Hi all!
Today is Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel’s Wars (including victims of terrorism) and tomorrow is our 58th Independence Day. Tomorrow, most modern orthodox shuls will read Yeshayahu 10:32-11:16 (which is also the Haftara for the 8th day of Pesah outside of Eretz Yisrael. Yeshayahu 10:32 says:
This very day shall he halt at Nov, shaking his hand at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Yerushalayim.
Who is “he” and why is he shaking his fist at Yerushalayim? “He” is Sancheriv, King of Assyria, who laid siege to Yerushalayim in 701 BCE (see http://www.aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/Crash_Course_in_Jewish_History_Part_22_-_The_End_of_Israel.asp, the section entitled “Fortification of Jerusalem") and got Divinely thrashed for his efforts (see II Melachim 19:35-37, Yeshayahu 37:36-38 & II Divrei HaYamim 32:21). Nob (http://ohr.edu/tw/weinbach/loveland/lland087.htm), on the northern outskirts of Yerushalayim (most scholars think that it’s where the Shuafat refugee camp is nowadays) was as close as Sancheriv got to Yerushalayim. He shook his fist in impotent fury at what he could not conquer before crawling back to Assyria with his tail between his legs.
Sancheriv was stopped at Nov (nothing in the Tanakh is either incidental or coincidental) and Hashem wrought a great salvation for us because we had, for one brief, shining interval under the rightous King Hezkiyahu, overcome the terrible legacy of Jew hating Jew and Jew killing Jew that Nov symbolizes (King Shaul, in a rage, had the inhabitants of Nov massacred; see I Shmuel 22:6-23.)
Yeshayahu 11 is a glowing prophecy/vision of Mashiah & the ingathering, redemption, peace & unity that he will usher in. 11:13 says that in that time
, referring to brotherhood & unity among Am Yisrael. I think that this is one of the messages of Independence Day that we should take to heart: When we are united then all even the most fearsome of our enemies can do is shake their fists at us in impotent rage. But if we are not united and are riven by all kinds of petty, selfish quarrels and disputes in which we all see our own little trees and nobody sees the forest, then our enemies can do alot more than shake their fists at us.Ephraim shall not envy Yehudah, and Yehudah shall not vex Ephraim.
Be well!
ssv