Rejoicing With Jerusalem

Zohar [Parashat Bamidbar 118a] quotes the verse from the final chapter of Isaiah [66:10]:

Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad with her, all who love her; rejoice in joy with her, all who mourn for her.

and comments:

“Rejoice with Jerusalem” because joy can be found only when Israel is within the Holy Land … the joy of above (heaven) and below (earth), and when Israel is not in the Holy Land, it is forbidden for a person to rejoice or to show joy, as it is written: “and be glad with her,” this is exact (i.e. limited to Israel’s presence within the Land).

Zohar continues with a story which conveys the same point:

Rabbi Abba Ḥama saw a man who was rejoicing in Babylonia, and kicked him (apparently to be understood literally), saying the verse states “rejoice with Jerusalem,” when Jerusalem is in joy (i.e. when Israel is within the Land), one must rejoice (implying only then).

It will be noted that Rabbi Abba goes beyond the original statement of Zohar, which permits rejoicing when Israel is within the Land, and mandates such rejoicing.

Quite clearly, Zohar takes a verse which explicitly deals with Jerusalem and understands it to apply to the entire Holy Land.

Ziyyon, the second most common name of the Holy City, appears in the Bible both as a name for Jerusalem and for the entire Land. The approach of Maharal of Prague is that the Land of Israel draws its sanctity from Jerusalem. In essence, conceptually, the Land is a “miniature Jerusalem,” and therefore the Land and its capital are intertwined, and in a sense, share an identity. 

Thus, for Zohar, when the verse speaks of Jerusalem, it speaks as well of the entire Land.