<div dir="ltr">R' Micha Berger wrote:<div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">> OTOH, if you really believe that 5 Iyyar is the anniversary of an event </span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">worthy of</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">> saying Hallel, that argument doesn't really work for a moved </span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">date.</span><br>
</div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px"><br></span></div><div style><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">When did the Chanukah miracle of the oil lasting for its 8th day occur? If it was on 2 Tevet, how can we sometimes say Hallel on 3 Tevet? If it was on 3 Tevet, how can we sometimes say Tachanun on that day?</span></div>
<div style><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px"><br></span></div><div style><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">The obvious answer is that it's perfectly reasonable to say that we always mark the anniversary of that 8th day on the 8th day from 25 Kislev, regardless of what its exact date in any given year. </span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">My point is that based on context, there is more than one way to define "this same day last year" and mark an anniversary.</span></div>
<div style><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px"><br></span></div><div style><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">This is actually a point that I often make in advocating for use of the Hebrew calendar to people who find it strange to mark the anniversary of an event on a day that is not exactly at the same place in the solar year as the event being commemorated. Many American holidays are observed on days like the 1st Monday in September or the 4th Thursday in November, and because the weekly cycle is something that we strongly perceive, it feels natural to say "I remember what we were doing on this same day last year," even if last year it was November 27 and this year it is November 26. Similarly, if we were more conscious of the lunar cycle (as people in ancient times surely were), it would seem very natural to describe an event as occurring on "the first full moon in the spring," and to feel that the anniversary of this event is when the first full moon in the spring comes around again.</span></div>
<div style><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px"><br></span></div><div style><font face="arial, sans-serif">Always saying Hallel on 5 Iyar may be a reasonable approach in chu"l (where either way, it's a regular weekday once you step outside shul), but in Israel, a 5 Iyar that is Yom haZikaron feels very different from a 5 Iyar that is Yom haAtzma'ut. Once the national holiday is being observed on a given day (and, as R' Micha's father pointed out, it is wonderful that its date is adjusted in order to prevent chilul Shabbos), it is natural that this year's Yom ha'Atzma'ut on 6 Iyar will *feel like* "the same day" as last year's Yom ha'Atzma'ut on 4 Iyar. Just like last year, people will be off from work, there will be fireworks, the national parks will be full, and people will make barbecues. I think that it is perfectly natural to say Hallel each year on the day that is *perceived* as the anniversary of the previous year's Yom haAtzma'ut (and thus of the founding of the State), rather than decoupling Hallel from the national holiday because of an assumption that the only legitimate way for us to mark an anniversary is by exact calendar date.</font></div>
<div style><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div style><font face="arial, sans-serif">-- D.C.</font></div></div>