Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

As we farewell Pesach each year, we encounter three modern commemorations.

1) Nisan 28 is known as Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day,

2) Iyar 4 is Yom HaZikkaron – Israel Remembrance Day for those who lost their lives in the defence of Israel and

3) Iyar 5 is Yom Ha’atzmaut – Israel Independence Day. 

The actual commemoration of these days varies however from year to year, in order to ensure that there is no desecration of Shabbat.  So Yom HaShoah this year took place on Thursday, April 24 (Nisan 26).  Yom HaZikkaron falls on Wednesday April 30 (Iyar 2), and Yom Ha’atzmaut is celebrated on Thursday May 1 (Iyar 3).

It is no surprise therefore that at this time of the year, we turn our attention to modern Jewish history and in particular give serious consideration to the suffering of the Jewish people and their national revival.  It is particularly apposite that these three anniversaries flow in the way they do – since they correspond to the chronology of the twentieth century; first the horrors which befell the Jewish people during the Nazi era (1933-45), followed on by the sacrifices made by the members of the Yishuv in establishing the modern State of Israel (1948) and finally a celebration of Israel’s many successes over the past seven decades (1948-2025).

These events seem to mirror a biblical reading normally reserved for Chol Hamoed Pesach, namely the vision of the dry bones witnessed by the prophet Ezekiel. 

It describes the Jewish people laid waste – with little or no hope of recovery and yet miraculously they are reborn and re-establish themselves in their native land. 

In the words of Rabbi Sacks, it was the most haunting of all prophetic visions. 

The prophet Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones, a heap of skeletons.  God asked him, “Son of man, can these bones live?”  Ezekiel replied, “God, you alone know.”  Then the bones came together, and grew flesh and skin, and began to breathe, and live again.  Then God said: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.  They say, “Our bones are dried up.  אָבְדָה תִקְוָתֵנוּ (avdah tikvatenu), our hope is lost.”  Therefore prophesy and say to them: “This is what God says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.”

In 1878 Naftali Herz Imber took these very words and reworked them into his stirring poem Tikvateynu – Our Hope.  In this poem, later to become the Hatikvah, Imber wrote – עוֹד לֹא אָבְדָה תִקְוָתֵנוּ od lo avdah tikvatenu – our hope is not yet lost somehow anticipating the utter desolation of the Jewish people in the first half of the 20^th century and then their miraculous renaissance from 1948 onwards.

Interestingly the Talmud (TB Sanhedrin 92b) examines this Biblical prophecy and questions its authenticity.  According to one scholar, Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Rabbi Yosi HaGlili, the prophet’s oracle was definitely not a parable, but should be understood literally; in other words, the dead had incontestably returned to life, made aliyah, married and had children.  In fact, by way of supporting this theory, another rabbi, by the name of Yehuda ben Beteira, declared himself to be a descendant of these very people and even produced some old tefillin which he claimed had been worn by his ancestors on their revival and return to Israel.

These ideas support the concept of resurrection or personal revival, and in the centuries after Ezekiel these ideas eventually became mainstream in Jewish theology.  The Pharisees adopted resurrection as part of their belief structure and they even added a blessing into the Amidah which refers specifically to the power of God to bring humans back to life – this remains the second blessing in every Amidah and it concludes with the words: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה’ מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים Blessed are You, O Lord, who revives the dead.

Not that all Jews agreed with these ideas – the Sadducees, a Jewish sect who opposed the Pharisees during Roman times, refused to accept the concept of an afterlife and there is even evidence in the New Testament of their refusal to accept resurrection as an article of faith. 

Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.”  When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided.  The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things.  (Acts 23: 6-8)

However, eventually the Pharisaic ideas became embedded in Jewish theology and some twelve hundred years later, Moses Maimonides included a belief in resurrection in his Thirteen Principles of Faith. 

Maimonides wrote: The resurrection of the dead is a foundation from Moses our Teacher, may peace be upon him.  There is no faith and no connection to the Jewish religion for one who does not believe this.  But the resurrection is only for the righteous for how could the wicked be brought back to life when they are dead even during their lifetime?  This is just as the sages teach: “The wicked, even during their lifetime are called dead; the righteous, even following their death, are called living.”

From these and other texts one can see that the vision of the Dry Bones was taken literally by some Jewish scholars and so developed the idea of personal redemption or resurrection.  Others however, took Ezekiel’s words metaphorically and Imber’s poem certainly reflects that viewpoint:

עוֹד לֹא אָבְדָה תִּקְוָתֵנוּ

הַתִּקְוָה בַּת שְׁנוֹת אַלְפַּיִם

לִהְיוֹת עַם חָפְשִׁי בְּאַרְצֵנוּ

Our hope is not yet lost,

The hope that is two thousand years old,

To be a free nation in our own land

So instead of personal redemption, the Jews are promised national revival.  The individual Jew may suffer and perish – but our national identity and survival will always be assured.  How this happened remains a mystery.  Rabbi Sacks himself pondered on this question: “How did a people survive for twenty centuries without a state, a home, a place where they could defend themselves? How did they sustain their identity when everywhere they were a minority? How did faith survive the massacres and pogroms, when Jews called and heaven seemed silent?”

His answer: “Somehow, in ways I don’t fully understand, the Jewish people has been touched by a power greater than ourselves that’s led our ancestors and contemporaries, time and again, to defy the normal parameters of history.  Somehow heaven and earth met in the Jewish heart, lifting people to do what otherwise seemed impossible.  Descartes said: I think, therefore I am. The Jewish axiom is different. Ani maamin, I believe, therefore I am.”

What is clear, and it is most appropriate to record these views at this time of year – is that the Zionist dream, led primarily by non-orthodox Jews from Eastern Europe, believed unequivocally in the national revival of our people.  The dream and hope of Jewish national independence superseded their longing for personal redemption.  They did not seek a spiritual hereafter for themselves personally and were willing to sacrifice everything, even their own life, for the greater good.  Whether or not one might describe this as heresy, in terms of traditional Jewish theology, I leave to others – but in my humble opinion, it is unquestionably and unreservedly heroic at a level beyond which one can hardly imagine, and without which the State of Israel would probably have never come into being.

Their belief, if one may use theological language, was in Hatikvah itself – in the hope that the Jews could create, defend and sustain their own country.  This hope was itself represented by Imber’s poem and the anthem set to music by a Romanian Jewish immigrant named Samuel Cohen, who adapted it from a Moldavian folk song.  It became the official anthem of the Zionist movement in 1897.  It was for this reason that Hatikvah was sung defiantly by many Jews in Europe as a gesture of collective hope and spiritual resistance in the face of the Nazi Holocaust and Stalinist terror.

Perhaps the most courageous rendition of Hatikvah was sung in 1947 by one of the עולי הגרדום (Olei Hagardom) – those who ascended the gallows.  These were Jews, most of whom were tried in British Mandate military courts and sentenced to death by hanging.  Most of the executions were carried out at Acre Prison.  Mainly members of Jewish underground groups, the list also included at least one representative of the Haganah. 

One of these men was Dov Gruner.  Gruner was born on December 6, 1912, to a religious Jewish family in Kisvárda, Hungary.  In 1938, after studying engineering in Brno, he joined the Zionist youth movement Betar, which arranged his passage to Palestine in 1940 aboard the immigrant ship S.S. Skaria.  After spending six months in the Atlit detainee camp, he settled in Rosh Pina.  In 1941, he joined the British Army to fight the Nazis, and together with his comrades in the Jewish Brigade came to the aid of Holocaust survivors in Europe.

After Gruner’s demobilization from the army, in March 1946, he took part in an Irgun arms raid against a British army depot near Netanya.  Ten days later, he participated in his second and final operation on behalf of the Irgun—an arms raid against a Ramat Gan police station.  Gruner headed a team of “porters”, who took weapons from the armoury to a waiting truck.  When a gunfight in which two Irgun men and an Arab constable were killed broke out, Gruner and his team continued working under fire.  Gruner was hit and wounded during the firefight.  The remaining Irgun members boarded the truck and escaped together with the weapons.

Gruner, who had been severely wounded by a gunshot to the face, was taken to hospital and operated on.  His health slowly began to improve, and he was transferred to prison.  On January 1, 1947, his trial before a Jerusalem military court began.  When brought before the court and asked whether he admitted guilt, he replied that he did not recognize the authority of the court.

“This court has no legal foundation, since it was appointed by a regime without legal foundation.  You came to Palestine because of the commitment you undertook at the behest of all the nations of the world to rectify the greatest wrong caused to any nation in the history of mankind, namely the expulsion of Israel from their land, which transformed them into victims of persecution and incessant slaughter throughout the world.  It was this commitment—and this commitment alone—which constituted the legal and moral basis for your presence in this country.  But you betrayed it wilfully, brutally and with satanic cunning.  You turned your commitment into a mere scrap of paper…When the prevailing government in any country is not legal, when it becomes a regime of oppression and tyranny, it is the right of its citizens—more than that, it is their duty—to fight this regime and to topple it.  This is what Jewish youth are doing and will continue to do until you quit this land, and hand it over to its rightful owners: the Jewish people.  For you should know this: there is no power in the world which can sever the tie between the Jewish people and their one and only land.  Whosoever tries to sever it—his hand will be cut off and the curse of God will rest on him for ever.”

Refusing to partake in his own defence and refusing to co-operate with counsel, Gruner was said to have been offered a commutation on the condition that he admit guilt.  He refused to do so and was sentenced to death.  Despite the maximum security of his prison situation, Gruner maintained an irregular correspondence with Irgun headquarters.  Prior to his execution, Gruner wrote a farewell letter to the head of the Irgun, Menachem Begin.

Sir,

From the bottom of my heart I thank you for the encouragement which you have given me during these fateful days. Be assured that whatever happens I shall not forget the principles of pride, generosity and firmness. I shall know how to uphold my honour, the honour of a Jewish soldier and fighter.

I could have written in high-sounding phrases something like the old Roman ‘Duce est pro patria mori’, but words are cheap, and sceptics can say ‘After all, he had no choice’.  And they might even be right.  Of course I want to live.  Who does not?  But what pains me, now that the end is so near, is mainly the awareness that I have not succeeded in achieving enough.  I too could have said: ‘Let the future take care of the future’ while enjoying life and being content with the job I was promised on my demobilization.  I could even have left the country altogether for a safer life in America.  But this would not have satisfied me, neither as a Jew nor a Zionist.

There are many schools of thought as to how a Jew should choose his way of life.  One way is that of the assimilationists who have renounced their Jewishness.  There is also another way, the way of those who call themselves ‘Zionists’ — the way of negotiation and compromise, as if the existence of a nation were but another transaction.  They are not prepared to make any sacrifice and are therefore forced to make concessions and accept compromise.  Perhaps this is a means of delaying the end but, in the final analysis, it leads to the ghetto.  And let us not forget that in the ghetto of Warsaw alone there were five hundred thousand Jews.

The only way that seems, to my mind, to be right, is the way of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the way of courage and daring without renouncing a single inch of our homeland.  When political negations prove futile, one must be prepared to fight for our country and our freedom.  Without them the very existence of our nation is jeopardized, so fight we must with all possible means.  This is the only way left to our people in their hour of decision: to stand on our rights, to be ready to fight, even if for some of us this way leads to the gallows.  For it is a law of history that only with blood shall a country be redeemed.  I am writing this while awaiting the hangman.  This is not a moment at which I can lie, and I swear that if I had to begin my life anew I would have chosen the same way, regardless of the consequences for myself.

Your faithful soldier,

Dov

Menachem Begin replied to this final letter and in his reply he does indeed speak of resurrection – but not private and personal – but one that is of a national dimension, of a shared fate and destiny:

“Great is the courage in Israel at a time of destruction and in this time of resurrection.  We will be proud of them all and in all of them we will recognize holiness.  But in the ladder of Jewish heroism, there is one level which is supreme.  And from that level arise those who are Harugei Malchut (the Slain Ones); they were fighters whose fighting was not passive.  It was active.  They were revolutionaries whose revolution was not without choice but initiated.  They went to the gallows and their heroism was not once.  It is eternal.  From their bleeding hearts, a song of freedom was sung.  The song that sang how there is no purpose in being slaves anymore and that liberty would win and justice would arrive.  And now, God of Israel, I tell You: Because You have given Israel such children as these, I say ‘Yitgadal V’Yitkadash Sh’mei Rabbah‘.”

Menachem Begin says “Yitgadal V’Yitkadash Sh’mei Rabbah” — May His Great Name be exalted and sanctified.  The evidence that God’s Name is exalted and sanctified is that Israel has sons who are prepared to give their lives for the freedom of Israel — boys who are ready to sacrifice themselves on the altar of Redemption so that the next generation will see a Hebrew flag over Jerusalem.”

Dov Gruner received this letter and the following morning at 4.00 am on April 16, 1947 walked calmly to the gallows believing in the cause, for which he gave his life.  As he walked, so he sang the Hatikvah and all the other Jewish prisoners in Acre prison rose from their sleep and accompanied the singing.  

Shortly after, the Irgun announced that any more hanging of Hebrew soldiers would be met by hanging a British officer in return.  The arrogant and incredulous British laughed and stated, “Who would dare harm an officer of His Majesty?”  After the next Irgun fighter was hanged, two British sergeants were found hanging outside the city of Netanya.  The British never dared to hang another Jew after that.  Within the year, the British evacuated Palestine and the State of Israel was declared.

In this special week of celebration and commemoration we remember Dov Gruner, who was one of many who sang the Hatikvah loudly and proudly as a final act of resistance – for his hope was the Zionists’ dream – and their dream is now our reality – an Israel that is strong and confident – an Israel that is moral and ethical – an Israel that is intensely Jewish and has the strength and the will to endure, with God’s help, until the end of time.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi David Freedman