A Tale Of Four Azakot
By: Alan A. Mazurek, MD
An az-a-ka, plural azakot, is the modern Hebrew word for a siren blast. Those in Israel have become painfully familiar with the term as well as its ominous, unrelenting sound since the war with Hamas began in October 2023. This increased exponentially when Iran officially entered the fray, attacking Israel directly in April 2024, then the 12-day war of June 2025, and finally Iran’s response to Operation Epic Warrior and Lion’s Roar this year. Iran’s terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, sent its salvos from Lebanon, while the Houthis contributed theirs from Yemen, all prompting the siren blasts that compel Israelis to take protective shelter. The siren’s sound for those unfamiliar, is not an ambulance or fire-truck wail, but a typical air-raid siren of mid-20th century, conjuring up images of the blitz over London or nuclear attack exercises practiced in 1950s and 1960s New York City. And while a necessary evil, for its presence has undoubtedly saved countless lives and prevented mass injuries, the piercing sound continues to strike fear even in the most jaded, and many adults, young children, and pets continue to suffer PTSD and anxiety whenever it goes off.
But Hebrew being a millennia-old language, the word azaka robustly predates our current crisis, and has multiple other contexts and meanings, which have been particularly relevant and appropriate to our recent time frame, independent of the conflict.
The first we encountered a few short weeks ago at the start of the holiday of Pesach. At the Seder, we read from the Haggadah in the section known as magid of our history detailed in the Torah that led our forebears down to Egypt, and our ultimate enslavement. The Haggadah quotes from Sh’mot that as we were increasingly oppressed we cried out to Hashem and He heard our voice and saw our affliction, sorrow, and oppression. “And the King of Egypt died, and the Children of Israel sighed in consequence of the bondage, v’yizaku, and they cried out; and the cry went up to Hashem in consequence of the bondage.” This azaka, this collective outcry, perhaps our first as a people, so rife with the pain of our suffering, so deep that Chazal tell us Hashem Himself, upon hearing it, shortened our enslavement, by arranging our release after 210 years rather than the prescribed 400 years foretold earlier to Avraham Avinu.
The second was only last month, towards the end of Nissan, on Yom HaShoah, when the entire nation stopped and stood in silence, as the azakah was sounded throughout the country in memory of the loss of millions of our kedoshim. The third was exactly one week later on Yom HaZikaron, as again Am Yisrael stood as a whole, the azaka blasted, in the evening and morning, in remembrance of our sacred fallen soldiers and victims of vicious terrorism. It only occurred to me, as I write this, that these three groups of azakot have their root in outcries of pain, our pain. The first from Mitzrayim, our pain of the physical and psychological torture of bondage and backbreaking work; the latter two, the pain of recollection of our irreparable loss.
That differs from the initial azaka mentioned earlier, as one prepares to take shelter from an impending attack. That azaka is a warning, a notification of self-preservation. A declaration that we must do something. We are not passive in our own destruction. This demonstrates clearly our evolution as a people, something Hashem wants, in fact demands, of us. In Mitzrayim, barely a nation, we had no choice. We had to rely on Hashem’s Infinite mercy to rescue us, miraculously. But 40 years later, under Yehoshua’s command, we had to enter the Land and fight for it, inch by inch. There was no sitting back and waiting for Him to perform miracles on our behalf. Now thousands of years later, after helpless wandering and persecution, He brought us literally back from the dead back to our national home. And He wants that partnership with us, as He does in all of His creations. To defend our home, when we must, we fight back, we can defend ourselves; we can create Iron Dome and Arrow and David’s Sling systems; we can create a network of shelters and safe rooms to protect our men, women, and children that no country in the world has! And as needed, we can take the battle to the enemy to utterly destroy them. Ein somchin al ha’nes—we do not rely on miracles, but when we do our part and also acknowledge our victory ultimately comes from Hashem, He provides those miracles in abundance, as we have seen so many times in the last three years.
I noted above that there are four azakot, but there are really five. The fifth is the azaka not of pain but of exultation. A shout, a cry of joy, of triumph, of laughter, of gratitude. That is the azaka of Yom Ha’Atzmaut, the day I am writing this. That is the day not only of our independence as a country, but of all those positive feelings just listed. A day to shout that we have matured as a people to stand as a proud nation, not subservient or persecuted, but in fact ready to fulfill our G-d-given mission to be the “am l’or goyim”— “the people, the light to the nations” (Yeshayahu 42:6). Returning to Pesach, we know there are four aspects of the geulah, the redemption that Hashem promised us at Yetziat Mitzrayim:
V’hotzeati—I shall take out;
V’hitzalti—I shall rescue;
V’gaalti—I shall redeem;
V’lakachti—I shall take (Sh’mot 6:6,7). These correspond to the four cups of wine.
But there is also a fifth, V’heivaiti—I shall bring (ibid 6:8). Where will He bring us? The full beginning of the verse is “V’heivaiti etchem el Haaretz”—“I shall bring you to the land.”
He has fulfilled His promise. Isn’t that cause for an azaka, a shout of exultation?! Time to pour that fifth cup!
L’chaim and chag sameach!
