Yom Yerushalayim: When Streams of Tears Carried Us to the Wall
For two thousand years of exile, our people have prayed. We have prayed – not to return to the land of Israel, but to return to the holy city of Jerusalem, Yerushalayim Ir HaKodesh! “Please turn Your wrath and anger away from Jerusalem, Your holy mountain…And now, our G-d, heed Your servant’s prayer and pleas, and let Your face shine on Your desolate Sanctuary, for Your sake, O Lord…” (Tachanun Prayer)
When Jews began to return to the land of Israel after the destruction of the first temple, Nechemiah came to the land of Israel and saw a community in crisis. What was the cause of their difficult situation? Nothing other than the degradation of Jerusalem: “The remnant that are left of the captivity there are in great affliction and reproach; the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire…” (Nechemiah 1:3) When Jerusalem is desolate, so are we; only with its rebuilding can our people regain its strength.
When the Independence War ended in 1948 with the Old City of Jerusalem in Jordanian control, our joy was muted; when Jerusalem was liberated nineteen years later, our joy knew no bounds! Even today, 53 years later, every Jewish heart beats faster when we hear those awesome words: “Har HaBayit b’Yadeinu”, “The Temple Mount is in our hands!”
Yom Yerushalayim, the return of our people to our holy city, is not merely a miracle of our generation; it is a miracle that belongs to all generations. As R’ Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “We did not enter the city of Jerusalem on our own in 1967. Streams of endless crying, endless praying, clinging, dreaming, day and night, midnights, years, decades, centuries, millennia, streams of tears, pledging, waiting – […]