Yom Hazikaron: Soldiers Died So You Can Live Here | TORAH PERSPECTIVE
Yom Hazikaron is about one word: protected. Over 25,000 soldiers died so you could live. The only question Yom Hazikaron asks is whether you remember that and whether you live like it means something.
There are people who gave everything they had so that you could have your freedom. Everything. And in order to have freedom, there has to be sacrifice. Just in the last year alone, over 100 soldiers died. Since the beginning of the State, over 25,000 soldiers have given their lives for this country. So the question Yom Hazikaron forces us to ask is a simple one: people died for you to live. What are you doing back?
The Be'er Melech teaches on Omdot hayu ragleinu b'Sha'arayich Yerushalayim, we fought wars so that the boys in the yeshiva could learn Torah. That's the deal. That's always been the deal.
The Zohar says Zichor Hashem: We ask Hashem to remember. Remember what happened to Yerushalayim. Remember that we once had a Beit HaMikdash. But Hashem answers: first, do you remember what I did for you? Do you remember Bil'am? Bil'am knew the exact moment, ki rega b'apo, that one fraction of a second when Hashem gets angry. If he had said his curse at that precise instant, the Jewish people would have been destroyed on the spot. And Hashem, in all those days, held back. Didn't get angry. Not even for a half a second. And He saved us - not because we saved ourselves. Because He protected us when we couldn't protect ourselves.
That's the connection. When we ask Hashem, "Why don't You remember our good times? Why don't You remember all the suffering we've been through?" - Hashem says: do you remember when I held back my anger? Do you remember when I stood between you and total destruction, and you didn't even know it?
You live your life protected. Doesn't matter if you're Zionist or not Zionist. You are living among people who gave up their lives so you could live yours. And the right response to that is to live for them.
A lot of us are carrying trauma right now. A lot has happened in these last few years. But hear this: you are protected, not because you protected yourself. If you're a soldier in Lebanon, if you're one of my neighbors wondering what Yom Hazikaron means to you, it means this: you are protected, even when you are not protecting yourself.
On the Seder night, we stopped. We closed our eyes. We made a special moment of tefillah for the soldiers fighting in Lebanon for us. And every time we open the Aron Kodesh, our greatest Eit Ratzon, we daven for them. When we learn Torah, when we say Tehillim, they are on our hearts. As much as we are on theirs.
And when we remember that - Hashem says: I will remember too. And I will bring back, and rebuild, the Beit HaMikdash.