When our minds contemplate the military operations of the Jewish State, the results should rend our hearts. Too many Israelis—soldiers and civilians—have lost their lives in service of the Zionist dream; too many anti-Zionist terrorists have been released in exchange for releasing hostages; and too many Palestinian and other non-Israeli civilians have been killed (all too often placed in the line of fire by a merciless terrorist strategist), all while the IDF has tried to defend this nation. We have to be able to mourn these unbearable tragedies.
In Israeli culture, loss cannot exist in isolation. Yom HaZikkaron—Israel’s Memorial Day—bleeds immediately into Yom Ha’Atzma’ut—Israel’s Independence Day. One could not exist without the other. Victorious battlefronts—and the losses along the way—have defended this nation that advances medical breakthroughs, invents and refines trailblazing technologies, and cultivates one of the most educated national populations across the globe. In the realm of the particular, we have much reason to take pride in the revival of Hebrew as a dynamic language, the strengthening of communities that uplift Torah study, and the organizing of a society that plans its year around a Gregorian calendar overlain with the Jewish calendar. This of course is all but the tip of the iceberg of what we celebrate. Still, the echoes of Yom HaZikkaron reverberate through Yom Ha’Atzma’ut.
Although the IDF Code of Ethics mandates the upholding of laudably strict moral standards that most militaries reject, war is always messy. Israel’s history of poor public relations means that all errors—intentional or accidental—immediately approach the eye of public scrutiny, which calls upon Israel to do better. Furthermore, even had there been no external pressure, the very word Zion—in Hebrew Tziyyon (צִיּוֹן)—means “excellence” and calls to mind an ancient warning from Rabbi Yochanan. When he—who likely survived Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem and its Jewish Temple in 70 C.E.—was asked why Jerusalem had to fall, he warned that a society that does not conduct itself lifnim mishurat haddin (לפנים משורת הדין)—‘beyond the letter of the law’—is doomed to collapse (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzi’a 30b). We must prepare ourselves always to live to a higher standard—even if it feels out of reach. We have held the bar high, and we must raise it again.
In “A prayer for all from Jerusalem,” distributed on the eve of Yom HaZikkaron 2025, Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum dissects Deuteronomy 6:4’s call to Jewish consciousness, “שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהֹוָ֥ה ׀ אֶחָֽד׃” (Shema, Yisra’el, Adonai, Eloheynu, Adonai Echad, “Focus, Israel! Adonai is our God; Adonai is One.”) Rabbi Elad-Appelbaum proclaims:
We say to all Israel, wherever they are, we say to all humans wherever [they] are, that we are here to protect the one. One life. One story. That our people, who suffered endlessly in history from the devaluation of life, chose to be teachers, defenders, and saviors of each and every life. This is the why. This is the echo and raison d’être of being Jewish. This is the Jewish code of conduct and our categorical imperative… It is an ark of holiness and salvation in every deluge, which Jews in all generations have said twice a day, upon wakening and before going to sleep, in private and in public, and passed on to us with their last breath, which we say on these holy days to remember our why: know, there is an ideal to aspire to, and there can be such a world of holiness. Know that we tried to create it and teach you, and know that now it’s your turn, no matter what comes upon you and certainly in the holy land.
Just as the Jewish people must model the very best—“לְא֣וֹר גּוֹיִ֔ם” (le’or goyim, “as a light unto [all the] nations”) as per God’s word in Isaiah 49:3—the Jewish state must adhere to Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which demands extending equality within “מפשחת העמים” (mishpachat ha’ammim, “the family of [all] the nations”). We might not be fully there, but we have not given up—and we have good and holy reasons to pursue these noble goals.
In 1902—only five years after he had convened the First Zionist Congress—the Austro-Hungarian journalist, lawyer, and playwright Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) published a political fantasy novel, imagining renewed Jewish life alongside Muslim Arab neighbors in the Land of Israel. He concluded this German-language book with a reminder:
Traum ist von Tat nicht so verschieden, wie mancher glaubt. Alles Tun der Menschen war vorher Traum und wird später zum Traume.
A dream is not as distinct from a deed as some believe. All actions of people previously were dreams and later become dreams.
Israel emerged from a dream, and the best future that Israel will have must also begin with our dream. We still have some work before we can finish constructing an ideal society, and we have no right to shelve away the blueprints in the fiction section. As we mourn today and celebrate tomorrow—may we bless the next year with the power to step forward with another step onward and toward the Israel of our finest dreams.
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