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But
unto the place which God, your God shall choose out of all your tribes to
place His name there, shall you seek the manifestation of His presence and
there shall you come.
Deuteronomy 12:5
“The
place which God shall choose” is
Midrash Sifrei
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Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible 667
times, including the 26 times the name appears in the Aramaic form. Yet the
name Yerushalayim is mentioned in the Torah as often as my home town, St. Louis is, not once! On the contrary,
it seems the Torah goes out of its way to avoid naming to avoid naming Jerusalem Jerusalem
Why does the Torah refrain from naming
Jerusalem?
In truth, we have parallels in the
Torah. When Abram was told to leave his land, his birthplace and his father’s
home, God did not inform Abram of the destination. God's instructions were
"lech l'cha", go [Genesis 12:1]. Similarly, 62 years later,
when Abraham faced the test of the akeda, the binding of his beloved son
Isaac, God did not immediately inform Abraham of the exact destination. Again,
God's instructions were "lech l'cha", "go to one of the
hills of which I will tell you". [ibid. 22:2] It is not always clear at
the outset where God is leading us. At times God's command is merely "lech
l'cha", go and trust that all will be well.
Maimonides, in his philosophical magnum
opus, the Guide for the Perplexed, raised our question, and suggests three
answers:
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The fact
that this place is not stated explicitly when mentioned in the Torah, and not
designated, but only hinted at by means of the words "which the Lord
shall choose", is due in my opinion to three wise considerations. The
first is, lest the nations should hold fast to the place and fight for it
with great violence, knowing that this place is the final purpose of the Law
on earth. The second is, lest those who then owned the place ravage and
devastate it to the limit of their power. The third, and this is the
strongest, lest every tribe should demand that this place be within its
allotted portion and should seek to conquer it, which would lead to conflict
and sedition ....
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The most important reason the Torah
avoids mentioning Jerusalem by name, says Maimonides, is to prevent its
becoming a source of strife among the Tribes of Israel.
The golden thread which runs through
the history of Jerusalem, and in fact defines Jerusalem is the city's destiny
in uniting Israel. Therefore, for Jerusalem to
be a divisive factor is for Jerusalem
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