HBD! - Chronicle Online/The WORD 05/01/2025

Weekly On-line Rabbi's D'var-Torah

May 1, 2025

3 Iyar 5785

Parashat Tazria Metzora

Happy Birthday! This Saturday, Israel will turn 77 on the Hebrew calendar—the 5th day of the month Iyar. When Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day) falls on Shabbat, it gets pushed up to avoid a conflict. So, we are celebrating Israel’s birthday today.

Back in 1948, the 5th of Iyar coincided with the 14th of May, and the provisional government of Israel issued a declaration that included these words:

“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped.... After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people remained faithful to it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom....

The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions....”

It goes on to say:

“WE EXTEND our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.”

I feel compelled to share these words today because words matter.  Israel may not be perfect in its pursuit of these ideals, but it still holds up these principles as the goal towards which to strive.

In contrast, consider the foundational documents of the PLO and Hamas.

The Palestinian National Charter of 1968 includes the following passages:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood.... The Arab Palestinian people, expressing themselves by the armed Palestinian revolution, reject all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine...

Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-à-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world.”

The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) declares the following:

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Muslim generations until Judgement Day....

The day that enemies usurp part of Muslim land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters.”

As Israel begins her 78th year, engaged in a multi-front, war, there’s no question that one side wants to completely destroy the other side. Meanwhile, that other side would like nothing more than to co-exist. All you have to do is listen to their own words to know which side is which.

Happy Birthday, Israel. My wish for you this year is peace.

Shalom,

RAF.