Israel At 70: A Prophecy Fulfilled - By Pini Dunner -
In 1867, a young man named Samuel Langhorne Clemens set sail from New York, bound for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Clemens is better known by his pen name -- Mark Twain (although in 1867, he was still an obscure journalist who had somehow convinced a California newspaper to fund this spectacular trip abroad, in exchange for regular updates from different stops on his journey).
Twain's two most famous books, about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, were still many years away -- and much rested on the success of his travelogue. As it turned out, the five-month cruise was a gamechanger, and the resulting book, The Innocents Abroad (1869), sold 70,000 copies in its first year, and was Twain's best-selling book during his lifetime.
Twain carefully constructed his reports to reflect the reactions of an average layperson visiting exotic lands far away from home, and specifically a person who would not allow preconceptions and mythology to overwhelm the reality of what he saw. The result was refreshing, and highly unusual for the 19th century.
Lake Como in Italy was nice, Twain said, but Lake Tahoe back home in the United States, was nicer. Mount Vesuvius was unimpressive when compared to the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii.
Although Twain was enthralled by the grandeur of Milan, Venice, Florence, and Rome, he was disgusted by the vast economic gap between rich and poor in Italy, particularly as it was evident that all available resources had been invested in architecture and edifices, instead of the impoverished population.
The most important leg of the journey for Twain and his fellow passengers was their visit to the Holy Land, then known as Palestine -- at the time a minor outpost within the Syrian province of the Ottoman Empire. Most of the tourists on Twain's trip were devout Christians on their first pilgrimage to the land of the Bible.
Twain, who was brought up Presbyterian, was undoubtedly swept up by the excitement and anticipation of reaching the Promised Land, spurred on by his distaste for almost everywhere else he had visited along the way.
But just about every myth and expectation was dashed by the reality that Twain confronted when he arrived. "The word Palestine always brought to my mind a vague suggestion of a country as large as the United States," he began, "I do not know why, but such was the case. I suppose it was because I could not conceive of a small country having so large a history."
Unlike the grandiose palaces and churches that Twain had encountered in Europe, along with the teeming cities and towns of Turkey and Syria, the land of the Bible was not just a jarring contrast -- it was inconceivable in light of the rich history with which it was associated.
Western civilization owed itself to countless centuries of events that had occurred in this exact geographic location, and yet it was a veritable wasteland, whose inhabitants -- of all faiths and cultures -- were primitive and unsophisticated.
"Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes," he wrote. "Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies."
Twain described in vivid, unfiltered detail, the squalor and desolation that he witnessed in every place he visited across the country, and his description of Jerusalem, once the crown of Judea, is particularly disturbing: "Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and has become a pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer there to compel the admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the wonderful temple which was the pride and the glory of Israel, is gone."
The state of Jerusalem's inhabitants only underscored just how much this once glorious city had sunk into decline. "It seems to me that all the races and colors and tongues of the earth must be represented among the fourteen thousand souls that dwell in Jerusalem. Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt ... abound."
Twain was particularly struck by how barren the country was, and how few people there were. As he traveled through the Jezreel Valley, he noted that "there is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent -- not for thirty miles in either direction ... [and] one may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings."
With hindsight, this was hardly surprising. The population of Palestine in the 1860s was 350,000; compare that to today's 8.5 million.
Twain's conclusion was that the Land of Israel was a bitter disappointment. It is "desolate and unlovely," he wrote, although "why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land? Palestine is no more of this work-day world. It is sacred only to poetry and tradition; it is dream-land."
Twain's final analysis was that the Holy Land was a fantasy for religious dreamers looking for ghosts in a cemetery that was trapped in eternal damnation. But how wrong he was.
Approximately 2,600 years ago, the prophet Ezekiel prophesized (Ez. 36:8): "But you, mountains of Israel, will produce branches and fruit for my people Israel, for they will soon come home." According to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 98a) "there is no greater sign of the redemption than the fulfillment of this verse."
The Holocaust martyr, Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal, in his seminal work Eim Habanim Semeicha, wrote that the desolation of the Land of Israel, as witnessed by Twain, is an essential component of that prophecy, a precursor to the flourishing renewal of the land in Messianic times.
Seventy years after the creation of the State of Israel, we have all personally observed the fulfillment of that prophecy. And as we contrast the highly-developed, prosperous country with the dreadful place described by Mark Twain, and even with the struggling Israel that marked most of its formative years, let us all be acutely aware that the fulfillment of Ezekiel's prophecy was highlighted by the Talmud as the greatest sign of imminent Messianic redemption.
Israel and the Secret of 70 -
The number 70 was singled out for special attention in ways that make this Yom HaAtzmaut particularly meaningful.
In Jewish tradition numbers have special meaning and can convey crucial insights for our understanding of Jewish history.
On the eve of celebrating the 70th anniversary of the birth of the state of Israel and the miraculous return of our people to our national homeland after almost 2000 years of exile, let us ask: "Who knows seventy?" Who knows its secret and deeper meaning?
Seventy isn't merely a nice round number. Long ago the number was singled out for special attention in ways that make this Yom HaAtzmaut particularly meaningful.
At the Passover Seder we almost tangentially met the number 70. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azarya admitted that he never knew the biblical source for the commandment to remember the Exodus from Egypt every night as well as day until he merited learning the source from another sage. Strangely, he introduces his joy in his newfound wisdom with the words "Behold I am like someone 70 years of age." Commentators are all perplexed. We know that Rabbi Eliezer was in fact only 18 years old at the time. Many fanciful explanations are given to resolve the question. But the fact remains that in order to express the idea of old age he used the number seventy.
And why was that? Surely it was a reference to the verse in the book of Psalms: "The days of our lives are threescore and ten" (Psalms, 90:10).
Seventy is the proverbial biblical lifespan. Those are the number of years we are normally granted to achieve our mission on earth. Rabbi Eliezer, although he was only 18, feared he would live out his days without knowing a fundamental truth of Torah. His great happiness was the feeling that he was now "like someone seventy years of age", the age at which we are to measure our achievements, reflect on our accomplishments, and take stock of our life's journey and purpose.
It is true for our lives. It is also true for our land.
Seventy is the number which demands reflection. It is the number which defines a generation. It is intimately linked with judgment - so much so that in Jewish law the Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, was composed of 70 members, just as there were 70 elders in the days of Moses.
More, 70 was the key to the creation of the Jewish people. The book of Exodus, moving the story of our ancestors from family to nation, tells us "And it was that all those who were direct descendants of Jacob were seventy souls" (1:5). The entire Passover story, the slavery as well as the Exodus, had its beginning with the very same number identified with biblical lifespan. Seventy is opportunity. Seventy is potential. And 70 is the number which reminds us that we are judged by the same divine standards that governed the rulings of the Sanhedrin.
In a remarkable commentary of the midrash on the verse in the Torah which tells us that there were 70 who originally descended to Egypt, the problem was raised that a count of Jacob's family members gives us only 69. Why does the Torah tell us 70? Of the various answers given, the one which perhaps has the most relevance to this year's 70th anniversary celebration of Yom HaAtzmaut is that God included himself in the number! God could not exclude himself from his people.
That is why those who went into the first exile were able to survive. And that is why, too, the state of Israel, surrounded by enemies who from its inception threatened its destruction and attacked it numerous times, nonetheless survived; more than survived, Israel prospered. It was God who was part of the original 70. It is God who remains the only rational explanation for the 70-year miracle of modern-day Israel.
To speak of Israel today after its first 70 years from birth is to acknowledge a dual reality. On the one hand, it would be foolish to maintain that Israel has achieved the vision of the prophets, that it has realized the perfection of its messianic destiny. There is much that remains to be done.
Seventy years witnessed the accomplishments of one generation. History requires additional 70-year periods, future generations to each one of whom is given the task of bringing us closer to the final goal. But we should not minimize what we have lived to see, what has already been accomplished.
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