What Impressed Prime Minister David Ben Gurion

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel archives.

People ask me — you know, they watch the [show], so they asked me about Hei Iyar. This week was Hei Iyar, and it's Israel Independence Day. So they asked me, is there anything from the Rebbe — what does the Rebbe think about Yom Ha'atzmaut, because many people celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut. What does the Rebbe feel about it? Is there anything? Now, I looked around — I didn't find much, but I did find a few things here and there, so I'm going to share this with you.

The Rebbe says we do not celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut, because Eretz Yisroel is not like every country. People want to make it a Medina like every other country — founded as a secular state. But Eretz Yisroel is holy, as it says. The Jews that are there — we have to protect them, not because of Medinat Yisroel, but because Eretz Yisroel is holy, and every Jew is holy. He says we are like one lamb and not like one of seventy wolves. So it doesn't matter what the goyim say — we are different, and the goyim don't know that. They should know it, and we should tell them: we are different, and Eretz Yisroel is different. But when you make it into a Medina, a state, then it becomes the same as every other country. It's a holy land, and we have to support it and the Jews that are hidden there, and we're allowed to be for it — because of nothing else than what it says there: we are brothers, Jews are brothers. And when people are taken hostage we have to pray for them, because they are in a holy land, but not [because of] Medinat [Yisroel].

Now I want to say something here. For fifty years, as far as I remember, the Rebbe — I can't say the word "never," probably never — mentioned the word Medinat Yisrael. He always used "Eretz Yisrael," but never the word "Medina." Because when you mention "Medina," you're making it into a Medina. I heard others say the same thing, but they were saying it hundreds of times: Eretz Yisrael, don't make it a Medina. Every Jew is important and the land is holy, but not [a Medina] — so that's one thing I want to say for the people that ask me what the Rebbe feels about Eretz Yisrael and about Medinat Yisrael.

Now, Rabbi Mindel once told me that the Rebbe, in the '50s, sent him to [meet with] David Ben Gurion, who was the first prime minister in Eretz Yisrael. He went there, and he told me he spoke a lot with him. Rabbi Mindel — you know, he was a very intelligent person, he was a knowledgeable person — so Ben Gurion saw that he was very knowledgeable, and he spoke a beautiful Hebrew. So Ben Gurion asked him, "How do you — where'd you get this way of speaking Hebrew?" He said, "I remember" — he said, "It's in the Tanach, it's not mine, I'm taking it from the Tanach." So Ben Gurion said to Rabbi Mindel, "You see this whole wall full of books — secular books, Tanach — not one siddur. I never opened up a siddur." He tells him, "I never opened up a siddur."

[Ben Gurion] was the first prime minister. He says, "If you are such an intelligent person, if you are such a person — and you're [only] a secretary — I can imagine what the Rebbe is [like]."

He told him then — once — [I heard that] Ben Gurion once asked Rabbi Mindel, "Why don't you say Hallel [on Yom Ha'atzmaut]?" So the Rebbe told him, "When you will say Hallel, I will say Hallel."

This I heard from Rabbi G'nik [?] from Australia — I heard from him — he said that the Rebbe said whoever helps push [Moshiach] away, [it delays him] fifty years, and whoever [does the opposite], it does not destroy — in other words, [this] is the [reason] for fifty years. So this is the [situation] — but they're hidden there, so we have to help the hidden. The land is holy, it's not [about] Medinat Yisroel — there is no [Medina] — so Medinat Yisrael can make...

The first [declaration], in 1948, [someone] went in to him and saw him crying. So he asked, "Why are you crying?" So the Rebbe said that Moshiach was born today, but it was a miscarriage. And he said [the Rebbe] didn't say [exactly that], but he thinks he meant that today was created... so we see how much, how much it means — it's not [the state itself] — the holy thing is that the land is holy. And he didn't live there.

The Torah says if people that live in Eretz Yisroel do not behave according to Torah — this is in the Torah — the land will spit them out. The land cannot tolerate the opposite of Torah. And if all the people would be [observant], the goyim would not bother us in Eretz Yisroel, they wouldn't bother us. But the problem is that's not how it is, and we don't know why things are happening — we shouldn't [ask why] — but that's for sure, the land is holy, the land cannot tolerate [the opposite of Torah]. It's not [like] America, and it's not [like] other countries.

So this is an answer to people that want to know what the Rebbe feels about [Eretz Yisroel and Medinat Yisrael]. And I want to give a [blessing] here, since now, unfortunately, soldiers are getting killed, and we should say that [Hashem] should [help], and that the hostages should go out, and we should [pray for this].

Next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.