A Reunified Jerusalem...Part of Our Jewish Soul

There are times in history, that it is very easy to remember the impact of a particular day, even if that day occurred 45 years ago.  Tonight the Jewish world will be observing Yom Yerushalayim, the day that commemorates the reunification of Jerusalem.  If you’re old enough to think back to the Six Day War in 1967, I imagine you can remember what it felt like to learn that on day of three of the war, Israel had captured the Old City.  The images were of soldiers praying at the Kotel…of our dreams and prayers having been answered.

For two thousand years, we had dreamed of Jerusalem while in exile. Three times a day Jerusalem entered our psyches as we prayed.  We faced Jerusalem, prayed for our return to the Land, asked G-d to return to Jerusalem rebuilding it as a center for His presence.  It wasn’t just a dream about a political reality, but a vision from the time of King Solomon that we would have a political entity infused with the spiritual concepts of tzedek and mishpat, righteousness and justice. 

Yom Yerushalayim is a fairly new addition to the Jewish calendar, but it is there because it allows us to show our gratitude that in our day, we have not only witnessed the birth of the State of Israel three years after Auschwitz, but we have also witnessed the reunification of Jerusalem.

When Israel reunified Jerusalem in 1967, she granted all religions access to holy sites. 
Between 1948 to 1967, Jordan denied any access to Israeli Jews to the Old City or the Western Wall. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel immediately abolished the restrictions on access to the city, allowing people from all faiths to worship at their holy places. (AIPAC)

Just as we are grateful for the ability to be able to go to the Kotel, the ability to walk on the ramparts of the Old City, enter the rebuilt Hurvah synagogue, climb through the tunnels beneath the Temple Mount, and feel in close connection to centuries of Jewish life, we should not take such opportunities lightly.  They can be seen as signs of the continuation of the Jewish people and from a Jewish perspective of   G-d’s role in our history.

For centuries we have stated the words of Psalm 137, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill, May my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember thee; if I recall not Jerusalem at the head of my joy.”

Why this focus on Jerusalem?    Jerusalem is seen as the site where our vision for the world will eventually be realized.  In its idealized state, it represents a vision of a place where all of humankind will find a closeness to G-d and function as a community.  Jerusalem is to be the place from which our dream of a united world will find its way into the hearts and minds of all people. 

Even as we pray in our small synagogue here in Lincoln, NE we remember Jerusalem. At our weddings two of the seven wedding blessings we recite, mention Jerusalem.  When we console a mourner, we say, “May the Almighty console you among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”  When we chant birkhat Hamazon Jerusalem takes center stage.

Here at Tifereth Israel we are about to engage in a campaign called, “Come home.”  As Rabbi Sidney Greenberg once wrote, “Israel is the place where a Jew feels at home even though he has never been there before.  Israel is many things to many peoples and faiths.  But to the Jew alone it is home and it is the homing instinct that has brought us back to our ancestral Land.”

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As much as some people might think that Jerusalem is merely a matter of politics, it is not.  It is also a matter of the soul.  Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center stated that when Israel existed from 1948-1967 as a Jewish State without the unified city of Jerusalem, it existed as a Jewish state without a soul.  It was not until that eventful day 45 years ago that it became a Jewish state reunited with its soul.  May we always know the time when our children and our children’s children will feel the same gratitude that we feel knowing that Jerusalem has been reunified and can now serve as a spiritual center for Jews, Christians, and Moslems…in the true sense of being an ir shalem…a complete city.

Shabbat Shalom.