Israeli President Isaac Herzog participated Wednesday night in a Hakhel reenactment and Simchas Beis Hashoeivah ceremony at the Kosel in Yerushalayim.
This ceremony occurs every seven years in the presence of the Israeli president.
This tradition of Hakhel was revived by Chief Rabbi Yitzchok HaLevi Herzog, President Herzog’s grandfather, in a symbolic form.
Chief Rabbi Rav David Lau, Bibi Netanyahu, Kosel rov Rav Shmuel Rabinovitch, Yerushalayim Mayor Moshe Lion, US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, and an estimated crowd of tens of thousands attended the special ceremony.
Herzog faced the crowd and read Tehillim 122, which speaks of ‘Yerushalayim built up, a city knit together,’ and Yeshaya 52:7-12, which he read with the traditional haftorah tropp (cantillation): ‘Raise a shout together, O ruins of Yerushalayim! For Hashem will comfort His people, will redeem Yerushalayim.’
Before beginning, Herzog addressed the crowd and said: “As a proud son of the Jewish people and as President of the State of Israel, I am moved to open this important event, founded by my late grandfather Yitzchok Isaac HaLevi Herzog, which all chief rabbis of Israel have had the privilege of observing.
“My late father, Chaim Herzog, Sixth President of the State of Israel, also observed this occasion in 1987. From here, I pray that the spirit of this occasion remains before our eyes at all times, as a nation and as a state. May we and the whole House of Israel – together – merit a good and blessed year and happy holidays.” – i24 News
This seems unorthodox. It jades me to think we can add a festival to the jewish calendar.
Be gracious and ask how it voices a jew’s eternal reward. The yireh is not the stop watch.
Of course. It is Zionism which, by definition, is anti-Jewish.