Day 18
Opportunity Within Crisis
Dedicated by David and Ilana Metzger in memory of Bernhard, Ida and Hanna Wermuth.
We are currently in the 66th year of Israel's independence, following a 2,000 year exile. But the amount of time that has elapsed since 1948 and the routine of day-to-day life causes us to forget how amazing that event was. We grow accustomed to things, even including independence, which presents the danger of cutting ourselves off from our past – a past filled with suffering yet magnificence – and equally losing a vision for the future.
In the first years following the establishment of the State, “Jewish identity” and “Affiliation with Israel” in both Israel and the Diaspora were fuelled by two of the most dramatic events to take place in the 20th century: the Holocaust, in which so many of our people were murdered and the danger of extinction hovered over our people; and the Homecoming, three years after the Holocaust, when the State of Israel was established, thus stimulating the ingathering of many of the exiles.
