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and Join Madlik on Clubhouse every Thursday so you can participate in our weekly live discussion of the Parsha. Link to Transcript here: https://madlik.com/2024/05/08/yom-hazikaron/
Rabbi Menachem Bombach was born and raised in an ultra-Orthodox (Hassidic) community in Meah Shearim in Jerusalem. Following a yeshiva education he earned a BA in Education and a Master’s in Public Policy from Hebrew University, and participated in several leadership programs, including at the Mandel Institute where he served as Dean of Students. In 2013 Bombach founded HaMidrasha HaHassidit (The Hassidic Seminary), which caters to high school students from Hassidic backgrounds, providing a comprehensive Torah education while preparing students for matriculation exams. Following the success of the Seminary, Bombach proceeded to established elementary and high schools in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh under the Netzach Educational Network, which today comprises ten schools.
Website of Netzach Israel: https://www.mcl.org.il/academy
To donate: Netzach Israel Chinuch Vahachshara
In just a few days, we will observe Yom HaZikaron, a day of remembrance abbreviated from Yom HaZikaron LeHalelei Ma'arkhot Yisrael ul'Nifge'ei Pe'ulot HaEivah, which commemorates the fallen soldiers of Israel's wars and victims of acts of terror. Last year, Yom HaZikaron honored 24,213 soldiers who have sacrificed their lives over the past century and a half, with this year's toll expected to exceed 500, marking it as the deadliest year in Zionist history. Additionally, 4,255 terror victims were remembered last year, with the number expected to rise by over a thousand for this year.
Yom HaZikaron is commemorated across Israel through various customs deeply ingrained in the national consciousness. The day is fixed in the Hebrew calendar, falling on the 4th day of the month of Iyyar, commencing in the evening and concluding the following evening. At sundown, a nationwide siren wails for two minutes, prompting a collective pause as people stand in silent reverence. Vehicles halt in the middle of roads, their occupants standing beside them with heads bowed. At eleven o'clock the next morning, the siren resounds, once again halting the country in solemn reflection. Subsequently, memorial services take place in military cemeteries nationwide.
In the lead-up to Yom HaZikaron, hundreds of IDF soldiers adorn the graves of fallen comrades with small Israeli flags. The IDF Chief-of-Staff, this year Lieutenant-General Hertzi Halevi, personally places a flag on the most recently interred soldier's grave at Mount Herzl's military cemetery in Jerusalem, the site of the official government ceremony attended by the President, Prime Minister, and cabinet members. Flags throughout the country are flown at half-mast, and families of fallen soldiers receive letters of condolence and gratitude from the Minister of Defense, General Yoav Gallant, often accompanied by a modest gift, typically a book produced by the IDF for this purpose.
(כ) וּמִנַּיִן שֶׁהָאָבֵל אָסוּר בִּשְׁאֵלַת שָׁלוֹם. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (יחזקאל כד יז) "הֵאָנֵק דֹּם". כָּל שְׁלֹשָׁה יָמִים הָרִאשׁוֹנִים מִי שֶׁנָּתַן לוֹ שָׁלוֹם אֵין מַחְזִיר לוֹ אֶלָּא מוֹדִיעוֹ שֶׁהוּא אָבֵל. וּמִשְּׁלֹשָׁה וְעַד שִׁבְעָה מִי שֶׁשָּׁאַל בִּשְׁלוֹמוֹ מַחְזִיר לוֹ שָׁלוֹם. וּמִשִּׁבְעָה וְעַד שְׁלֹשִׁים שׁוֹאֵל בִּשְׁלוֹם אֲחֵרִים אֲבָל אֲחֵרִים אֵין שׁוֹאֲלִין בִּשְׁלוֹמוֹ עַד לְאַחַר שְׁלֹשִׁים. וְעַל אָבִיו וְעַל אִמּוֹ אֵין שׁוֹאֲלִין בִּשְׁלוֹמוֹ עַד לְאַחַר שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר חֹדֶשׁ. אִם בִּשְׁאֵלַת שָׁלוֹם נֶאֱסַר בְּאָבֵל קַל וָחֹמֶר שֶׁהוּא אָסוּר לְהַרְבּוֹת דְּבָרִים וְלִשְׂחוֹק שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר דֹּם. וְלֹא יֶאֱחֹז תִּינוֹק בְּיָדוֹ שֶׁלֹּא יְבִיאֶנּוּ לִידֵי שְׂחוֹק. וְלֹא יִכָּנֵס לִמְקוֹם שִׂמְחָה כְּגוֹן בָּתֵּי הַמִּשְׁתָּאוֹת וְכַיּוֹצֵא בָּהֶן:
(20) Which source teaches that a mourner is forbidden to exchange greetings with colleagues? Ezekiel was instructed: "Be silent from groaning."
For the entire first three days, if someone greets him, he does not respond with greetings. Instead, he notifies him that he is a mourner. From the third day until the seventh, when a person greets him, he should respond with greetings. From the seventh until the thirtieth day, he may greet others, but others should not greet him until after thirty days have passed. And when he is in mourning for his father or mother, he should not be greeted until after twelve months.
If he is forbidden to greet a colleague during the mourning period, one can certainly infer that he is forbidden to engage in lengthy talk and frivolity, as implied by the instruction: "Be silent." He should not hold an infant in his arms so that he will not lead him to laughter. And he should not enter a place of celebration, e.g., a feasting hall or the like.
That Jewish death is either justified or possesses some universal redemptive significance is, in fact, a point on which those who differ over just about everything else can agree.
For the Christians, we suffer as enduring witness to our murder of Christ and rejection of his divinity.
For the Muslims, we suffer because we reject Muhammad's prophecy and message.
For traditional Jews, we suffer for our sins and for the sake of sanctifying God's name.
For Hermann Cohen and his liberal acolytes (both those who acknowledge their debt to him and those who don't), we suffer on behalf of the sins of the world.
Only one group of people denies that the suffering of the Jews has any redemptive meaning at all: the Zionists. For us, the Jews suffer only because people mean us harm, and because we are unable to defend ourselves. And therefore we must learn to defend ourselves.
This seemingly modest, rational demural of the Jews — our bowing out of the economy of suffering into which we had been conscripted — turns out to be one of the most radical revolutions in Western thought. We see all around us that it is unfathomable to the rest of the world — to Jew and gentile alike — that we are no longer willing to accept our suffering as the verdict of heaven and humanity, but intend instead to defend ourselves. B-b-b-but, they sputter, can't you see that you are guilty? That you are deicides, kafirs, thieves, settler-colonists, guilty of apartheid and genocide and countless other inhuman crimes? That you deserve this — all of this — and more?
To which we Zionists reply: No more guilty than any human being. No, we will defend ourselves.
This is the only meaning of the Shoah for us. That we were murdered for no good reason, and that our murder has no redemptive meaning. None at all.
A Zionist Reflection for Yom HaShoah
The Jew as stubborn "living witness for the absence of redemption" (Strauss), or what Bibi got right
JOE SCHWARTZ MAY 08, 2024 on Bones of Joseph: Dispatches from Tel Aviv on Substack