Israel: 70 Years of Beauty

As my rabbi loves to quip, “What a long month this week has been.”

My week can be summoned up in two words: Oy. Vey.

I’ll just skip my usual digression and say Life has been unusually busy recently. (Though, I feel like it’s been this way since January…?) Regardless, I’m finding myself inspired today.

Yes, Life has been rough, painful, stressful – you name it. And intense? Did I mention intense? However, it’s all been worth it. It always is.

I think a perfect example of this is Israel.

Israel just celebrated a massive birthday yesterday: 70. Seventy years.

My own father turned 70 in February. What can I say? The year 1948 was quite the year. I mention this because I’ve been I’m more personally contentious of what 70 years looks like, feels like. For a country, it looks and feels quite similar.

From the ashes of the Holocaust, the Jewish people fled to the one place they knew was home: Israel. They reclaimed their homeland, and began cultivating, restoring the barren, dead deserts and swamps of the land into the lush, teaming gardens, vineyards, forests, and Life it once was thousands of years ago.

And it was not easy.

Many of the first generation died of malaria and other diseases, from continued persecution and terrorization, and then of course there was that whole war they were fighting for their independence.

But they survived, and now they thrive.

Today, Israel is a beacon of hope to not only the Middle East where many find refuge from persecution, but also the world. They are one of the leading nations in humanitarian aid, and through their scientific, agricultural, medicinal, and technological advances and innovations, the world has prospered.

But Israel is not beautiful for merely being a prosperous nation.

One of the words for “beauty” in Hebrew is “tiferet” תפראת, which is the sixth sephirot ספירות, one of the emanations of the Divine Light. Tiferet could also be likened to balance because of its position within the ten sephirot. Itself is balanced between chesed חסד (loving kindness/compassion) and gevurah גבורה (strength/judgement).

As the sephirot are illuminations of the Divine, chesed without gevurah, or gevurah without chesed, cannot reveal the Divine. It is both simultaneously working in balance with one another which reveals His beauty, or tiferet.

(*Disclaimer: I’m not a kabbalist, so that’s the most explanation you’re going to get. Read this article for an in-depth description or check out this bite-sized Instagram post.)

Israel is constantly living in this balance.

As the nations rage around her, trying to destroy her and wipe her off the map due to anti-Semitic ideologies, Israel must consistently remain strong, enacting judgements upon her enemies as they continue to persecute her. This could be interpreted as her use of gevurah.

Simultaneously, Israel continues to strive towards peace with her enemies, and her humanitarian efforts worldwide bring compassionate care to those in dire need due to natural disasters, war, terrorism, etc. This could be interpreted as Israel utilising chesed.

Of course, these national ideologies are logically, inherently rooted in the Jewish identity of Israel as she is the Jewish nation. Nowhere in the world will you find a comparable zest for life as well as the desire to protect and nurture it.

It is this passion for Life which makes Israel beautiful, a light among the nations, displaying Hashem’s beauty, His tiferet.

I find it fascinating every time we celebrate the modern state of Israel’s independence on Yom Ha’Atzmaut, it falls during the third week of the Omer. (The Omer, or counting of the Omer, is the anticipation of Shavuot, the day the Torah was given on Mount Sinai, so we count down the 50 days from Pesach to Shavuot.)

Why does the third week of the Omer matter then? Well, traditionally the days of the Omer are for intensive study of the Torah as we anticipate the celebration of its giving on Shavuot. The first week, you study the sephirot of chesed, the second gevurah, the third tiferet, and so on.

Thus, as we celebrate Israel’s independence, we are to be studying the emanation of the beauty of Hashem.

I would thus ask, is there no greater display of His beauty than the nation of Israel?

Happy Birthday, Israel! Am Yisrael Chai!

עם ישראל חי!