In the year 1560, the Sephardic historian Yosef Ha-Kohen composed his famous Emek Ha-Bakha – The Valley of Tears – chronicling the long history of suffering and persecution of the Jewish people. His own family experienced this persecution first-hand, for Yosef was born in Avignon, France in 1496, and not in his parent’s home land of Spain. For it was just four years before his birth, in 1492, that his parents, along with the rest of Spanish Jewry, were expelled from Spain.
Meant to be read on Tisha B’Av (the fast day when Jews mourn many tragedies, including the destruction of both Temples that stood in Jerusalem and the expulsion from Spain), Emek Ha-Bakha – The Valley of Tears – was written in classic Biblical Hebrew. It was not until centuries later that this Sephardic text would be translated into Ladino as El Vaye de los yoros. This Ladino translation and publication took place in Salonika, in 1935, just a few years before the Holocaust, a tragedy where 6 million Jews were murdered – including 95% of the Jews of Salonika. Indeed, Salonika tragically became El Vaye de los yoros.
Long before the composition of Ha-Kohen’sValley of Tears, the Biblical prophet Ezekiel wrote down his prophetic vision regarding another valley: “The Valley of Dry Bones.”
As we journey from Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) through Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Fallen IDF Soldiers) to Yom Ha’atsmaut (Israel’s Independence Day), Ezekiel’s prophecy of the Dry Bones inspires a contemporary understanding of its subject matter.
The prophet Ezekiel says:
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones…and He said to me: ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ And I answered: ‘O Lord God, only You know.’ Again He said to me: ‘Prophesy over these bones, and say to them -- ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones – Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live, and I will lay sinews upon you, and I will bring flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’
Understood in its modern context, this “Valley of Dry Bones” could very well be any concentration camp in 1945. With that in mind, we continue reading:
So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up on their feet, an exceeding great army. Then He said to me: ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say – Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost, we are clean cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the Land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and I have brought you up out of your graves, and I shall put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall place you in your own land – then you shall know that I the Lord have spoken, and performed it, says the Lord.
In 1945, after 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, thousands of Jews who survived the Holocaust looked and felt like “dry bones.” The images of displaced persons camps were that of a “Valley of Dry Bones,” and, indeed, the best words to aptly describe how the survivors felt are “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost.”
The Hebrew words spoken by the original dry bones in Ezekiel expressing that “our hope is lost” -- “Avda Tikvatenu” – served as inspiration for Israel’s national anthem – Hatikvah – which boldly alters the Biblical text and now declares “Od Lo Avda Tikvatenu” – “We have not lost hope.”
The arrival of Holocaust survivors “into the Land of Israel…in your own land” -- now as the emerging State of Israel – is the modern-day fulfillment of these prophetic words. So, too, was the ability of these very survivors to rise up from the ashes of the Holocaust and join “an exceeding great army” - the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) - that would help establish and defend a renewed independent homeland for the Jewish people.
Once known as the “Jerusalem of the Balkans,” Salonika’s Jewish community is lost forever. So, too, are all of the once-great Jewish communities of Europe, all wiped out in the Shoah. We mourn their loss – the people, the institutions and the lifestyle – all devastated by the evil of the Nazis.
Yet, in the spirit of Ezekiel’s vision, our spirits are renewed, and we build life anew. From Ezekiel’s Valley of the Dry Bones, through Ha-Kohen’s Valley of Tears after the expulsion from Spain, and all the way to El Vaye de los yoros and the destruction of Salonika and Six Million Jews in the Shoah, we never lost hope.
Indeed, in the face of such tragedies, including the loss of close to 24,000 brave men and women of that exceeding great army - the IDF - we do not say Avda Tikvatenu - our hope is lost. Instead, we celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut and proudly declare in our national anthem: Od Lo Avda Tikvatenu – We have not lost hope.
Chag Atzmaut Sameach.
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