Tanslation by Yehoshua Siskin
Last night Uri Melamed wrote: "It's not just about smoke from a barbecue, not just about plastic hammers made in China, not just about the International Bible Contest hosted by Avshalom – how he never gets older! – Kor, not just about 180 families gathering for a picnic on a piece of grass next to the Golani Junction.
It's not about a car with Israeli flags on three windows since the wind took the fourth flag heaven knows where, not about a flyover above the Air Force Museum in Hatzerim near Be'er Sheva. This is not about the torch-lighting ceremony, not about the President's House where the outstanding soldier award is bestowed upon a new immigrant from Argentina whose sister just happens to be a participant in the Bible contest, not about a cooler filled with kabob, chicken, sausages and of course steaks, not about children spraying foam.
Well, yes, it is about all of this. But Independence Day is mostly about what the prophet Amos says:
Behold days are coming, says the Lord, when the plowman shall meet the reaper and the treader of the grapes the one who carries the seed, and the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will return the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall rebuild desolate cities and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their produce. And I will plant them on their land, and they shall no longer be uprooted from upon their land, that I have given them, says the Lord your G-d".
