“If I forget
you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning.”
Every groom
under the wedding canopy declares loyalty to Jerusalem, reciting the
words, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning. Let
my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do
not set Jerusalem above my
highest joy” (Psalms 137:5-6). For thousands of years, millions of Jews have
poured forth tears like water with their prayer, “Return, in mercy, to Your
city, Jerusalem. Dwell within
it as You said You would” (ShemonehEsreh).
Whenever a Jew
eats bread, he recalls Jerusalem and the
longing for its rebuilding with the words, “Rebuild Jerusalem the holy city
speedily in our day” (Grace after Meals). All such prayers and customs which
have accompanied us for thousands of years have the purpose of strengthening
our spiritual and material connection to Jerusalem, heart of the
nation. Only in rebuilt Jerusalem will the
Jewish nation being revealed in their full glory and might through the Torah,
prophecy, the Temple and monarchy.
Only through our people’s return to Jerusalem, and our
control over Jerusalem, are we able
to increase light and goodness in the world, for Jerusalem is the light
of the world.
Right now, the
remarkable sight of the return to Zion and the
rebuilding of Jerusalemis bringing to hundreds of millions of people the hope
that the world will be illuminated by the Jewish People with the light of
faith, the light of love, the light of joy. As we say in our morning prayers,
“May a new light shine over Zion.” Moreover,
Isaiah said (2:3), “Many people shall go and say, ‘Come! Let us go up to the
mountain of the L-rd, to the house of the G-d of Jacob. He will teach us of
His ways, and we will walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion shall go
forth Torah, and the word of the L-rd from Jerusalem.” The divine
promise to Abraham will then be fulfilled, “I will make you into a great
nation.... All the families of the earth will be blessed through you”
(Genesis 12:2,3).
It is true
that in face of the “dreamlike return of Zion’s captivity” (Psalm 126:1),
forces of darkness are rising up that cannot bear the light emerging from
Zion and Jerusalem, just as a bat cannot bear the light of day. They are
fighting to dispossess us of Jerusalem and to
destroy it, saying, “Raze it! Raze it! To its very foundations” (Psalm
137:7).
Yet, “He who
sits in heavens laughs. The L-rd mocks them.... You shall break them with a
rod of iron. You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psalms
2:7,9). “For the L-rd will not cast off His people,
nor will He forsake His inheritance” (Psalms 94:14); “As the mountains are
round about Jerusalem, so the L-rd
is round about His people from henceforth and forever” (Psalm 125:2).
Rejoicing over Jerusalem and looking
forward to complete salvation.
