| MARCH HARE: A very merry unbirthday to me MAD HATTER: To who?
MARCH HARE: To me
MAD HATTER: Oh you!
MARCH HARE: A very merry unbirthday to you
MAD HATTER: Who me?
MARCH HARE: Yes, you!
MAD HATTER: Oh, me!
MARCH HARE: Let's all congratulate us with another cup of tea of tea. A very merry unbirthday to you!
MAD HATTER: Now, statistics prove, prove that you've one birthday every year.
MARCH HARE: Imagine, just one birthday every year
MAD HATTER: Ah, but there are three hundred and sixty four unbirthdays!
MARCH HARE: Precisely why we're gathered here to cheer
BOTH: A very merry unbirthday to you, to you
ALICE: To me?
MAD HATTER: To you!
BOTH: A very merry unbirthday
ALICE: For me?
MARCH HARE: For you!
MAD HATTER: Now blow the candle out my dear And make your wish come true
BOTH: A merry merry unbirthday to you!
Who among us has never seen Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and not remembered the Mad Hatter informing poor Alice that she was so lucky to have 364 unbirthdays every year? Today is Israel Independence Day, or 64th birthday. Yes, we have much to celebrate and for which to be grateful but permit me to be the spoiler on this occasion. As you know, we read the Book of Koheleth (Ecclesiastes) on the Sabbath of Succot. What a contrast—Succot is z’man simchataynu—the time of our joy—and we read this somber, sobering tract as a brake on excessive joy and no sense of perspective. Permit me, here, to introduce a new chapter to Koheleth that should be read on every Yom Ha’atzmaut. As we celebrate the birthday of our country, we should pause and remember that: the Arabs had ruled Old Jerusalem and no Jew dared step there. Now, the Arab – awed, shattered – groveled before the new Jew who dared to reclaim his ancient capital. Twenty years later, Jews had become afraid to go to the Wall by way of the Damascus Gate as they were being stabbed and shot at in the same marketplace and streets where in June 1967 they walked with straightened backs. Today, after nightfall, only a handful Jews (very brave or very stupid—take your pick) risk walking through what the Israelis allow to be called, still, the Moslem Quarter. No Harlem ever held greater fears for the Jew than parts of his own capital city. And, what of the Temple Mount? What a slap in the face we give to those brave soldiers of June 1967 when, for the last four decades, a Jew still cannot pray on Har Habayit? Tourists—Jews and gentiles—can walk and picnic there but we cannot pray in Judaism’s holiest spot on earth! Happy birthday, Israel. We have taken the Jew out of the ghetto but the ghetto still remains in the so-called Jewish leaders of our country who tremble more before the Pope, the American Caesar, and the abomination on the East River and 42nd Street than before the Almighty who promised us this land and through David, made Jerusalem our capital. Today we face the same unchanging world which turned the other way when Israel was surrounded and threatened with extinction in May 1967. Only when we took the offensive did the world open its eyes and with a collective voice of putrid morality say ”Now we must do something!” If the Arabs of Jerusalem today assault Jews we have our leaders to thank. We do no feel any outrage when we are denied the right to lay a foundation stone for the Third Temple—not in Mecca—but on Judaism’s holiest site. We have forgotten Jeptha’s words of defiance to the Ammonites: Israel took not away the land of Moab nor the land of the children of Ammon . . . . Yet we behave as though we are guests in our own land with regard to Temple Mount. Yes, I will be barbecuing with my neighbors on Thursday. Yes, I proudly display our flag outside my home. Today I will, for a moment, forget that Temple Mount is NOT in our hands; after all, I have 364 unbirthdays during the rest of the year to remember. | |
