"With all the problems in this country, how can Israel be happy (בשמחה ) on this Yom Ha'atzmaut?
Left-wingers are fighting Right-wingers, religious Jews and secularists are at each other's throats, there are the questions of Who's a Jew, draft of hareidim, etc. – how can we celebrate and be happy this Yom Ha'atzmaut?"
What's amazing about this question is that it's not from today's Yisrael Hayom or Maariv; the question was asked in 1964, posed to Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook. It seems that nothing has changed. Not even the answer:
"Certainly we will celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut with unbridled happiness. People call this country, Israel, the 'beginning of the flowering of our Redemption'. That's not exactly true. When the Jews (Biluim, etc.) of the First Aliya came to Eretz Yisrael in the 1880's, THAT was the beginning of the Redemption. Watching that Aliyah happening, the Chafetz Chaim told his son:'Laibl, the מעשה התחיל - the Act (Redemption) has begun'. So we are already (1964) mid-way through the Redemption. We are no longer in the entranceway- we are in the middle of the Palace!"
"In the Aliyah of Ezra, at the beginning of the Second Temple era, singers returned to the Holy Land (Ezra 2;65). Rashi explains that the purpose of the singers was to increase happiness for the Olim (immigrants) . We too should be boundlessly happy on Yom Ha'atzmaut- happy for our Return to Zion, for the Revelation of the Divine Presence (Shechinah) among us on that day, and for the Rebuilding of מלכות ישראל , Israel 's Kingship/ Sovereignty (Malchut) . If we develop in our souls feelings of happiness towards the Medinah, the State (which as Malchut Yisrael IS כלל ישראל, the national collective body), we will know how to overcome all the petty, ultimately unimportant, problems.
"Medinat Yisrael is holy, and neither small nor large problems can blemish that holiness. הקמת המדינה , the establishment of the State, as a Revelation of Divine holiness, doesn't depend on whether there are more, or less, Israelis keeping the Torah and its commandments. There is no room for any Jew, Religious or Secular, to say: 'If the Medinah and life in it fits the image of the way I envision the State, I'll accept the State; otherwise, I reject it'. He who rejects the State, kicks this Divine Revelation; one who disapproves of the State, rebels against Divine Providence ( השגחה) and מלכות (Malchut) ".
The late Rav Chaim Drukman ,zt'l, commented on this aspect of the Return of Malchut on Yom Ha'atzmaut. He notes that the Rambam says that we celebrate Hannukah because we overcame the Greek oppressor, and Malchut returned to Israel for more than 200 years. He notes that it is obvious that Israeli Independence and Sovereignty are values, even if they are blemished and are incomplete; the kings during most of those 200 years were evil despots and murderers (Alexander Yannai, Herod and others); and for most of the period of the Second Temple, our Sovereignty was not only blemished , but also incomplete, as we had to suffer from the rule of Gentiles.
This Geulah (Redemption), that we celebrate on Yom Ha'atzmaut, is to be celebrated happily as Independence from the yolk of the non-Jewish world, as it is we who control Eretz Yisrael (my note: except in those instances when we foolishly relinquish our Sovereignty- and we've paid the price of that foolishness, in terror and dead Jews).
(As an aside, in this time of year we generally read Tazriah-Metzorah as the weekly Parshah. These parshiot deal with Tzaraat - leprosy, blemishes. Based on the Seforno (Vayikra 13;2), Rav Matis Weinberg explains that Tzaraat is not full-blown rot in the body, but rather the onset of insidious decay in the system, Evil starting invisibly, below the surface. Moreover, this time of year is the Omer period. This period of seven weeks, Pesach to Shavuot, is Kabbalistically divided into seven Sefirot, or the building blocks in of every system. The first Sefirah, Chesed, is existence itself: עולם חסד ייבנה, "the Universe was built via the kindness" that unleashed the Big Bang of endless Existence ; the second, Gevurah, puts limits on every detail of that Creation; up to the seventh, Malchut, the organizing factor (based on sharing, and not power) in every earthly system. "Decay in intricately integrated systems" is the story of the tragedies of the Omer period, from Rabbi Akivah's 24,000 dead students, to the massacres of Jews in the Crusades).
There is decay and blemish in our system, notes Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook, but we should not despair. We will overcome the rot, not with hate, but with pleasantness and love. There will be a Teshuvah movement even among the nonobservant Israelis. He notes that there is room for compromise with those who don't believe as we do. On the "Arab problem: we should not discriminate against them, but can compromise with them IF THEY ADMIT TO OUR OWNERSHIP OF ERETZ YISRAEL. The moment that they stop claiming that we stole a Medinah from them, we can make compromises". It starts, however, with our independence, Atzmaut.
The same logic applies to our current problems. Take the Judicial Reform. The majority can compromise with this loud, Left minority – but only once they agree that radical Reform is necessary. One example, not to be seen in the English-language media, is exemplary:
Yom Hazikaron is Memorial Day for soldiers and citizens killed by Arab armies and terrorists. In an obscene parody, the Israeli Left, since 2018, organizes an "Alternative Memorial Day", with a ceremony in the Tel Aviv area. That ceremony "honors" the terrorists who were killed by the IDF. In 2018, Defense Minister Netanyahu forbade Palestinian Authority Arabs to enter Israel to join this "Alternative Ceremony". The Israeli Supreme Court, led by Esther Chayut, overruled DM Netanyahu, and allowed 90 PA Arabs to enter Israel for this obscenity of a ceremony. Chayut overruled Bibi not on the basis of any law or legal precedent, but on the basis of "I arrogate to myself the power to cancel rules made by the Knesset".
Every year since, the DM, including Gallant this year, has forbade the entry of PA Arabs for this, and every year, using Chayut's ruling, the Arabs enter. Only if the Israeli Left yields on the point that Leftists like Chayut cannot continue to appoint their Leftist friends, and family members, as judges- and cannot willy-nilly cancel Knesset rulings- can the Right compromise with them on this issue of Judicial Reform.
Rav Tzvi Y. Kook:: "What kind of question is that, to celebrate on Yom Ha'atzmaut, or not? The answer: to celebrate בכל כח ועוז, with all our strength. To go out in the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Chevron, Ein Charod, etc., בראש כך חוצות – throughout the Land. To publicize the mighty holiness of this day. For this Medina is the realization of the Geulah that the Nation of Israel has hoped for throughout its long history."