Question about Independence Day prayers
From your perception, as you have defined yourself several times as a “religious Jew and secular Zionist,” is this reflected in the fact that you pray regular prayers on Independence Day and not the festive prayers? My friends who identify as “Leibovitchians” usually pray completely regular prayers on Independence Day [including Tahanun], but they rejoice on this day and celebrate it in non-religious aspects as a “secular” national holiday but without religious significance and without any change in the prayers [some live in communities and without a Haredi minyan available, so they pray alone and do not come to the festive prayers in their synagogues]
Do you also practice the same way as them when it comes to prayers?
I say Hallel. This is a religious person’s response to a secular event that benefited him in his life. There is no need to assume that there is a religious significance to the state and its establishment in order to thank for it and not say Tachanun. And is being saved from a car accident a religious event? It’s just like I say a blessing over eating or going to the bathroom. The same goes for Tachanun. In my opinion, your friends are wrong in the distinction they make. I explained this in articles and gave the example of the rabbi from Ponivez who acted like Ben-Gurion (he neither said Tachanun nor Hallel).
Thanks for the answer - I just remembered that in the lesson leading up to Independence Day in the kollel, you talked about how there is a difference between the sacred and the profane, and that the Torah and the halacha have something to say about the profane and how to treat it, but it is still profane and not sacred, and you talked about this in the context of your relationship to the state and from the words of Chazal about how they determined a Yom Tov when they abolished the mention of the name of God on banknotes because, according to you, writing the name of God on banknotes constituted a blurring of the sacred and the profane.
My fellow Leibowitzians that I mentioned simply follow a very sharp path - too sharp in my opinion - of separating the sacred from the profane, and in general, a very rigid halachic formalism that they see in it the path of the one they see as their teacher and rabbi Yeshayahu Leibowitz - I once asked one of them whether on T'Bav he says the prayer "Necham" In the original and usual version or in one of the alternative versions that were composed after the liberation of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War without the descriptions of the destruction that do not describe the current Jerusalem, the same friend answered me that although in his opinion the usual version is irrelevant in terms of its content, he says it because “this is the version that should be said” and that in his view the entire prayer is a formal ceremony with “rules of ceremony” that have no programmatic meaning beyond the recitation of the traditional text itself that was prescribed to be said and he is not at all interested in what the content and meaning of the prayers are.
This is an extremely rigid halachic formalism that I think even the most conservative posek would not follow, but my friends claim that this was Leibowitz's path and that they see themselves as following in his path.
It's hard to deal with foolish Hasidim. It always amazes me how the greatest revolutionaries have foolish Hasidim who don't dare to be revolutionary against their rabbi. Strange, but apparently many of us have a Hasidic instinct and an instinct to appoint over ourselves a rabbi who doesn't challenge our standards. I won't repeat here the distinction between the two types of visionaries.
http://www.leibowitz.co.il/leibararticles.asp?id=14
Leibowitz's opinion on Independence Day is a bit more complex than how my friends presented it
He writes things very similar to what I wrote to you. He does distinguish between the blessing Shechaiynu and the recitation of Hallel or the reading of the Patara, and I am not sure that this distinction is relevant. The gist of what he said is that there is room for a religious attitude even towards events of secular significance, just as I wrote.
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