Orrin Hatch: “30 years ago a singular, unexpected and startling event reshaped the world. I am referring to the conclusion of the…”

“30 years ago a singular, unexpected and startling event reshaped the world. I am referring to the conclusion of the Six-Day War of 1967, when the young Jewish state was faced with the amassed forces of the Arab world, bent on its destruction, but prevailed against all odds and concluded the short but bloody war with the victorious forces of Israel reclaiming and reuniting the holy city of Jerusalem. It was the first time since the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. that the city was entirely in Jewish hands. One of the accounts of the first paratroopers and soldiers to reach the wall spoke of Gen. Shlomo Goren, then the chief rabbi of the Israeli Army, who raced to join the first to reach the wall. Last week's Jerusalem Post recounted that he was armed only with a Bible and a shofar, and that as they ran through the narrow streets of Old Jerusalem Goren did not stop blowing the shofar and reciting prayers. His enthusiasm infected the soldiers, and from every direction came cries of ``Amen!'' The paratroopers burst out in song. The Jewish author Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote movingly of this pivotal event: In its solitude the Wall was forced into the role of an unreachable tombstone for the nameless dead. Suddenly the Wall, tired of tears and lamentations, became homesick for song. ``O Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us chant in joy to the rock of our salvation!'' (Psalm 95:1) It will be called the Rejoicing Wall.…”