Jerusalem Jewish Heritage: A Return to Jerusalem

A Return to Jerusalem

A Return to Jerusalem by Rav Mendel Weinbach

"I rejoiced when they said to me -
let us go to the House of Hashem."

We sang these words of King David, the Sweet Singer of Israel, as we walked to the Kotel in the wee hours of the morning many years ago. It was Shavuot Night, and countless thousands of Jews had been up all night studying Torah to make up for the shortcoming of their ancestors over 3,000 years earlier in sleeping the night before they received the Torah at Sinai.

Now those Jews were pouring out of all the streets onto the main thoroughfare leading to the Old City, forming a human sea brimming with song and ecstasy. For most of them this would be their first encounter with the Kotel. Many of them had not even been born when that last remnant of the site where once stood the House of Hashem fell into Jordanian captivity in the War of Independence in 1948. Others, like myself, had arrived in Israel only a few years before it was liberated by Israeli soldiers.

The Kotel had been in Israeli control for a week already, but the military authorities wanted to ascertain that there were not mines or snipers lurking on the way to the Old City before giving the public access to the Kotel. Some intrepid individuals had somehow infiltrated and brought back dramatic accounts of their inspirational experience. But the general public waited for the green light of the army, and it finally came on Shavuot.

Shavuot and the Kotel
What a combination!

It was an updated version of the historic link between Torah and Jerusalem expressed in the passage said and sung by Jews for generations when the Torah is taken out of its ark: "For from Zion shall come forth Torah and the Word of Hashem from Jerusalem."

Zion was the site of the Beit Hamikdash with its celestial corps of kohanim steeped in Torah and the sacred service of the sanctuary; Jerusalem was the seat of the Sanhedrin, the supreme authority on interpreting the Word of Hashem. Small wonder, then, that when Yehoshua ben Gamla initiated the first system of public education for Jewish children who had no parents to teach them Torah, he chose Jerusalem as his national center. Where else would a youngster have such shining models as kohanim and judges of the highest court?

This extraordinary atmosphere of Jerusalem, suggests Rabbi Aharon Halevi, author of the classical "Sefer Hachinuch," serves as part of the explanation for all of the commandments requiring a Jew's physical presence in Jerusalem. In four years of the seven-year cycle of tithes, a Jew was required to bring almost ten percent of his crops - or their monetary value - and consume them as a "second tithe" in Jerusalem. The same was true of all the fruit which grew on his trees in the fourth year of its life. Add to this the ten percent of the cattle born each year which he had to bring for slaughtering in the Beit Hamikdash before he could eat their flesh, and you get a picture of the vast amount of food that a Jew could enjoy only in Jerusalem.

Too much, points out the author, for any family to consume during their stay in Jerusalem three times a year on "aliya laregel" or on an occasional visit to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice. It was therefore advisable, from a purely economic point of view, to have one member of the family permanently stationed in Jerusalem where he would have the opportunity to study Torah with most of his needs covered by the aforementioned foods whose consumption was limited to that city.

With such an opportunity to grow in the Torah atmosphere of Jerusalem this member of the family would eventually return home to serve as a sort of "family resident scholar" capable of providing hands-on spiritual guidance for his relatives in a manner in which no communal rabbi was capable.

Jerusalem and Torah -
even in name are they linked.

The Midrash tells us that when Hashem came to designate a name for His favorite city, He was, as it were, faced with a dilemma. Malkitzedek, otherwise knows as Shem son of Noach, first referred to the ancient city as "Shalem." Years earlier, Avraham, following his offer of his son Yitzchak as a sacrifice on what was to eventually become the Temple Mount, called it "Yireh." To call it only "Shalem" would be an affront to the righteous Avraham; to call it only "Yireh" would be an insult to the righteous Malkitzedek. The Divine solution was to combine the two and call the city "Yireh-shalem" which English translation has formed into Jerusalem.

What's in a name? Plenty! "Yireh" refers to the Divine choice of Jerusalem as His abode - "He will see and will choose this site." "Shalem" alludes to human striving for "Shalom" - peace and "Shalem" - perfection. By placing "Yireh" before "Shalem" - contrary to their chronological sequence - the name given to the Holy City communicated the timeless message that all of human striving for the noble goals of peace and perfection are exercises in futility if man fails to recognize the need for following the Divine directives for making these dreams come true.

Oh how we rejoiced that Shavuot night, singing in the streets of New Jerusalem as we headed for a deja vu with the House of Hashem in the eternal city of Torah and the Word of Hashem!

VICTORY IS JERUSALEM

In our morning prayers we say: "To you Hashem is the Greatness, the Power, the Glory, and the Victory (Netzach)..."

The Talmud (Berachot 58a) tells us that Netzach here refers to Jerusalem. Victory is Jerusalem. Eternity is Jerusalem.

The 28th of Iyar is the Yartzeit of Shmuel the Prophet who revealed the place of Jerusalem, who said that 'the Netzach of Israel will not lie.' The 28th of Iyar , when Jews once more could flock to that hill from which the whole universe was drawn out. The 28th of Iyar.

Whatever the immediate future holds for the Eternal City, of one thing we can be sure: The Eternal One of Israel will not lie. He will keep His promise, the promise He made to our fathers.

"Then again will be heard in the cities of Yehuda and the outskirts of Jerusalem, the voice of Joy, the voice of Happiness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride."

The lost ones will return from the lands of the holocaust of the soul. And the oppressed from beyond the straits of persecution.

"And they will bow to Hashem in the Holy Mount.

In Yerushalyim."

THE ETERNAL CITY

If you ask your travel agent to book you a trip to the Eternal City, chances are he will pick up his time schedule and book you on a flight to Rome.

He'd be wrong. The Eternal City is not Rome.

The Midrash tells us that when an historic sin was committed by a Jewish ruler the angel Gavriel stuck a reed into the Mediterranean Sea, and around that reed arose a sandbar, and from there grew Rome. Rome is not the eternal city. It wasn't there at the beginning of time. For something to be eternal, not only does it have to be there at the beginning of time, but it has to be there at the end of time as well.

When Hashem created the universe, He didn't create it as an expanse, as a myriad of stars spread out on an almost infinite blackness. Rather, He first created a single point, and from there all space and time unfolded.

We know where that point is. It is a rock that sits on top of a small hill nested between several others of very similar appearance. On that rock, Abraham brought his son Isaac as an offering. It was around that rock that the two Holy Temples were built. The name of that rock is the Even Shesia, the 'Foundation Stone.'

That rock is the center of the universe. Around that rock is the Temple and around the Temple is Jerusalem. Around Jerusalem is the Land of Israel. And around the Land of Israel is the Universe.

Exactly 30 years ago, the eternal city was united again under Jewish rule. The Hebrew date was the 28th of Iyar. It just so happens that the 28th of Iyar is also important in Jewish history for another reason: On the 28th of Iyar, Samuel the prophet passed away.

What do the two have in common?

At the beginning of the reign of King David, Jerusalem was not in Jewish hands. When King David re-conquered the Land of Israel, Jerusalem was in the hands of the Jebusites. The exact location of Mount Moriah, the place of the Even Shesia, was no longer known.

Before David could plan the building of the Holy Temple he had to know exactly where Mount Moriah was. It was the prophet Samuel, together with King David, who, through prophetic insight, established which of the hills in Jebusite Jerusalem was in fact the correct location.

So it was through Samuel the prophet that we know today the location of the Temple in Jerusalem. Maybe it was for this reason that Jerusalem was 're-discovered' in June 1967 on the exact date of his passing from this world.

But there's more.

It the first Book of Samuel 15:29, the following prophecy is written: "However, the 'Netzach Yisrael' will not lie."

That phrase 'Netzach Yisrael' can be understood in two ways. It can mean the 'Eternal One of Israel' - Hashem - Who will not lie, Who will never desert His people through the long night of exile.

But Netzach Yisrael can also mean 'the eternity of Israel' or 'the victory of Israel' will not lie. The survival of the Jewish People, through both persecution and the softly stifling embrace of assimilation, will not lie. It will stand as an everlasting proof that the Jewish People are what the Torah calls them: An eternal nation with a G-d given mission.

It was Samuel the prophet who said 'the eternity of Israel will not lie' nearly 3,000 years ago. How could he have known that the Jewish People would still be around in 1967, some 3,000 years after he spoke that prophecy? And not only were they around, but they were re-capturing the city he had helped to re-identify on the exact day that he passed on to the world of truth.

A closer look at the history of Jerusalem calls into question the designations of its districts. Just how non-Jewish are the Armenian, Christian, and Moslem Quarters? Is the Jewish Quarter simply Jerusalem's 'Lower East Side'?

Many people today are concerned about the future of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Pope, for example, is reported to have met the heads of three African states and, together, they decided Jerusalem should be international. Well, as the head of a Church called Catholic, i.e. universal, it may be expected of the Pope to view all things sub specie universelas. "Internationalize Jerusalem! Let every nation have a share in it!" King Hussein, not so general nor 'liberal-minded,' says he wants it for himself he wants complete control over Old Jerusalem. There are many other suggestions about the future of Jerusalem, but on one thing many seem to agree: Jerusalem should again be divided into two cities - the Israeli, i.e. the new city, and the Old City - which should no longer be part of the capital of the State of Israel. On that both the Pope and King Hussein appear decided.

I do not intend to discuss the historic claims of Jews, or Israel, to Jerusalem as its capital, nor do I want to go into the political issues as to whether it's feasible to make Jerusalem once again a divided or internationalized city. But I do want to discuss one particular aspect of this problem.

Many say to us Jews that, even in the best of days before the establishment of the State, Jews only lived in one section of the Old City, called the Jewish Quarter, and, since there are four quarters, and we have had only one, what claim do we have to sovereignty over the whole of the Old City? Unfortunately, I find that not only non-Jews, but even Jews seem to accept this apparently reasonable 'fact.' We Jews also speak of the "Jewish" Quarter. Even the Israeli government has laid down special regulations about the Jewish Quarter, regarding settlement of Jews, which do not equally apply to the other quarters. I see in this a false assumption, and a great danger if we accept such a way of thinking. For, in actuality, the entire Old City,all four quarters, has been inhabited by Jews for at least the last few centuries. And Jewish population has been, if not a majority, a substantial minority in these quarters, at various points in history.

Now, think of Jerusalem as a rectangle, crisscrossed by two streets that divide the city, into east, west, north and south. The first street runs from Damascus Gate to the Zion Gate and divides the city into east and west. The second street runs from Jaffa Gate - way down as you go to the Kotel (Western Wall). Don't turn right, however, as you would to go to the Kotel, but go on towards the Temple Mount, and that street divides the city into north and south. As a result, you get four quarters.

These four quarters are named after the communities that were supposed to have occupied them exclusively. If we enter through the Jaffa Gate and go down David Street there is the Christian quarter on the left, and in that quarter, you have the Church of the Sepulchre, the Tomb of Jesus, and the homes of the Patriarchs. You have the Latin, i.e. the Catholic Patriarchs, and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, who is the head of the so-called 'Russian' Church. And then as you continue down David Street, to your right, you have the Armenian Quarter. When you get to the Jews Street (from there to the left is the Moslem Quarter) you have the greater part of the Temple area. And to the right is the fourth quarter, which, we are told is called Jewish Quarter, with the obvious implication that the others are not 'Jewish.' Incidentally, the Jewish Quarter -everything to the right - is not strictly Jerusalem, but is called Mount Zion. According to a number of books written about two hundred years ago, there was a stone marking the boundary between Zion, i.e. the so-called 'Jewish' Quarter and the so-called 'Moslem' Quarter, which was Jerusalem proper.

This arrangement of Jerusalem into four neighborhoods, named according to the ethnic affiliation of the people who lived there: Christian, Armenian, Moslem, Jewish, is a very artificial and arbitrary division of the city. These classifications are more for the convenience of map-makers than an actual ethnographic description. In the Armenian Quarter, for example, there is only one Armenian church, but there are four churches of other denominations: the Syrian Church, the Maronite Catholic, the Greek Orthodox of St. George, and the Anglican, just opposite the Tower of David. Besides that there is the Catholic welfare station and the Lutheran hostel. All this in the Armenian Quarter. So it is obvious to anyone who walks through the area that though called the Armenian Quarter, it does not mean that only Armenians live there.

A similar situation prevails in the Moslem Quarter. If you go there in December you'll see that it's really a good 'Christian' quarter, because the greater part of the Via Dolorosa, a street that has significance only for Christians, lies in the Moslem Quarter, and it is lined on both sides with a great number of Christian sites, such as the Church of St. Anne, the Convent of the Sisters of Zion, Ecce Homo Church, the White Father Seminary, Austrian Hospice, and a number of monasteries; to name only some of the sites. So that just walking through these quarters you see at once that their names, like many names, are misleading if you accept them in the sense of being exclusive. This is apparent to anyone who walks through the streets of Jerusalem. However, what is unfortunately no longer so obvious is that in the three 'non-Jewish' quarters, there was an equally extensive Jewish settlement.

This fact is no longer obvious because, as may not be known, Jews have been driven from those quarters, and the signs of their previous settlement are no longer conspicuous. When I arrived in Jerusalem on my first trip, in 1924, everything was still conspicuous, and you could see the full extent of the settlement of the Jews in the whole of the Old City. However, things began to change after World War I, when the British arrived and took over. There were outbreaks of Arab mob violence in 1920, 1929 and 1937 - and the British said to the Jews, "Why do you live in far flung sections of the city? Withdraw into the Jewish Quarter and we will be able to protect you." When they got us into the Jewish Quarter, they said: "You're living too close to the edge move inwards." Finally they got us into a corner and annihilated the settlement.

In the Armenian Quarter only one sector is actually occupied by the Armenian compound. The Armenian compound has a wall around it enclosing the big cathedral and its adjoining buildings. The rest of the quarter had to have a name. It wasn't Jewish, it wasn't Moslem, it wasn't Christian. So they applied to this section the name of its neighbor Armenian - simply a convenient fiction. Recently, an American Christian scholar made a study of the divisions of Jerusalem, and rightly calls this sector Hart el Yahud which means "The Jewish Section (of the Armenian Quarter)." Thus, here is an admission, from a non-Jew, that the 'Armenian Quarter' had a very heavy concentration of Jews.

The Armenian Quarter, on the west, and the Jewish Quarter, on the east, are divided by Chabad Street (Suq El Hussor Road). In other words, one half of Chabad Street is Jewish, the other half Armenian. Now, on one side of the Armenian Quarter there is, right opposite the Chabad Synagogue, a very famous yeshiva of Kabbalists called Yeshiva Hesed El, which was built in 1860 by a Jew from Baghdad. He endowed the yeshiva with a famous library of Kabbalistic works. Right next toYeshiva Hesed El was the center of the Ashkenazi settlement in the Jewish quarter: the Hurva (Desolation) Synagogue, although the Hurvawas far from desolate. It had a yeshiva and two big synagogues (the older one is still standing) and was a very busy center. Before theHurva Synagogue was built, a century ago, the center of the Ashkenazi Jews was also in the Armenian Quarter, in a compound called chatzer,i.e. a square around which homes are built. It was called the Chatzer of Rebbe Shayeh - Reb Shayeh Bardakee - also known by the name of its synagogue, Sukat Shalom.Besides tens of dwellings, and a mikva (ritual immersion pool) and this beautiful synagogue, it was the seat of the Bet Din (Court) of Reb Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld. Built with money provided by the Jews of Amsterdam in 1836, it was the center of the Ashkenazi Jewish settlement until replaced by the Hurva.

Another very interesting building in the Armenian Quarter, is adjacent to the St. George Church. It was purchased by a Turkish rabbi who, in 1604, wrote a will in which he describes this building which he was leaving to his children so you can see how long ago he bought it. He delineated the boundaries, and mentions the church as one of them. The building is still standing; it is being renovated now. Strange thing: in his will, the Rabbi warns his descendants not to let the building out of the family's possession. "I bought this building," he writes, "so that when Mashiach comes, and we have revival of the dead, I will have a home in Jerusalem. And so, I want the building to remain in our possession." It has not gone out of the possession of this family, even until now. Two hundred years ago there was family litigation about this particular property and one of the rabbis, in his official response, quotes this will as a proof of the family's ownership from that early date.

There is, also, in the Armenian Quarter a whole section belonging to Jews called the chosh (in Arabic: a pen, an enclosure for animals). It was bought by a Hungarian Jew, named Zadok Kraus. The old-timers still call it Reb Zadok's Chosh. The story goes that he bought it for a sack of rice. (Some say it was a sack of potatoes, but they didn't have potatoes in those days -- it was a luxury unknown to this part of the world so it must have been rice which he offered the Arab owner.) Land didn't have the great value it does now in Jerusalem, and a sack of rice was a fair price then. In the chosh there are about thirty Jewish homes and two synagogues still standing today.

I remember Christian Street as a street of shops many of which were Jewish. In 1875 a German, named Gott, came here and wrote about Jerusalem. He describes it street by street. When he comes to the Christian Street he says that, 'unfortunately' all the shops on this street are owned by Jews and it could just as well be called the Jews' Street. I still remember a building on Christian Street (if you want to take the trouble to locate it, it's No. 80 - there's a parlor there now where you can have a tattoo done) where there was a synagogue. About forty years ago, as I was going to the Kotel on Shabbat, a man standing on the corner of Christian Street asked me if I could be a tenth (to a minyan). It was a synagogue of Yanina Jews - Yanina is a community in the north of Greece and its Jews had two synagogues in Jerusalem, one in the Ohel Moshe Quarter and this one in the Old City. Many Greek Jews had their shops on Christian Street and, nearby, the market called Aftimos was all Jewish. There also exists a copy of a deed of transfer dated 1826 of one Jew transferring his property in the Christian Quarter to another Jew. So you have an idea as to how 'Christian' the Christian Quarter was.

The Moslem Quarter is described in detail by one of the great rabbis of Jerusalem, who died ten years ago, Ben-Zion Yadler. Rabbi Yadler would go to the Kotel on Tisha B'av at midnight, when he would begin teaching Midrash. Up till twelve o'clock he wouldn't appear - there were too many 'Zionists' who used to come. But at twelve we would all gather together and he would tell us about Jerusalem. I remember once that Arabs began throwing stones at us. He said to us in Yiddish, "Don't be upset. You wanted them to give you back Palestine; they're giving it to you stone by stone."

He writes a full description of what is today called the Moslem Quarter, and says as follows: Not only did the majority of Jews of Jerusalem live in the so-called 'Moslem' Quarter, but, also the more important Jews lived there, rather than in other sections of the city. And he goes on to describe twenty-two synagogues (I've been able to locate practically all of them), many mikvaot and yeshivot, among them, the biggest yeshiva in that part of the city - which is fortunately still standing - Torat Chaim. As you come from Damascus Gate, it's on the left side of El Wad Road. Very strange: it is right on the Via Dolorosa part of the street. (The Via Dolorosa curves at one point, and part of it is on El Wad Road.)

Then you have another big yeshiva, Chaye Olam, with a Talmud Torah of twenty-two classrooms -- each classroom today is an Arab home. (A Talmud Torah consists of eight grades, and here there were three parallel classes.) Part of the building is now unused. That part was never finished because the Arabs brought a case against it in 1927 when the yeshiva wanted to start a new wing. They weren't able to finish it, so they just have the walls up. The yeshiva is close to what is the holiest part of Jerusalem for Jews. Here is an entrance to the Temple area. It's called Bab el-Katunin which means Gate of Cotton, because there were cotton shops there. It's now being repaired by the Moslems. It leads straight to the Mosque of Omar which is called by the Arabs Sakra, meaning the 'Mosque covering the stone' which is our Even Shtia the holiest spot for Jews in this world, the ancient Holy of Holies, the stone upon which the Ark rested.

There is another building, very close to the golden-domed mosque, which a Hungarian Jew, who arrived here about a hundred years ago, put up. In that building were two yeshivot called Mishmarot(Watches) because twenty-four hours a day Torah was studied there. Rabbi Yadler described how at midnight one group would come from the farthest corners of Jerusalem and another group would go home at that late hour to a place called Bab-el-Hota, close to the Lions Gate. I was still able to find one or two Jews who lived there in their youth. A synagogue was there, but it's been abandoned for over forty years. You can still see the building near two Turkish baths. One is on the corner of the Bab-el-Katunin, and is called Hamam-el-en; and closer to the Temple Mount, very close, is the second bathhouse. Both of these bath-houses had good mikvaot under the supervision of rabbis. The Arab owners didn't want to lose Jewish trade, and they made special arrangements for mikvaot.

There was a very strange Turkish law in effect when this building was erected. Usually in building, you first have a plan, you get your plan approved by the government, and then you build. Well, by Turkish Law, they build first and then they make a plan and have it approved. But if you built not in accordance with the regulations, there was a law: once built, it could not be torn down. So you did a lot of building at night, under cover of darkness, and then, in the morning, the inspector came around, and even though the building wasn't according to regulations, it could not be torn down. This particular building was close to the Temple Mount and the Arabs objected to its being put up, so it was completed in one night. Two walls were put up at night, and because they were built with self-sacrifice, they are still standing. The other two walls, no longer are.

So, you see, Jews lived not only in the 'Jewish' section. It's just as if someone would say today, "Jews in New York live only on the Lower East Side, not Brooklyn, not Bronx, not Queens - nowhere else." It's equally ridiculous for someone to say, "You lived only in the 'Jewish' section of Jerusalem." Jews lived in the Armenian section, in the Moslem section, and they had a synagogue and owned most of the shops in the Christian section.

Once again, people are reviving the issue of international control of Jerusalem. Even such an authority as Dr. Kissinger has said that Jerusalem is holy to the three religions. There is a very great distinction. However, for the Christians and Moslems there are holy places in Jerusalem. But the city, as a whole, is not holy to them. However, to Jews the city itself is holy. We have the regulations in theMishna: "The whole world is holy to Jews; Eretz Yisrael is holier, Jerusalem is still holier, the Temple Mount is holiest." There is a special sanctity that pervades Jerusalem as a city (irrespective of whether there happens to be there synagogues or other holy sites) which is not the same for Islam or Christianity.

In the idea of international control, there also lies a great danger. International cities do not work anywhere. It means bringing the Soviet Union into the picture, controlling the holiness of Jerusalem, and we know just how much holiness of religion means to them. It is the thin edge of the wedge for them to get something more than just control of the holy places. Holy places merit special treatment consulates, for instance, are extra-territorial. In the same way you might let Christians own their Sepulchre and manage it as they please, but that doesn't mean that you have to grant them control over the city ... In New York you have St. Patrick's Cathedral but that does not give the Catholics control over New York. Nor is New York, with all its sects, under international control.

When Jerusalem was under the exclusive control of the Moslems for nineteen years, under Trans-Jordan, no one was worried about it. The Pope wasn't worried about it. King Hussein certainly wasn't worried about it. Only when Jews get control does the world get worried. It is interesting that there is no conflict between the different religions about any particular site. We have no interest in the Sepulchre, and Christians have no interest in the Hurva Synagogue. It is only in Hebron where we have a clash. The Tomb of the Patriarchs is sacred to Moslems and Jews. But Jerusalem is different even in the Wall the Arabs showed no real interest. Christianity, however, has a basic belief which to them is proof that Jesus really was 'Messiah': the fact that the Jews, because they never really accepted him, are in Galut (Exile) for 2000 years. They keep saying: "These people are the proof of the truth of Christianity. These people have been cursed and they'll never have their country back until they accept Jesus as the Messiah." All of a sudden the Jews get their country back and young Christian people come and say to their religious leaders: "What's happened to all your theories? Jews have got their country back." So they begin to get worried.

I happened to have been present at a discussion on a very high level on this matter between Chief Rabbi Herzog and the Pope. This goes back to 1940 when I was Rabbi Herzog's private secretary. Since he was an Irishman and I was an American we could both travel in Europe; other nationals could not because war had been declared. (I am ashamed to tell that I traveled with a passport that said "missionary." We were scheduled to leave at six in the morning. At about eleven the preceding night, the American Consul informed me, "I'm sorry new regulations came out that you can't travel without first being cleared by Washington. That'll take a long time." I went over the regulations and noticed that two groups could travel - one was missionaries - so I said, "Mr. Consul, I'm covered, I'm going on a mission." So he said to me, "If it's all right with you, it's all right with me. But what will the Chief Rabbi say about it?" I said, "I'll tell him when I get back." So my passport said "missionary.")

We came to Rome, and when the rabbi spoke with the Pope, the question of the Jews returning to their land came up. The Chief Rabbi told him that the Pope would gain much if he could show the hand of Providence bringing back the Jews to their homeland after such a long time the fulfillment of prophecy, etc. That would mean more to Catholic youth than anything else. The Pope knew that what he said was true. He also knew that Jews have bent over backwards to show the Christian world that we take good care of their interests. It could not be otherwise, as I have pointed out many times to Christians. We have six million Jews in America and millions more in other Christian countries. Are we going to antagonize the Christian countries? For what? And yet, Christian public opinion is still largely in favor of internationalizing Jerusalem.

Oddly, the only people who fight over the Sepulchre are the Christians themselves. It's divided among a number of Christian sects - The Greek Orthodox, the Catholics, the Armenians and the Copts; they keep fighting over which group has rights to it. Sometimes they even fight over the right to clean part of the floor and these are terrific fights. To keep the peace, there always was an Arab (of a certain Arab family in the Old City -- it was hereditary) who held the key to the Sepulchre - he opened and closed the doors. A Turkish guard in Turkish days and in British days, a Moslem guard had to watch that the Christians did not fight among themselves. They used to tell a story about a family of Christians who came here from England and took their little daughter to see the sites, and she saw this guard who kept the peace at the Holy Sepulchre. She came home, and her minister asked her: "You saw everything in Jerusalem?" She said, "Oh yes." "And did you see the Holy Sepulchre?" "Oh yes, and not only that, but I saw the Prince of Peace!" "The Prince of Peace?" he asked. And she proceeded to describe this Arab guard who kept the peace ...

What Israel has done since 1967, is remove that Arab guard and hand the keys over to the Christians themselves. The Jews went to the Patriarchs of the Churches and said, "You decide among yourselves who is going to administer the Sepulchre Church." They were told they could go to the court, but should not fight. And today, they no longer have this disgrace of having their holy place under the jurisdiction of Moslems or Jews. So, Christians really should be quite happy with Jewish sovereignty in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Then again, some who speak of international control imply not just the Old City of Jerusalem, but include Bethlehem an area of about a hundred square miles. Now, that is putting up another little state. Our poor little. country is already divided. The Jews and the Moslems each want their little share and then, in addition, there would be an 'International' Christian state. That's laying the ground for lots of trouble, which I sincerely hope we all will be spared.

According to an old tale, when the Ohr HaChaim came to Jerusalem from Morocco, two hundred years ago, the Baal Shem Tov told his brother-in-law, Rabbi Gershon Kitover, to go and meet him. When Reb Gershon came, he found that the Ohr HaChaim had just passed away. Among a number of letters he wrote from Jerusalem, I found a remarkable one in which he says, "I came to Jerusalem, took a walk through the city and recalled the prayer 'I will always remember and be amazed when I see every city on its own hill, built, and the city of God is humbled to the depths.' Instead of '... the City of God,' the prayer should have read ' ... the city of Jerusalem is humbled.' But, the change of expression teaches us that even if we build up Jerusalem so that it's as beautiful as any other great city, it means nothing. When the 'City of God' will no longer be disgraced, then we will have reached what we want to reach."

And how do you rebuild the City of God? By rebuilding its synagogues and houses of Torah study.

All Roads Lead to Jerusalem

The Kotel

"Hey, Joe, where ya headed ?"

"Jerusalem."

"What? That's quite a ways from San Francisco, my friend! How ya gonna get there? Hitchhike?"

"Jake, don't you know Rebbe Nachman's famous saying "Wherever I go, I am going to Jerusalem"? O.K., my feet happen to be heading to the supermarket to get a loaf of bread, but in my heart I'm going to Jerusalem. Wanna come?"

What did Rebbe Nachman mean? Why did he say he was 'always be going toward Jerusalem?' Jerusalem throughout the ages has been the focal point of the Jewish people. When a Jew prays, he faces the Holy City. At a wedding, a glass is broken in remembrance of the destruction of Jerusalem and its Holy Temple. The Yom Kippur service ends with the empathic prayer: "Next Year in Jerusalem!" We proclaim at the Passover Seder "Next Year in Rebuilt Jerusalem!"

The Ramban (Nachmanides) in the year 1268 wrote: "The glory of the world is Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), the glory of Eretz Yisrael is Jerusalem, and the glory of Jerusalem is the Holy Temple."

This teaching echoes that of the Talmud: "Abba Issa said in the name of SamuelHakatan: 'The world is like a human eyeball. The white of the eye is the ocean surrounding the world, the iris is this continent, the pupil is Jerusalem and the image in the pupil is the Holy Temple. The focal point of the Jewish people is Jerusalem, and the image they are focusing on is the Holy Temple. The Talmud teaches: "G-d swore that He would not enter Jerusalem above (the spiritual Jerusalem) until He enters Jerusalem down below (the physical Jerusalem). Jerusalem below is the gate to Jerusalem above; G-d's palace below is the gate to G-d's palace above. That is why wherever Rebbe Nachman would go, he was going toward Jerusalem, and why Joe was joining him. I think I'll join them as well. Wanna come?

(Based on 'Jerusalem: The Eye of the Universe' by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (zatzal) NCSY: UOJC 5-9)

Multiples of Chai - One Rabbi's War Diary - Yom Kippur 5734 / 1973 by Rabbi Nota Schiller

Multiples of Chai - One Rabbi's War Diary - Yom Kippur 5734 / 1973 by Rabbi Nota Schiller

Rabbi Nota Schiller, dean and founder of Ohr Somayach wrote this diary during the Yom Kippur War. It was published in Shma Yisrael magazine.

It's 2 O'clock In The Morning...

There's a strangeness about writing in these times. On the one hand, there is the desire to share one's thoughts and feelings with a friend; on the other hand, the pace and nature of events move so quickly as to render yesterday's insights musty, all but antiquated. And, of course, we still don't have the cool distance of perspective that lends the surgical ability to dissect feelings and responses. Still there's a kind of validity in trying to freeze a feeling or two. To catch it on the cooled slide and submit it to the scrutiny of analysis. None of this can yet be conclusion; it is all process.

The First Thing We Knew...

I close my eyes and I see my daughters running and screaming towards me as the siren screeches overhead to run for the shelters. The distance as I run toward them seems immeasurable. Praying together in a shelter adds a dimension to what we call kavana(concentrated feeling).

At 5:30 A.M., down at Shaarei Tzedek Hospital, now a military hospital, I have been waiting in line with the other volunteer drivers to pick up doctors and nurses. Public transportation is practically non-existent. The fellow next to me is a professor of psychology at the university. He studied at the same yeshiva as I in the States. He has a lulav and etrog and a soldier comes over to say a prayer with them. The talk is not one of concern about losing, but one of what price must be paid to win. In one corner of my mind, I see a certain beauty in the breakthrough in the human dimension. Jews non-religious, religious, Western, and Oriental - are in it together and there is a camaraderie, a melting of the icy walls that at other times separate.

The radio says nine of the 11 bridges the Egyptians threw across the Suez have been knocked out. Then later we hear that these temporary pontoon bridges can be rebuilt in four hours.

Dayan sounds a lot more cautious in his appraisals than I would like him to sound. The radio also says that there is no need to hoard, yet the next morning people mob the corner grocery, buying up sugar, flour, noodles, as if planning for a siege. They rush to the bread bins as if it were gold. Later, other people go around asking if some families need bread; they will share what they have.

The blackouts have sapped the life from the city at night. People stay close to home. Each night the HAGA (civil defense) come by blowing whistles and hollering for violators to douse their lights.

Even as you function one ear of your mind listens for the siren and you think about what would be the right thing to do - whether or not to listen to the school authorities when they say don't come for your child if there is a siren; they will lead the children to shelters, and parents should go to the ones nearest them.

A theme of being insignificant, as an individual, as a nation, as the giant meshing gears grind around us. Yet a certain sense of significance returns with being at the eye of the storm, with this devastating fulfillment for those lines in the Prophets. But this significance comes now mitigated with a fresh humility.

It's 2 O'clock In The Morning... | The First Thing We Knew... | Hakafot With Soldiers
Back Home... | Encounter On The Golan | Now, The Waiting Starts Again...

Hakafot With Soldiers

At the conclusion of Shemini Atzeret, which is the beginning of Simchat Torah outside of Israel, we drive in a few cars out to the Jordan Valley. It is a motley group that drives with us. We have gotten special permission to bring a band and some rabbis out to an army encampment to makeHakafot Shniot - a second round of dancing with the Torah Scrolls for the soldiers. Turning off the Jerusalem-Jericho road, we see soldiers from time to time, their khakis making them look like part of the desert-dry shrubbery that abounds here. Then we meet our military escort and we turn on to a dirt road built by the Romans that connects through to Jerusalem around Wadi Kelt. Conceivably, this could be used as a tank route, and of course, for armored divisions by the Jordanians. Our army hosts are there to watch out for that contingency. As we are told, they would blow up the road were the Jordanians to being moving.

But now we see some tents spread out over the sandy desolation. Stark emptiness, except for the presence of the soldiers. We are standing now at the center, which is nothing more than a few communications bunkers dug into the ground and the surrounding tents. We are told that the hills all around are dotted with our men. The first soldiers to greet us, as we pull up in a cloud of dust, are some former neighbors of mine: one, a Yemenite Jew; the other, a Hassidic fellow. It seems as if this is the first time I've seen the Yemenite fellow in uniform; and my first reaction to the Hassid was that it's the first time I've seen him out of uniform. I've never seen such a star-strewn sky - the brightness, the effervescence of the stars is overwhelming. And the sukka. That simple makeshift sukkain the middle of the desert. On the one hand, it seems to belong here more than a sukka belongs anywhere else. On the other hand, there is a certain strangeness in this festive booth in the middle of the stark, empty desert.

One of the soldiers invites a rabbi to speak. This rabbi, an army chaplain, says the Arab attack is an attack upon our people. Our people have been sustained by our tradition throughout our history, a tradition which expresses our trust and belief in God, that He will see us through to victory. And so, when we dance now, with the Torah Scrolls, our dancing is an affirmation of this trust. A tractor, the few cars that we drove in with, and some army vehicles are formed into a circle and the headlights are turned on. A loud-speaker has been attached to one of the batteries of the cars. The Torah Scrolls are carried to the center of the circle. Two long-haired, young soldiers - one with a submachine gun, the other with a rifle slung over his shoulder - hold the Torah by the wood handles at the bottom, pushing it high into the air. The music explodes and soldiers come running to dance. The words of the song are a line from the Prophets expressing belief and trust in God and His Torah. The circle churns, the 15 of us in civilian clothes melding into the khaki swirl of movement. The voices reach and cry with a special kind of defiance. A defiance at those would-be conquerors. The soldier next to me screams, "Sing loud friend, let that mamzer Hussein try and figure this out."

"Nobody has ever made hakafot in this place," says one soldier. The sand fills up into our lungs as we dance, and we dance.

There is a break, and one of the soldiers runs up to the mike and says, "There is another reason for our simcha tonight." and explains that one of the soldiers' wives had had a boy only that morning. Somebody brought the message from Jerusalem with our caravan. The father is dragged out into the center. A handsome, rugged-looking young man. Two friends lift him on to a third fellow's shoulders and the singing and dancing erupt again. At the next pause, some cases of wine, brandy and soda and home-baked cake are brought out. The new father's mother and mother-in-law had sent them along for the occasion. This, of course, is a Jewish army. I learned that the best way to open a Coca-Cola in the desert is with the back of an Uzi rifle. As if it were measured to size, a perfect bottle opener. Somebody turns on a transistor on the side - the fighting at the Suez, the clashes at the Golan are intense, vicious - blood is being spilled. Somebody's brother, somebody's father, is being maimed, killed. Who knows, maybe Hussein will come down this Roman road tomorrow and we too will get our chance. For now it is quiet and the huddled group around the transistor, as if by consent, decide to fill that quiet with a song, a song that is a prayer, a song that is a declaration.

A soldier says to me, "I am not religious, but I would forget my name before I forget these hakafot." And deep down in my heart, I know that just as I have never seen the stars so clearly, so brightly, as I am seeing them now through the pure ether of this high desert mountain overlooking the wadi, I know that I have never seen these Jews so brightly, so effervescently as I see them now. Their eyes burn with an intensity as cold and as new as the stars. On the road home through the Arab habitations around the Mount of Olives down through east Jerusalem, the blackout is still in full force. There is an eerie quality to the thick darkness that envelops the city.

It's 2 O'clock In The Morning... | The First Thing We Knew... | Hakafot With Soldiers
Back Home... | Encounter On The Golan | Now, The Waiting Starts Again...

Back Home...

The usual post-Sukkot vacation has been called off at our yeshiva. The American and Canadian boys have all remained despite pleas from many of their parents to return home. Learning is a dimension of prayer for us, a ritual of devotion. This is no time for vacation. Some of the boys are doing part-time volunteer work at the post office or at the pharmaceutical factories. We hang up blankets on the windows to keep the blackout regulations, and I begin a lecture in the tractate of the Talmud that we have decided to learn this semester. The Rabbi, the instructor, in the class across the hall arrives in his uniform. The tzitzit hang out at his sides - somehow, all part of the uniform.

A few new students have come to the yeshiva. They come as volunteers and find there is no need for them. One is an ex-marine from Virginia, another, a paramedic, and a third, a graduate student who "just felt he had to be here now." None can read Aleph-Bet, but something in them wants to know now what is this thing called Judaism. They register for our three-month beginners program.

People in the streets talk about the Russians coming; we read that portion of the Haftarah that talks of the war of Gog and Magog in the end of days preceding the coming of the Messiah. The storekeeper, the policeman, the cab driver, the nurse, say maybe this is it. The count-down between America and Russia.

A few great rabbis are quoted as having made predictions and then we hear denials of the quotes.

There is criticism, unhappiness, about the lack of having been prepared. There is mistrust of the cease-fire. Why didn't we stall a few days till we could deal a severer blow to Egypt. Obviously the Russians only wanted a cease-fire because this blow seemed imminent. And what does it mean? How soon will the next war be? The solders are still away. The Arabs will not give POW lists. Europe has buckled to Arab oil pressure. America has helped. But...

It's 2 O'clock In The Morning... | The First Thing We Knew... | Hakafot With Soldiers
Back Home... | Encounter On The Golan | Now, The Waiting Starts Again...

Encounter On The Golan

Then past the evacuated refugee camps, beyond Jericho, speeding through the arid desert of the Jordan Valley, through the naked desolation. Two hours drive on towards Beit Shean, where the Jordan slithers into the Kinneret and the low-lying lands suddenly erupt with greenness and vegetation. The Kinneret like a shimmering, silver pearl set in its ring of lavender mountains.

Climbing the twisting mountain roads to Rosh Pina. There receiving our Army Rabbinate guides and passes to visit the outposts on the Golan. We need a special pass to go beyond the "purple line" that designates the new bulge into Syria, because there is till a "dripping" of artillery fire falling there. From the moment that we cross over the Bnot Yaakov Bridge an ironic calm grabs us. The first tanks we see are remnants of the Six Day War, when our soldiers had to walk up a wall imbedded with Syrian bunkers to get the Golan. The Syrian Customs House, now a check point for soldiers leaving the Heights, military police inspecting for booty. The armored division camps "Storm" and "Hurricane", their tanks resting as if exhausted from the raging clashes. Soldiers wave us down, they want prayer books, Tehilim (Psalms) and tefilin.

Out in the fields the twisted, broken steel of burnt-out war machines. Syrian tanks ironically immobile, tranquil. The mountain air is exhilarating, the day brilliantly clear: it seems the wrong place, an impossible scene for so much death. We meet the Hevra Kadisha- mostly religious soldiers who had retrieved bodies and limbs from smoldering tanks for burial. It was nasty work and the secularkibbutznik with the sun-browned face says the "Hevra" are great men.

Through the ghost town of Kuneitra: this once-was city. the shambles, the parts of walls that still stand, pierced with gaping holes. A vanished civilization. The extroverted camaraderie catches you, the vestiges of formality have been left down below; here up on the Golan, the immediacy, the quickness, the closeness of communication. The snow-capped Hermon majestically dominating the horizon: we're back up there now. Perhaps more purple that hue, it has been stained with young blood.

Khan Irnava, a primitive Arab village, mud and straw huts, discs of drying cow dung piled for building, the maze of interconnecting courtyards, no plumbing. In the improvised synagogue, a side wall ripped apart from the shelling, the roof of bamboo reeds open in spots, a small ark has been set on overturned empty ammunition boxes. We pray, I speak, and as I speak the 40 or so soldiers huddle together in the hardly lit, unheated cold of the Syrian night, their faces cast a strange spell over me. By all accounts and measurements these men have acquitted themselves superbly. They are unquestionably superior soldiers. But these boys and men do not have the eyes of warriors. These sons of King David know that if there is a time to fight they must fight, but David wrote the Psalms as well and that was the distilled essence of his soul, of a Jew's soul. They do not hate the Arabs. But they are outraged at stories of torture and murder of POW's.

After the lectures we talk deep into the night. They want to talk about death. About whether there is an afterlife. About how can the world be so callous and immoral to spill out blood to make room for oil. Walking through the mud and rubble, sipping coffee in tents, through the entire night jeeps and halftracks in constant movement in and out of the village. Why didn't the Syrians keep going? One thousand, five hundred tanks with no opposition left. Why did they stop? Can that be called a miracle. Nonsense, says the officer, we found their plans and they had no intention of going any further. Double-nonsense, say I, those plans were made before they knew how easy it was going to be for them to come through!

And what about their attacking on Yom Kippur, another soldier interjecting, that was calculated to catch us off guard. Yet, given our state of unpreparedness, the quick mobilization was only possible because it was Yom Kippur - that is the only day of the year that 85 percent of the country is either at synagogue or home and the roads are empty.

We argue about the validity of secular Zionism, how values such as self-sacrifice and patriotism, if they are to be absolute and binding, must have their source in the Absolute. But even the arguments are within the family, and we can jostle each other affectionately to press our points, and paragraphs are punctuated with swigs from the bottle of brandy that is passed around to relieve the sting of the night air chill. Stories of tanks blown out from underneath them, of wandering behind enemy lines for days.

Kinship with Jews all over the world is openly acknowledged and appreciated. They are fascinated at Jewish commitment. A few are cynical about money-giving as an easy way out - but most are sincere and proud that they can count on that commitment. The desertion by our allies and so-called neutral nations that shocked him into a new sense of his own Jewishness, says the division doctor. "Till now I was an Israeli, now I have become a Jew." It is a line in the Torah I offer: "There is a people that dwells apart, not reckoned among the nations" (Numbers 23.9). Which has been understood to mean that if they forget this solitary destiny, then the reminder will come through nations not reckoning with the Jews.

It's 2 O'clock In The Morning... | The First Thing We Knew... | Hakafot With Soldiers
Back Home... | Encounter On The Golan | Now, The Waiting Starts Again...

Now, The Waiting Starts Again...

Though the rumors of the number of casualties run much higher, the published reports are 1854 dead, and 1800 wounded. It hits me that the war lasted 18 days and we are abounding in multiples of chai. Without any pretense to being hot on the trail of a visionary revelation, it yet occurs to me to look at the 18th weekly portion in the Torah, the 18th line. I check it and it reads: "When men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or a fist, and he does not die but has to take to his bed..." (Exodus 21:18). Looking further, I discover the Midrash (Shmot Raba 30) says that this is referring to Egypt attacking Israel: "gangsters entering the vineyard of the king." That Pharaoh will not be consoled for his losses at the Red Sea until he sees the massive destruction of Gog and Magog. And one of the commentaries points out that this idea of Egypt attacking in the vineyard of the Lord - meaning Israel - has its origin in the line "...little foxes that ruin the vineyards" (Song of Songs 2:15), which is interpreted by the Midrash (S.R. 22) to be a reference to Egypt attacking Israel, an Egypt like "little foxes" because she is clever - always looking behind her to see who is there, to check on who is backing her!

Hospital wards are full of wounded soldiers, many amputees. A one-armed, black-eyed young soldier grins and asks for tefillin. "When I had two arms I didn't wear them. Now I have one arm left, I think it's time. What do you think?" I find it hard to smile and choke back the cry in my throat. Turning away so he shouldn't see my tears, I wind the tefillin around his arm.

Even now it is still in process. Mr. Kissinger is an artist, but artists tend not to be didactic. The beauty of their creation is self-justifying. We are but a part of this massive mural he is designing that will immortalize him. Is it really possible for a little dependent democracy to exist side by side with sprawling dictatorships? Can they afford paying the price of giving up a convenient scapegoat for all their internal problems? The morning papers have a photo of Kissinger smiling with Sadat, but the grocery man's son was killed yesterday, despite the cease-fire, despite the smiles.

Men have died so that we may live. Their purpose in dying was that we might live. What is our purpose in living? And can a nation be purely secular and still call upon its people to make superhuman sacrifices? Can idealism as whim suffice to sustain the galloping needs of our times? Today, tomorrow, the denouement is in process. Such are some of the questions, the options, the multiples of chai.

Love of the Land Rabbi Mendel Weinbach's Series of Selections from classical Torah sources which express the special relationship between the People of Israel and Eretz Yisrael
Multiples of Chai One Rabbi's War Diary - Yom Kippur 5734/1973 by Rav Nota Schiller
A Return to Jerusalem Rav Mendel Weinbach Remembering Shavuos 1967
The Eternal City Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair on the Eternal Nature of Jerusalem and the Jewish People
Jerusalem Quartered Exploring theFOUR Jewish Quarters of Jerusalem's Old City by Rabbi Yakov Goldman O.B.M.
Victory is Jerusalem On the 28th of Iyar, the prophet Shmuel passed away - on the 28th of Iyar, the old city of Jerusalem was recaptured in the Six Day War. Is there a connection? Rabbi Sinclair
All Roads Lead to JerusalemJerusalem as the focal point of the Jewish People by Rabbi Pinchas Kantrovitz

Jerusalem Jewish Heritage

Thursday, August 20, 2015

A Return to Jerusalem

"I rejoiced when they said to me -
let us go to the House of Hashem."

Shavuot and the Kotel
What a combination!

Jerusalem and Torah -
even in name are they linked.

VICTORY IS JERUSALEM

THE ETERNAL CITY

It's 2 O'clock In The Morning...

The First Thing We Knew...

Hakafot With Soldiers

Back Home...

Encounter On The Golan

Now, The Waiting Starts Again...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thursday, August 20, 2015

A Return to Jerusalem

"I rejoiced when they said to me -let us go to the House of Hashem."

Shavuot and the KotelWhat a combination!

Jerusalem and Torah -even in name are they linked.

VICTORY IS JERUSALEM

THE ETERNAL CITY

It's 2 O'clock In The Morning...

The First Thing We Knew...

Hakafot With Soldiers

Back Home...

Encounter On The Golan

Now, The Waiting Starts Again...

No comments:

Post a Comment

"I rejoiced when they said to me -
let us go to the House of Hashem."

Shavuot and the Kotel
What a combination!

Jerusalem and Torah -
even in name are they linked.