Ascent to Jerusalem and Peace for Israel

If there should arise a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke (matters of tzara’at [’leprosy’]), even matters of controversy within your gates; then you shall arise, and ascend to the place which the Lord your G-d shall choose.

                                                  Deuteronomy 17:8    

Rabbi Zvi Weissfish, in his work Dibrot Zvi, quotes Rabbi Ḥayyim Vital who relayed the teaching of his master, the Holy Ari: the Midrash teaches that the ministering angels asked the Holy One, blessed be He “You have written in Your Torah ‘he shall pour out the blood, and cover it with dust’[Leviticus 17:13], yet here Israel’s blood is being spilt as water, as the verse states ‘For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the bare rock; she poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust.’[Ezekiel 24:7] You have written in Your Torah ‘you shall not kill it and its young both in one day,’ [Leviticus 22:28] while here the sons are being slaughtered [based upon Ezekiel 17:21]. You have written in Your Torah ‘The priest shall give orders that the house be emptied out’ [Leviticus 14:36], while here ‘And they burnt the house of G-d.’” [II Chronicles 36:19] The Holy One, blessed be He answered: ‘is there peace in the world? Since there is no peace, there is nothing.’”

            According to Ari’s elucidation, the content of this Midrash is alluded to in our verse: “between blood and blood” refers to the spilt blood of Israel; “between plea and plea” alludes to the prohibition of killing an animal and its offspring in a single day; “between stroke and stroke” is a reference to the orders given by the priest to empty a house suspected of being stricken with leprosy. In Ari’s analysis, the verse’s continuation “matters of controversy within your gates” is the Torah’s explanation for all the calamities mentioned, for all of Israel’s woes result from internal dissension and lack of peace within the nation. Thus, the concluding words of the verse “then you shall arise, and ascend to the place which the Lord your G-d shall choose” teach that the Holy City, the city which unites all Jews in brotherhood [Jerusalem Talmud Bava Kama 7:5], has the power to rectify that which has been distorted’ (for on the simplest [and truest] level, “peace” refers to interpersonal relations).

            Rabbi Weissfish summarizes thus: “these wonderful words of the Holy Ari indicate that the ascent to Jerusalem has the ability to bring peace to Israel, and through the unity inspired by Jerusalem, the evil decrees referred to in the verses can be reversed.”

            In concluding, Rabbi Weissfish quotes Malbim’s commentary on Psalms 122:3 that Jerusalem is the appropriate place for connecting all the people of Israel as a single body, and that the verse describes the nation as a single body composed of numerous distinct organs, while Jerusalem “as a united city” is that which unites the distinct organs into a single complete body, and it this unity which allows the national body to achieve vitality and realize its divinely given soul.