The establishment of the State of Israel occurred in 1948, but amazingly the existence of the holiday of Yom Ha’atzmaut is foreshadowed by R. Yaakov Baal HaTurim (1275-1340) in his monumental work, the Tur. In the days prior to Google and printed calendars it was not easy for people to know the exact dates of the holidays during the year. In order to aid people to know the dates, in Orah Chayyim 428, the Tur writes that the day of the week of many holidays of the year can be known based on a correspondence between the days of Pesach with other holidays through the Atbash Cipher. The Atbash Cipher is a code based on matching up the letters of the alphabet by pairing the first and last letters, the second and second to last letters, etc. (The Shulchan Arukh 428:3, quotes the Tur.)
The Tur notes that the first day (aleph, the first letter of the alphabet) of Passover is the same day of the week when Tisha B’av occurs (taf, the last letter of the alphabet). The second day (bet, the second letter of the alphabet) of Passover is the same day of the week when Shavuot occurs (shin, the second to last letter of the alphabet). The third day of Passover (gimel, the third letter of the alphabet) is the same day of the week as when Rosh Hashanah occurs (resh, the third to last letter of the alphabet). The fourth day of Passover (daled, the fourth letter of the alphabet) is the same day of the week as when the reading (kuf- kriah, the fourth to last letter of the alphabet) of the Torah is completed, Simhat Torah in the Diaspora. The fifth day of Passover (heh, the fifth letter of the alphabet) is the same day of the week as Yom Kippur, which is also called a day of fasting, Tzom, (tzadik, the fifth to last letter of the alphabet). The sixth day of Passover (vav, the sixth letter of the alphabet) is the same day of the week as the previous Purim (peh, the sixth to last letter of the alphabet). The Tur stopped at this point leaving the last day of Passover with no corresponding holiday.
The Tur obviously did not refer to Yom Ha’atzmaut, but his Atbash Cipher does. Pretty soon after Yom Ha’atzmaut was celebrated, it was noticed that the seventh day of Pesach (zayin, the seventh letter of the alphabet) is always the same day of the week as the fifth of Iyar, the day celebrated as Yom Ha’atzmaut (ayin, the seventh to last letter in the alphabet). Yom Tov Levinsky, 1955, Vol. 7, p. 467, quotes this discovery in the name of David Levine. Was this correspondence just a coincidence?
What are the odds that Yon Ha’atzmaut would complete the Atbash? It would seem to be one out of seven (14.29%), but the odds are much lower. First, because of the rule that Rosh Hashanah cannot fall out on Sunday, Wednesday or Friday, the months of Cheshvan and Kislev can be either 29 or 30 days. This means that a holiday in Cheshvan and Kislev will not always fall on the same day of the week as one of the days of Pesach. The seventh day of Pesach matches up with one out of seven days for the following months Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av Elul and Tishri, and for the previous months prior to Pesach of Tevet, Shevat, Adar and the beginning of Nisan. Thus, if Yom Ha’atzmaut was in Cheshvan or Kislev, it would not fit into the Atbash Cipher. In fact, Yom Ha’atzmaut could have been in Kislev, if it had been decided to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut on the day when the UN voted to establish the state of Israel, November, 29, 1947, the 16th of Kislev. If we remove the two months of Cheshvan and Kislev, then the odds that Yom Ha’atzmaut would always fall on the same day of the week of the seventh day of Pesach is 44/354 = 0.1243. In addition, for the date to fit into the Atbash, the holiday must begin with an ayin, and these odds are 1/22 = 0.04545. For these two events to both occur, the odds are 0.1243*0.04545 = 0.00565 = 0.5649%, less than 1%. Is the correspondence between the seventh day of Pesach and Yom Ha’atzmaut still just a coincidence?
Three other events had to occur for this coincidence to occur. One, we celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut as the day when the state of Israel was declared, the fifth of Iyar, which in 1948 was the 14th of May and a Friday. However, this was not the obvious day for the declaration. The British chose that their Mandate of Palestine would end at the conclusion of the 14th of May, namely on May 15th. According to The Economist, (Realities in Palestine, March 27, 1948, p. 489) "The Jews have prepared their plans for announcing the creation of a Jewish state on May 16 – the day after Britain formerly abandons the mandate." However, instead, the announcement to declare the State of Israel was moved up to right before the British ended the mandate. Furthermore, in their coverage of the declaration, The New York Times (May 15, 1948, by Gene Currivan) reported that “the proclamation was to have been read at 11 PM, but was advanced to 4PM because of the Sabbath. Mr. (Moshe) Shertok explained that the proclamation had to be made yesterday (the 14th) because the mandate was to end at midnight and the Zionists did not want a split second to intervene between that time and the formal establishment of the state.” Thus, it was decided to declare the state at 4:00 PM on Friday, even though the Mandate still existed for eight more hours, instead of 11PM or waiting until Saturday night. Had the state been established on May 16th (the 7th of Iyar) or at 11PM on May 14th (the 6th of Iyar), the holiday would not have fit into the Atbash Cipher of the Tur.
The second variable as to whether Yom Ha’atzmaut would fit into the Atbash Cipher is that there was a question, when should Israel’s independence be celebrated? Several days were possible. For instance, even if one wants to commemorate the declaration of the State, still the commemoration could have based on the secular calendar instead of the Jewish calendar. Both options were discussed by the Knesset, and it was decided to follow the Jewish calendar.
Finally, even if we celebrate Israel’s independence on the fifth of Iyar, following the Jewish calendar, still the day could only fit into the Atbash Cipher if the name of the holiday included an ayin in the beginning of the name. In 1949, the Israeli government, headed by David Ben-Gurion, proposed that the holiday be called, Yom Hakomemiyut (day of sovereignty) based on Vayikra 26:13, and this proposed name had no ayin. At that time, Ben-Gurion's opinions were almost always accepted, and his choice had a Biblical basis. However, in this case the Knesset rejected his proposal, and settled on the name, day of independence, Yom Ha’atzmaut, which has an ayin in the beginning of word. (For sources on the choice of name and day of celebration, see Don-Yehuda, 1988, pp. 64,65.)
Accordingly, for Yom Ha’atzmaut to fit into the Atbash Cipher of the Tur, the following events had to occur: the state had to be declared early on the 14th of May, when it was still the fifth of Iyar, the holiday had to be celebrated following the Jewish calendar and the name of the holiday had to have an ayin. Is the fact that all three variables transpired a coincidence or not? You be the judge.
Bibliography:
Don-Yehuda, Eliezer, 1988, Festivals and Political Culture: Independence day celebrations, The Jerusalem Quarterly, 45, Winter, pp. 61-84.
Levinsky, Yom Tov, 1956, Sefer ha-Moadim, Tel Aviv: Dvir.
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