Last year, I received a picture from a friend with the caption “Only in Israel.” The picture was of the digital ticker mounted on one of the cars of the Jerusalem light rail. What was displayed was neither the name of the current stop, nor the next. And it wasn’t the time or the temperature. What was written across the screen, rather, for the edification of all the passengers was, “היום ארבעה ימים בעומר—Today is the fourth day of the Omer.”
Only in Israel? I’m not so sure.
A few days later, I came across a video on a friend’s WhatsApp status. It was of a flight attendant of clearly non-Jewish persuasion. Mic in hand, making announcements at the front of the cabin. After mentioning the expected travel time from Fort Lauderdale to Laguardia, she finished, “And some of our passengers may be interested to know that today is the ninth day of the Omer.”
When we consider what makes Israel special, it is often these kinds of phenomena. The sort of event, behavior, or display that only makes sense in the context of an immense Jewish population. Only in Israel would it be reasonable to publicly exhibit the day of the Omer, because anywhere else, nobody would know what it means. But it’s not quite true, as the announcement of the day of the Omer on a flight from Florida to New York after Pesach indicates. Get enough Jews together—even in the diaspora—and they suddenly have the buying power to create similar experiences outside of Israel.
It is true that such occurrences take place in Israel more frequently. But, given the right circumstances, sticking within specific neighborhoods, gathering together a large enough assemblage of Jews, any one of these items can take place outside of Israel as well. Advertisements for Chanukah presents rather than Christmas presents, offerings of kosher food in shopping mall food courts, and the publication of Shabbos candle lighting times in major newspapers are all feasible and actually occur wherever a large enough Jewish population exists to demand it.
That is to say that such phenomena are born out of the quantitative Jewish population in a given geographical area, rather than by the qualitative advantage than one geographical location has above another. An experience born out of the latter is a more genuine “Only in Israel” experience.
What are those experiences? They are the big things. So obvious so as to have become cliched and not the type of material that’s prime meme fodder.
It is davening at the Kosel, in the presence of the last remnant of the grandeur that was the Second Bais HaMikdash. Something no shul on the planet can provide, no matter how many minyanim gather within it.
It is visiting Ma’aras HaMachpeilah. Where just feet below the beautiful structure built above it lay the founding Avos and Imahos of Judaism. The place purchased by Avraham himself as a final resting place for his wife, and where Kalev came to pray for the fortitude he’d need to stay strong against the negativity of the other spies. Something no other cemetery on earth can claim, no matter how great the tzaddikim buried there.
It is enjoying an afternoon in a playground in Yerushalayim with your family, witnessing the rebirth of the Holy City before your very eyes, and being struck that you are part of the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy, when he said, “וּרְחֹבוֹת הָעִיר יִמָּלְאוּ יְלָדִים וִילָדוֹת מְשַׂחֲקִים בִּרְחֹבֹתֶיהָ—And the streets of the City will be filled with boys and girls playing in the streets.” Something not even Six Flags or Disney World on Chol HaMoed Pesach can boast, no matter how many smiles it puts on the faces of Jewish children.
Even after the founding of the State of Israel, these features of Israel which we enjoy today were not yet a reality. No, these are not the miracles of 1948, but the miracles of 1967. And as we come to anniversary of the Jewish victory in the Six Day War, we must remind ourselves of those miracles and give thanks for them. These are miracles that are unique to the Land of Israel by definition, not only because Israel is now home to such a large population of Jews, but because of the inherent sanctity of the Land itself and its location at the crux of Jewish history, both past and future.
That the hopes and dreams of thousands of years have begun to materialize in our times is a blessing of immense proportions, and one we mustn’t overlook. The nature of big things is that they become so bound up with life and experience themselves, that they tend to be overlooked. We are surprised by announcements of the day of the Omer in public places and delight in the fact that the seventh day of the week is referred to as “Shabbat” in even the most secular of Israeli neighborhoods, and marvel at the finding of Chalav Yisrael shoko in a gas station in the middle of the Negev. Yet while we should continue to smile at each of these micro-finds, we must be ever mindful of the miracles that exist on the grand, macro level as well.
Yom Yerushalayim is an opportunity to pause and reflect upon the stark difference that exists between the Israel of today and the Israel of just 56 years ago and thanking Hashem for all that’s been accomplished, in ways both large and small.