בס"ד CEREMONY & CELEBRATION FAMILY EDITION THIS SERIES IS BASED ON THE TEACHINGS AND WRITINGS OF זצ"ל RABBI LORD JONATHAN SACKS YOM YERUSHALAYIM 5781 Educational content provided by Dr. Daniel Rose together with The Rabbi Sacks Legacy Trust Yom Yerushalayim in a Nutshell YOM YERUSHALAYIM, which falls on the sovereignty over West Jerusalem, with East Je- 28th of Iyar (this year on Monday 10th May), rusalem, including the Old City and the Kotel, celebrates the reunification of the city of Jeru- not in Jewish hands. Following the miraculous salem in 1967. King David first made Jerusalem victory of the Six Day War in 1967, the Israel the capital city of the Jewish people 3000 years Defence Force captured the ancient, eastern ago. It was conquered by the Romans in 70 part of the city, marking the first time in two C.E., beginning a period of almost 2000 years thousand years that all of Jerusalem was under of Jewish exile, mourning for Jerusalem, and Jewish control. Finally, Jews once again had yearning to return. In the late nineteenth centu- access to the holiest site for Judaism, the Kotel ry the dream of returning to the Land of Israel and the Temple Mount. Yom Yerushalayim is became a reality, but after the establishment of celebrated each year as a religious festival of the State of Israel in 1948, and the end of the thanksgiving, with special tefillot and celebra- War of Independence in 1949, Israel only had tions held all around the world. From the Thought of Rabbi Sacks THE LOVE OF A PEOPLE FOR THEIR CITY place, said Maimonides, from which the Divine Presence was never exiled. There has never been a love story like it in all of history. The love of our people for our city. Never has a city had such power over a people’s imagination. Never were a people more loyal Jerusalem is mentioned approximately 660 than our ancestors who endured 20 centuries times in Tanach. History teaches us that the of exile and persecution so that their children Temple was destroyed twice, and the city has or grandchildren or great-grandchildren could been besieged 23 times and captured and re- come home to Jerusalem, ir hakodesh, the holy conquered 44 times. Yet in all those years, wher- city, the home of the Jewish heart. ever Jews lived they never ceased to pray about There has Jerusalem, face Jerusalem, speak the language REFLECT: Can you think of ways in which of Jerusalem, remember it at every wedding, in Jews have shown their yearning for Jerusa- never been a every home they built, and at all the high points lem over the past two thousand years? love story like of the Jewish year. Somehow it was where every Jewish prayer met and ascended to heaven. JERUSALEM: THE CITY OF PARADOXES it in all of his- Other cities and other faiths hold Jerusalem What’s special about Jerusalem today is that tory. The love holy too, but they have holier places: Rome, despite all the very real tensions within and Constantinople, Mecca, Medina. Jews only had surrounding it, nonetheless it remains a city of our people this one city, a tiny city but somehow it was the of peace. It is one of the very few places in the for our city. Middle East – indeed one of the very few places WE NEVER FORGET JERUSALEM in the world – that is holy to three distinct faiths I used to ask myself, how could Jews believe so (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) where those faiths pray together in freedom and in peace. much in a city they had been exiled from for That has only been made possible under Israeli so long? The answer is very powerful, and it is rule in the last fifty years. contained in two words in the story of Yaacov. Recall, the brothers return home and show Somebody once said about Israel, and you Yaacov the blood-stained coat of Yosef. Real- could certainly say this about Jerusalem too, ising Yosef has gone, Yaacov weeps, and when that it is not that long and it is not that wide, the brothers move to comfort him, we are told, “Har habayit but it is very deep. Jerusalem is very deep. And “veyima’ein lehitnachen”, that Yaacov “refused to somehow within its relatively narrow confines, be comforted.” Why? There are, after all, laws beyadeinu!” it contains, in Walt Whitman’s phrase, “multi- tudes”. in Judaism about the limits of grief; there is no “The Temple such thing as a bereavement for which grief is Another incredible thing about Jerusalem is endless. Mount is in that something magical happens to our sense of our hands!” time there. For instance, the walls of Jerusalem The answer is that Yaacov had not yet given up were destroyed by every conqueror and then hope that Yosef was still alive. To refuse to be – Those comforted is to refuse to give up hope. rebuilt using the very same stones. If you look three words at the stones of the walls around Jerusalem, That is what Jews did with Jerusalem. They they come from all the eras. Somehow past and remembered the promise that Am Yisrael had changed a present, the old and the new, are all jumbled made by the waters of Babylon, Im eshkachech together. These bricks are testament to how generation. Yerushalayim tishkach yemini, “If I forget Jerusa- this city remains the oldest of the old, and yet it lem, may my right had lose its skill.” We never has also become one of the emerging high-tech forgot Jerusalem. We were never comforted. cities of the world. We never gave up hope that one day we would So it’s the oldest of the old and it’s the newest of return and, because of that, Jews never felt sepa- the new. It is the living symbol of what Theodor rated from Jerusalem. Herzl titled his book about the return to Zion, ‘Altneuland’: The old new land, the old new city, And when it happened in 1967, my Jewish for the old and renewed people. identity was transformed as the world heard the announcement – “Har habayit beyadeinu!” “The REFLECT: What are the paradoxes men- Temple Mount is in our hands!” – Those three tioned here? Can you think of any others words changed a generation. in Jerusalem? Do you think this adds or detracts from Jerusalem’s holiness and REFLECT: Why do you think Jews never beauty? forgot, or stopped yearning for, Jerusalem? 2 We have had the privilege to be born in a generation that has seen Jerusalem JERUSALEM OF TODAY CRIES OUT of their day that bestrode the narrow world reunited and “AM YISRAEL CHAI!” like a colossus, seemingly invulnerable in their time. And yet each tried to write the obituary rebuilt. We On Yom Yerushalayim a few years ago, standing of the Jewish people, and whilst they have been on the streets of the city, I watched youngsters consigned to history, our people can still stand have seen the from around the world waving Israeli flags, and sing Am Yisrael Chai. What I was seeing on Jewish people singing and dancing with a joy that was over- that day in Jerusalem was techiyat hamaytim, whelming. As I watched the celebrations, I was a collective people being brought back from come home. overcome with emotion because suddenly I had death to life. a vision of the 1.5 million children who were killed in the Shoah not because of anything When we visit Jerusalem today and see a place they had done, not because of anything their of such beauty, it takes your breath away. Jeru- parents had done, but because their grandpar- salem is the place where all the prayers of all the Jews across all the centuries and from all the ents happened to be Jews. continents meet and take flight on their way to I remembered how 26 centuries ago the Proph- heaven. It is the place where you feel brushed et Ezekiel had a vision of the Jewish people re- by the wings of the Shechinah. duced to a valley of dry bones. God asked ‘Shall We have had the privilege to be born in a these bones live?’, and Ezekiel saw them come generation that has seen Jerusalem reunited and together, take on flesh, and begin to breathe rebuilt. We have seen the Jewish people come and live again. God promised Ezekiel He would home. open His people’s graves and bring them back to the land. Today God is calling on us all to be Guardians of Zion. Never has this been more important. I remembered the first reference to Israel out- We must all stand up for the one home our side the Bible on the Merneptah Stele, a block of people has ever known and the one city our granite engraved by Merneptah IV, successor to people has loved more than any other. We are Ramses II, thought by many to have been the all shagrirey Medinat Yisrael (ambassadors for Egyptian Pharaoh at the time of the Exodus. It the State of Israel) and we must all make Israel’s was an obituary, ‘Israel is laid waste, her seed is case in a world that sometimes fails to see the no more.’ beauty we know is here. Let us all take on that I thought how some of the greatest empires the task. With Hashem’s help, we will succeed and world has ever known – Egypt of the Pharaohs, we pray the world will make its peace with Isra- Assyria, Babylon, the Alexandrian Empire, the el so that Israel and Israel’s God can bring peace Roman Empire, the medieval empires of Chris- to the world.