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.