May 25, 2025|כ"ז אייר ה' אלפים תשפ"ה Yom Yerushalayim: Standing Tall When the World Tells Us to Shrink By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

This Monday, we find ourselves experiencing another convergence of holidays, what some might playfully call a “Thanksgivukkah” or “Chrismukkah” moment. These terms, coined when Jewish and secular holidays overlap, bring to mind the blending of Thanksgiving and Chanukah, or Christmas and Chanukah. But this Monday marks a different pairing: Memorial Day and Yom Yerushalayim. While I toyed with names like “Yom YeruMemorial” or “MemYerushalayim” (thanks to ChatGPT!), the truth is, no clever combination of words can truly capture the essence of these two very distinct days.

On the surface, these holidays may seem worlds apart. For many, Memorial Day conjures images of mattress sales and backyard barbecues, yet its core is solemn, a day dedicated to remembering and honoring the men and women who gave their lives in service to the United States military. It’s a day of reflection, gratitude, and memory.

In a similar vein, Yom Yerushalayim is also a day of memory. It is one of the four modern commemorative days on the Jewish calendar: Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron, Yom HaAtzmaut, and Yom Yerushalayim. Of these, Yom Yerushalayim often receives the least attention. Yom HaShoah, the day we mourn the Holocaust, is widely observed by Jews across the spectrum, religious and secular alike. Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, touches nearly every Israeli family and is deeply felt as a time of collective mourning. Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, is celebrated with joy, gratitude, and countless barbecues both in Israel and abroad.

Yet Yom Yerushalayim, marking the miraculous reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, feels less celebrated. In Israel, it is primarily observed only within the religious community, and it’s often overshadowed by political debates about the implications of the Six-Day War. But for me, Yom Yerushalayim should be the easiest of these holidays to embrace from a pure halachic perspective. Unlike Yom HaShoah, which falls in Nissan and complicates mourning practices, or Yom HaAtzmaut, which is nestled in the omer mourning period, Yom Yerushalayim is halachically uncomplicated. And yet, it struggles to capture the broader Jewish imagination.

This day, however, is about more than just historical milestones. It is about something profoundly Jewish, something that resonates deeply with the values and pride we carry as a people.

This past week, I had the privilege of attending several events that brought this theme of Jewish pride into sharp focus. Each one, in its own way, underscored the importance of standing tall in a world that sometimes challenges our identity and values.

On Monday, I attended the annual convention of the RCA, the Rabbinical Council of America. Rabbis from across the United States, Canada, and Israel gathered to reflect on our shared mission, to learn from one another, to celebrate ourselves just a little, and most importantly, to talk about all of you, our beloved congregants. As rabbis, we often find ourselves navigating conflicting expectations. One congregant says, “Why didn’t you do more? Why didn’t you say something,” while another says, “Stay in your lane.” It’s a role that can weigh heavily at times, but at the RCA convention, we came together to remind ourselves of the sacred responsibility we carry. It was a moment of healthy pride, pride in the work we do to serve our communities with dedication and love.

On Tuesday, I attended our shul’s dinner, a celebration of the incredible members who give so much to our community. I couldn’t help but think back to when I first arrived in Oceanside. At the time, there were whispers of decline, predictions that the community was past its golden years. I remember someone prominent remarking that we’d soon be saying Kaddish instead of Kiddush for our community. But as I looked around the room Tuesday evening, I saw a thriving, vibrant community filled with energy, commitment, and hope. We’ve grown in ways that defied those early predictions, and the pride I felt was palpable, a pride rooted in the sense of responsibility that each of us feels toward this shul and its future.

On Wednesday, I had the honor of attending the senior dinner for Shulamith High School, where I teach. This evening reminded me of the incredible role yeshiva day schools play in shaping our future. Schools like Shulamith challenge the false dichotomy that some insist upon, that we must choose between strong Jewish commitment and identity and strong academic excellence. These institutions prove otherwise. They instill a deep love of Torah, a commitment to Medinat Yisrael, and a robust sense of Jewish pride while simultaneously preparing students to excel in the broader world. They show us that Jewish education can and should be comprehensive, vibrant, and inspiring.

Finally, on Thursday, I attended the Yeshiva University graduation. Best line of the graduation, in my opinion, was when non-Jewish Congresswoman Elise Stefanik gave a dvar Torah about the omer and said, “For those of you who didn’t count yet, today is the 39^th day of the omer.” We had the zechut of hearing from Rachel Goldberg Polin, who was introduced as the neshama of the Jewish people. Every aspect of the graduation was a statement about what YU represents, an institution that unapologetically fuses tradition and modernity. This graduation wasn’t just a ceremony; it was a celebration of Jewish pride in the face of a world that often questions our right to feel that way. At a time when Ivy League schools and other so-called elite institutions of higher education sometimes suggest that we should be embarrassed to be Zionists or Jews, YU stood as a beacon of strength, integrity, and connection to our mesorah.

Across all these events, whether at the RCA convention, our shul dinner, the Shulamith senior dinner, or the YU graduation, I saw one common thread: pride. Pride in our rabbinate, our community, our educational institutions, and our shared heritage. This pride is not about arrogance; it’s about resilience. It’s about standing tall when the world around us says to shrink.

And that is exactly what we celebrate on Yom Yerushalayim. Yes, we celebrate the reunification of Jerusalem and a resounding victory over our enemies, but we celebrate something far deeper, what the pasuk in Parshat Bechukotai describes as a reward for our faithfulness: “Va’olech etchem komemiyut,” God will lead us upright. This pride, this sense of standing tall, is most profound when the world tells us we have no right to be proud, and we refuse to bow to their expectations.

Yom HaAtzmaut celebrates a time when the world felt sorry for us. They acknowledged the birth of a Jewish state because they saw a small, vulnerable nation, 600,000 Jews, many of them Holocaust survivors, struggling to rebuild. There was a sense of pity in their recognition, as though they doubted this fledgling state would even survive. But Yom Yerushalayim was different. On that day, we didn’t inspire pity; we shocked the world with our strength. And that’s when the pushback began.

Yet, this is precisely what makes the pride of Yom Yerushalayim so extraordinary. It’s the pride that comes from reclaiming our destiny and declaring, without apology, that Jerusalem is our eternal capital. It’s the pride of standing tall, even when the world says we should play the victim. It’s the pride that says, “We don’t need your approval, and we will not shrink.”

In July 1980, Prime Minister Menachem Begin received a letter from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, wishing him well after a mild heart attack and addressing unresolved Israeli-Arab issues, including Jerusalem. Begin’s response was both firm and poetic. Regarding Jerusalem, he wrote:

"We know that from the point of view of religious faith, Jerusalem is holy to Christians and Muslims. To the Jewish people, Jerusalem is not only holy; it is their history for three millennia, their heart, their dream, the visible symbol of their national redemption."

In a single sentence, Begin captured the essence of Jewish pride. He reminded the world, and us, that Jerusalem is our past, our present, and our future. It is the symbol of who we are and who we aspire to be.

The Rambam and Tosafot debate the source of Jerusalem’s enduring sanctity despite the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. Rav Kook, in Mishpat Kohen (96:9), explains their perspectives. According to the Rambam, Jerusalem’s sanctity flows from its past, the kedushat ha-mikdash that still lingers, sanctifying the city even in ruin. Tosafot, by contrast, emphasizes the future, Jerusalem’s status as a nachala, an inheritance, the one and only place where the Beit HaMikdash can and will be rebuilt. Together, these views tell a powerful story: our connection to Jerusalem is rooted both in memory and in hope.

This dual connection, history and dream, is what Menachem Begin alluded to when he called Jerusalem “our heart.” Our heart beats with the pride of what was, and it beats with the hope of what will be. It’s fitting, then, that Yom Yerushalayim aligns this year with Memorial Day, a day that also bridges memory and vision. Perhaps we can even embrace the name “Yom YeruMemorial,” because this day uniquely compels us to take memory and pair it with the dream, to see not just what was, but what is unfolding in our lives right now.

Begin reminded the world that Jerusalem is not merely a holy city; it is the beating heart of our nation’s history, its enduring symbol of redemption. Yom Yerushalayim teaches us that pride is built on the foundation of memory and the promise of a dream realized. It challenges us to stand tall, komemiyut, in the face of doubt or opposition, to recognize that our shared history and collective hope are not just relics of the past but forces shaping our future.

So, this Yom Yerushalayim, let us honor the memory of what was, embrace the unfolding of what is, and celebrate with pride the unshakable truth that Jerusalem is, and always will be, the heart and dream of our people.