Yom Yerushalayim on Bill Clinton and the Entertainment Culture and Shavuot Edition
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DIGITAL EDITION VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 2 אייר תש"ף TORAT ERETZ YISRAEL • PUBLISHED IN JERUSALEM • DISTRIBUTED AROUND THE WORLD MAY 2020 ISRAEL EDITION WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO THE FOUNDING SPONSORS OF HAMIZRACHI – THE LAMM FAMILY OF MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA Senator Joe Lieberman Yom Yerushalayim on Bill Clinton and the Entertainment Culture and Shavuot Edition PAGE 42 Rabbanit Shani Taragin connects David HaMelech, Avraham Avinu and Yom Yerushalayim PAGE 7 Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks shares his passion for Jerusalem PAGE 18 Dr. Yael Ziegler with some fascinating insights into the Book of Ruth PAGE 14 Rabbi Hershel Schachter explains how we determine the date of Shavuot PAGE 8 Sivan Rahav Meir INSIDE! and Yedidya Meir offer some inspiring A special Aseret HaDibrot section, with 10 refreshing thoughts thoughts for these a fun Jerusalem Quiz for all the family times and a delicious Israeli cheesecake recipe! PAGE 30 our fallen heroes לעילוי נשמות sponsored anonymously www.mizrachi.org [email protected] +972 (0)2 620 9000 CHAIRMAN Mr. Harvey Blitz CHIEF EXECUTIVE Rabbi Doron Perez EDUCATIONAL DIRECTORS Rabbi Reuven Taragin Rabbanit Shani Taragin PUBLISHED BY THE MIZRACHI WORLD MOVEMENT EDITORIAL TEAM Daniel Verbov Esther Shafier CREATIVE DIRECTOR חג שמח Jonny Lipczer DESIGN SUPPORT Elisheva Mostovicz PRODUCTION AND ADVERTISING MANAGER chag sameach Meyer Sterman [email protected] from all of us HaMizrachi seeks to spread Torat Eretz Yisrael throughout the world. HaMizrachi also contains articles, opinion pieces and advertisements that represent the diversity of views and at mizrachi interests in our communities. These do not necessarily reflect any official position of Mizrachi or its branches. If you don't want to keep HaMizrachi, you can double-wrap it before disposal, or place it directly into sheimos. HAMIZRACHI DEDICATION OPPORTUNITIES If you would like to dedicate an issue of HaMizrachi in memory of a loved one or in celebration of a simcha, please send an email to [email protected] 2 | Cover photo: Sharon Gabay Torat HaMizrachi Rabbi Doron Perez The of Creation REMARKABLE DAYS THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY he six days from June 5 to June to attack, their unexpected entry into The great Biblical prophets had pre- 10, 1967 are without parallel in the war precipitated the Jewish peo- dicted both the return to Israel and the story of human warfare. ple’s return to the holy and ancient the rebuilding of Jerusalem in scores T city of Jerusalem, the Kotel and the of ancient prophecies – an integral The sensational speed and brevity Temple Mount for the first time in part of the Messianic drama and the of the war, the sudden and startling almost 2,000 years. Jewish people’s historic mission. In drastic twists, its seemingly super- six short days, they touched on the natural features, the remarkable The sovereign return of the Jewish essence of their existence and caught reunification of Jerusalem, and the people to Jerusalem was a spiritual a glimpse of the end of the story. totally unforeseen new political real- and political seismic shift of epic ity created both in the Middle East proportions. As the Chief of Staff, Yitzchak Rabin and throughout the world, were all was given the honor of naming the extraordinary. Here’s why. war. He captured the enormity of these events in the name he chose. Prior to 1967, who had ever heard of In 1948, so soon after the ovens of Auschwitz, a stateless, wander- Among the titles proposed were the a full-scale war measured in days? War of the Daring, the War of Salva- We had the Hundred Years’ War, ing people had founded a State and had been restored to their historic tion and the War of the Sons of Light. the Eighty Years’ War, the Thirty Remarkably though, Rabin chose The Years’ War, as well as wars measured national homeland. Evoking Yechez- kel’s dry bones’ prophecy,1 the col- Six-Day War, as it seemed to him to in years and months. Where in the evoke the six days of creation.2 annals of human history had anyone lective physical body of the Jewish heard of a major regional war involv- people had been resurrected. In 1967 It was the dawn of a new era. ing multiple countries beginning and though, Israel would receive her soul. ending in less than a week? It totally transformed how the Jewish She began to tap into her spiritual people viewed themselves and shifted Under imminent attack from six Arab destiny – Jerusalem. She was no something deep within their psyche. armies and facing a threat of anni- longer just physically surviving but hilation, Israeli army chaplains were spiritually thriving. Israel without In June of 1967, the country had sent to public parks to prepare funeral Jerusalem is to the Jewish people around 2.5 millions Jews. A crippling grounds for the expected death toll of like a body without a soul. Jerusalem economy, social challenges and mil- as many as 100,000. without Israel is like a soul without a itary threats caused many to leave body. Together, Israel and Jerusalem Israel. The joke of the time was, “Will Incredibly, less than a week later, are one. Physical and spiritual, heaven the last one left at Lod Airport please Israel had not only survived with less and earth, national and religious, turn off the lights.” Over these six than 800 casualties but had almost secular and sacred, fate and destiny, days everything changed. Large waves tripled in land size and returned to surviving and thriving, particular of aliyah began pouring in from all many of its ancient historical and and universal are all woven into one over the world. For the first time, tens Biblical lands. Incredibly, and after holistic whole. So much of what had Continued on page 4 multiple pleas to the Jordanians not been lost had now been reclaimed. | 3 Continued from page 3 of thousands of Jews living comfort- It was there they encamped before that this alludes to the 6th of Sivan, ably throughout the Western world Mount Sinai, “as one man with one the future date of Matan Torah, the began moving in droves to Israel. heart,” 4 standing with a singular day that would give the essential The spiritually oppressed Jews of the unity and anticipation to receive the Divine purpose to the physical cre- Soviet Union, whose Jewish identity Torah. On that day, Moshe ascended ation. So too, in our time, the return and pride had been squashed, would the mountain and initiated a six-day to Jerusalem and the close proximity somehow find the courage to stand up spiritual preparation period before to Shavuot gave the Six-Day War its for their Jewishness and rebel against receiving the Torah six days later. Just ultimate spiritual meaning. like in those days, so too at this time the Communist regime and the KGB. had they ascended the Mountain of The Jewish people and the Torah This, in turn, sparked a deep sense G-d, Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. world today are not only surviving but of shared fate and common destiny Now they were ready for a remarkable thriving, almost as never before. Israel that gripped the nation. Under the and unforgettable re-receiving of the has over nine million civilians with slogan “Let My People Go,” Jews Torah. 6.7 million Jews, the largest amount around the world galvanized to fight of Jews ever to live in the Land of for their brethren and eventually led A Night To Remember Israel. Jerusalem is Israel’s largest city to over a million Russian Olim arriv- with a population of 900,000 and is ing in Israel after the fall of the Iron Many people say that this night was home to the largest concentration Curtain. the most memorable of their entire of shuls, yeshivot and Torah learn- lives, etched into their consciousness ing centers in the world. There is Not only was Israel’s spirit lifted forever. It was the first Shavuot to arguably more Torah learning in the but so was the search for its soul. I take place at the Western Wall, the Jewish world today than at any other believe one can trace the beginning Kotel HaMa’aravi, under a Jewish time in history. of the return of tens if not hundreds government and with the protection of thousands to their religious and of Jewish soldiers for the first time So much of this was precipitated spiritual roots – and the flourishing in almost two millennia. A mind by the Divine grace and favor the of educational and outreach organi- boggling 200,000 Jews from all over Almighty shone upon us during those zations of the Baal Teshuva move- Israel, almost 10% of the country’s modern Six Days of Creation. May we deeply appreciate and continue ment in Israel and all over the Jewish Jewish population, made their way to be worthy of such monumental world – directly to the transformative through the ancient alleyways of blessings. power of these six days. The Jewish the Old City to gather together at the small but recently cleared plaza soul was stirred with an other-worldly Yom Yerushalayim and Chag Shavuot at the foot of the Wall. This was the fire and fervor. Sameach! first time since the year 70 C.E. that individual Jews no longer came as for- Incredible Timing eigners to someone else’s Jerusalem, 1 Yechezkel 37. The timing on the Jewish calendar of but returned as rightful custodians to 2 Michael Oren, Six Days of War, Ballantine Books, p. 309. the war could barely have been more the heart of their national and spir- itual home.