Jerusalem: The Academic, the Philosopher, the Politician and the Talmudist

 

           

Though it saddens me greatly, I am convinced that Jerusalem Day is the least celebrated festival in the Jewish calendar. Reality is that, the anniversary of the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem is celebrated primarily by religious Zionists. Outside Jerusalem herself, very few secular Jews commemorate Jerusalem Day, and throughout Israel and the Diaspora, very few Ḥaredi Jews celebrate the day.

I would like to present a few comments on the importance and significance of the Eternal City to the Nation of Israel, which are the thoughts of Jews who do not identify as national – religious, and interweave them with comments from more traditional sources.

Professor Gedalya Alon (1901 – 50, Israel Prize for Jewish studies laureate) wrote:

Far more than simply the capital, Jerusalem had been since the return from Babylonian captivity the head and heart of the country. This situation persisted throughout the period of the Second Commonwealth, regardless of the many changes in the political status of the country and of Jerusalem herself. It was as though the entire country had been compressed into the environs of Jerusalem; as though the whole socio-political existence of Judea derived from and was based on the fact that it contained the Holy City. In the eyes of the world at large, and indeed for the Jews themselves, including the Jews of the diaspora, the city symbolized both the Jewish state and the life-source of the Jewish people. The city became the very source and foundation of the religious, national and political existence of the state.    

           The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic Age, p.423

"Jerusalem had been … the head and heart (emphasis mine throughout) of the country" – Indeed, Midrash Shoḥer Tov [Psalm 147:3] refers to Jerusalem as the heart of Israel. While this midrash presents Jerusalem as the heart of the Jewish Nation, what is true of the nation is true of the Land of the Jews as well, so the midrash can be understood as intending that Jerusalem is also the heart of the Jewish state, as Professor Alon wrote. In contemporary times, numerous national – religious rabbis, including Rabbi Mordechai Greenberg, president of Yeshivat Kerem b'Yavne, and Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, rabbi of Bet El and Rosh Yeshiva of Ateret Kohanim, have written about Jerusalem as the heart of Israel.

            Zohar [Parashat Shelaḥ, 161] expounds that just as God created humans with their heart in the center of their body, and the heart is the power of the entire body, so too with the world, Jerusalem (and more exactly, the Holy of Holies of the Temple) is "the heart of the entire Land and the entire world." Jerusalem is not only the heart of the Land of Israel, but of the entire world. Based upon this, my grandson defines cardiology as "the study of Jerusalem, the heart of the world."

"As though the whole socio-political existence of Judea derived from and was based on the fact that it contained the Holy City" – this comment of Professor Alon parallels the consistent approach of Maharal of Prague that the sanctity of the Land of Israel derives from the presence within her of the Holy City. The learned academic relates to the "socio-political existence" of the Judean state, while the learned rabbi relates to the element of sanctity. Ultimately, the ideal of the Jewish state is to be founded upon sanctity.

"The city symbolized both the Jewish state and the life-source of the Jewish people" – Avot d'Rebbi Natan [Version 2, chapter 43] teaches that the Nation of Israel and Jerusalem are both referred to by the Bible as "living" (ḥayyim). There is a reciprocal relationship: on one hand, Jerusalem endows the Nation of Israel with life, while on the other, on some level, the nation endows the Holy City with vitality, as Midrash Tanḥuma [Parashat Pekudei, section 1] elucidates:

Israel is truly dear to the Holy One, blessed be He, and how do we know this? Scripture states: "I will not vent the full fury of My anger'" [Hosea 11:9] and further says: "And now what have I here" - says the Lord - "that My people are taken away for nothing?" [Isaiah 52:5] What do I seek in Jerusalem after My nation was taken from her for nothing; to enter her? I shall not.

            The historian Natan Shur commented:

There is no other people throughout history who have been so bonded with their capital city that they returned after being exiled from it. The Jewish people returned to Jerusalem not only after its first exile, but also after the second period of exile, which lasted almost two thousand years. This bond was established during the First Temple period. From that time on, Jews have felt that they have no national existence without Jerusalem.

            We should note that Shur sees the development of the unique connection between the nation and its capital as taking place within the First Temple Period.

            The connection between the nation and its capital city, its holy city, and the nation's yearnings for its re-establishment and rebuilding is expressed in the daily prayers of the Jew. A traditionally observant Jew prays thrice daily that the Shechina return and rest within Jerusalem and the Eternal City be rebuilt. This prayer has a political component, as it includes the prayer for the restitution of the Davidic dynasty, the sole legitimate monarchy of Jerusalem. Whenever a Jew recites the Grace after Meals, he asks God to have mercy on Jerusalem, His city, and on the House of David, His messiah, and prays "Rebuild Jerusalem the Holy City, speedily in our days." Again, the connection to Jerusalem incorporates a connection to the monarchy of the House of David.

David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime-minister, equated Jerusalem with the Jewish state, commenting:

Jerusalem is an organic and inseparable element of Israelite history, of Israelite faith and of the soul of our nation. Jerusalem is the heart of hearts of the State of Israel.  

            Though Ben Gurion was not a Torah observant Jew, his spirit was infused with Jewish tradition and he understood that the Holy City is indeed the heart and soul of the nation and the Land of Israel.

            Would that the entire spectrum of the Nation of Israel understood what the academic the politician and the great rabbis understood: Jerusalem is truly the heart of the nation, the Land and the world.

 

 

 

Hanukka and the Land 4

 

As Al haNissim states, the Greeks "rose up against Your people Israel to make them forget Your Torah." It is Eretz Yisrael which stands against this plot, since she is the prime venue of Torah: In terms of miztvot, approximately forty percent of the 613 mitzvot can be fulfilled only within the Land; in terms of Torah study, our Sages teach "there is no Torah comparable to the Torah of Eretz Yisrael," [Breishit Rabba 16:4], and "the atmosphere of Eretz Yisrael conveys wisdom." [Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 158b]

 

Hanukka and the Land 3

 

There is a conceptual congruence between Hanukka and Eretz Yisrael. The struggle of the Hasmoneans, the loyalists of Torah, against the Greeks involved a clash of world outlooks. The Greeks deified nature, while Jewish tradition asserts that nature exists only through the will of God, Who daily renews the universe, as we say in the daily morning prayers: "Who in His goodness daily renews the work of creation."  

Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe writes that the distinction between the Land of Israel and all other lands is that:

Within Eretz Yisrael it is necessary to introduce sanctity into nature. The challenge of life within the Land is to imbue natural life with the supernatural, to see that "nature" is an ongoing miracle, and not the result of "my strength and the might of my arms." [Deuteronomy 8:17]

Similarly, Rabbi Kook commented: "In Eretz Yisrael one sees the miracle within nature."

Thus, Ḥanukka and the Land of Israel express the same concept.

 

Scattered and Dispersed

 

In Haman's attempt to convince his all-powerful monarch, without whom he cannot proceed to execute his plans for the "Final Solution," the "enemy of the Jews" [Esther 3:10] argued:

"There is a certain nation scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples throughout all the provinces of your kingdom, and their laws differ from (those of) every people, and they do not keep the king's laws; it is (therefore) of no use for the king to let them be." [3:8]

            Amos Ḥacham [Esther, Da'at Mikra] comments that Haman's claim that despite their dispersion among the nations, the Jews remain a single nation; "is the claim of the enemies of the Jews throughout the generations."  

            However, there is a deep irony: if the Jews were indeed united as a single nation, despite their dispersion among the nations of the world, they would not be susceptible to their enemies' plots against them. One of the most consistent lessons relentlessly taught by Jewish history is that when the nation is (internally) disunited, we are subject to our enemies' schemes, while national unity protects us from such machinations.  

Shushan Purim and Eretz Yisrael

 

Purim is unique among the holidays and festivals which Jews celebrate in the fact that it alone is celebrated on two different days, depending upon geography. Most of the world celebrates Purim on the 14^th of Adar, while Jews in walled cities celebrate Shushan Purim on the 15^th of the month. It would seem that dividing the Purim celebration into two separate days hinders the unity of Israel. This is particularly surprising in light of the fact that Israel's unity lies at the center of the Purim story. Haman's decree of his "final solution" was based upon the disunity of nation which is scattered and disunited (Alshikh's understanding of the word "m'forad")…" [Esther 3:8] The turning point comes with Esther's request/instruction "Gather all the Jews …" [ibid, v.16] Thus, it is Israel's internal disunity which leads to its suffering and the nation's unity brings God's salvation.

The logical criterion for determining the obligation to celebrate Shushan Purim is a city which was enclosed by walls at the time of Mordechai and Esther, yet the Halacha chose the criterion of walled cities at the time of Joshua, a criterion which apparently has no logic to it. The Jerusalem Talmud [Megilla 1:1] explains that this Halachic determination expresses respect for the Holy Land. During the time of the events of Purim, the Land of Israel was desolate, without a single walled city. Thus, had the logical criterion been followed, it would embarrass the Land. Thus, the Halacha adopted the criterion of cities enclosed by walls from the time of Joshua.

We may suggest that accepting the criterion of a walled city from the times of Joshua not only expresses respect for the Land, but also implies the distinction between the Land of Israel and all other lands. Zohar [Parashat Emor 83b] elucidates the verse "Who is like your nation Israel, a single nation within the Land" [II Samuel 7:23] to mean that Israel can be considered a truly untied nation only within the Land. Perhaps the division of the Purim celebration into two separate days hints that Purim, which commemorates a miracle which took place outside the Land cannot achieve complete unification of the Nation of Israel, since that level requires Israel to be present within its Land.

Not Every Day is Purim?

 

Modern Hebrew has the phrase "Not every day is Purim," meaning that not every day does a miracle occur.

However, in a real sense, every day indeed is Purim. The Purim story, as presented in Megilat Esther, has no overt mention of God. The plot seems a series of random events which combine to bring about the salvation of Israel from Haman's proposed "Final Solution" of exterminating all the Jews within the 127 provinces of Ahasuerus' kingdom. However, the insightful reader understands that the Purim saga is the story of the Divine intervention which the Nation of Israel merited during the days of Mordechai and Esther. The Purim salvation is a miracle which God performed within nature. One who is perceptive understands that reality in general, all the more so Israel's existence, is a series of daily miracles performed by Divine Providence on behalf of God's chosen people. This is true even though it is done covertly. Thus, in fact, every day is Purim.

Indeed, every time we recite the Amida, we thank God for the daily miracles He performs for His nation. On a daily basis, God grants us miracles, miracles which He performs within the natural order.

Esther, Mordechai and Joseph

 

Our Sages drew attention to the parallels between the plot of Megillat Esther and the story of Joseph, with Midrash Breishit Rabba [87:6] commenting that "The travails of the descendants of Rachel (Joseph and Mordechai/Esther) are equal and their greatness is equal." The Midrash then points out six linguistic parallels between the description of the saga of Joseph in Genesis and the Megilla's description of the events of Purim. In point of fact, there are no fewer than twenty-seven parallels between the two Biblical stories! 

 It is axiomatic that the Bible chooses its words carefully and meaningfully, and it is clear that the abundance of similarities between the accounts of the adventures of the descendants of Rachel are intentional. The Men of the Great Assembly, who in Our Sages' tradition authored Megillat Esther (at least in its final version), chose wording similar to that of the Joseph saga in order to compare the two stories. The linguistic parallels express the parallel content.

The first general similarity is that in each of the stories, a lone Israelite (Joseph cannot be called a Jew), who hides his/her true identity rises to a position of great power and thereby is able to save the Children of Israel.

Beyond this general point, we may note additional similarities:

Y As Breishit Rabba mentioned, both heroes (for our purposes, Esther and Mordechai will be considered a single unit; some of the similarities between Joseph and the Purim story relate to Esther, others to Mordechai) are descendants of Rachel; Joseph her first-born son, Mordechai and Esther descendants of her younger son, Benjamin.

Y In each of the sagas, Israel faces annihilation: in the Joseph story, the threat is famine, and the Jews in the 127 provinces of Ahasuerus are threatened by Haman's decree to " destroy, kill, and cause to perish all the Jews." [Esther 3:13]

Y Each of the stories takes place primarily outside the Land of Israel.

Y In each of the sagas, Divine providence operates, as it were, in a natural manner, without overt intervention. This is especially notable in Megillat Esther, which is the only book of the Bible which does not mention God explicitly. In each case, when we reach the "happy ending," it becomes clear that the events were indeed guided by the hand of God.

It is clear to me that the Men of the Great Assembly, in writing, or at least editing, Megillat Esther in parallel to the Joseph story, intended to convey the basic message of the general rule of the history of the Nation of Israel. Professor Eliezer Berkovits writes that the history of Israel is on a totally different plane than that of the nations of the world. The history of the world is that of power history, while the history of Israel can be understood only as faith history. In a nutshell, the fate of Israel rests upon its faith.

Each of the stories conveys the centrality of Israel's unity. Joseph created a situation in which his brothers united in defense of Benjamin, and when they demonstrated that they would not abandon their youngest brother, the viceroy of Egypt revealed himself to his brothers. Haman's threat to Israel began with the nation's lack of unity, as the Aggagite himself announced "there is a single nation dispersed and disunited," [Esther 3:8] while the turning point comes with Israel's unity, as Esther instructed Mordechai "gather all the Jews…" [ibid.4:16] In each instance, it is Israel's unity which brings Divine salvation. Indeed, one of the most consistent lessons of Israel's history is that when the nation is disunited, it is at risk, while unity provides protection against the plots of our enemies.