The Six-Day War
On June 5th, 1967, just one week before the Jewish holiday of Shavout, three Arab armies had amassed their troops along Israel's borders: Syria to the north, Jordan to the east, and Egypt, Israel's most formidable foe, with the killer Air Force, to the south. Together they promised a second holocaust, to "push the Jews into the sea." The combined Arab armies, supplied with 2 billion dollars worth of military aid from Russia, had twice as many soldiers, three times as many tanks, and four times as many planes as Israel.
At 7:45 AM, 180 Israeli fighter jets took to the air, flew south and managed to destroy the entire Egyptian Air Force, in just 80 minutes!
Israel's preemptive strike led a victory of Biblical proportions. In six days we defended our land, destroyed our enemies, tripled the size of our Holy Land and recaptured and unified Jerusalem, for the first time in 2,000 years... and on the 7th day, they rested!
One day later, Israel's general, Moshe Dayan, a secular Jew, visited the Western Wall and left a note of prayer in the Wall. Israeli journalists manged to extract it from the wall. It had one sentence written on it. It was a verse from Psalms 118: "This is from G-d, it is wondrous in our eyes."
Fifty years ago the Arabs promised a second holocaust. Fifty years later, over 6 million Jews survive, thrive and call Israel their home. On the 28th of the Jewish month of Iyar, this year falling on Wednesday, May 24th, Jews around the world recognized the tremendous miracles involved and the special blessing bestowed to the people of our generation, the blessing of Jerusalem. This includes the ability to visit and pray at the Kotel, the Western Wall. The Torah refers to the 50th year in Israel as the Jubilee year. It is a Biblical reminder that the land belongs to G-d. Our generation has become witness to the divine decision to reunite all of us with Jerusalem.
There is much discussion in the news about moving the American embassy to Jerusalem. Personally, I do not necessarily feel the urgency to make big embassy moves, because either way, the centrality of Jerusalem in current events is indicative of its central role. Jerusalem is not only the heart of Israel, it is the heart of the Jewish people. It remains the litmus test for the promise of "Am Yisroel Chai." For Jews around the world, there is a special place in our hearts for Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people!
Click here for a special Yom Yerushalayim video.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Koval
