The Jewish Connection to Jerusalem
By Rabbi Ed Snitkoff
This article is an introduction to the central place Jerusalem holds within Judaism historically and spiritually.
Building From Broken Shards
The scene may be familiar: At the conclusion of a Jewish wedding, a glass is shattered, and everyone exclaims “Mazal Tov-Congratulations”. The couple comes out from under the Chupa (wedding canopy) and the festivities begin.
The breaking of the glass allows us the opportunity to act out what we read in the book of Psalms “If I forget thee Oh Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue stick to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my greatest joy.” (Psalm 137)
Throughout Jewish history, generations of brand new families (and their communities) were reminded by the sound of the shattering glass, that Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jewish people were in exile, even at the happiest moment of their lives. While we are overjoyed for the couple, at the same time, we remember that this small shattering glass is filled with sad memories mixed with hopeful dreams.
Beginning to Remember
Yehuda Amichai, a well known Israeli poet, wrote about remembering Jerusalem in a collection called “Songs of Zion the Beautiful”:
Jerusalem‘s a place where everyone remembers
he’s forgotten something
But doesn’t remember what it is.
On many occasions I had the opportunity to serve as an educator with groups of Jewish college students on Birthright trips. Most of these students have experienced very little Jewish education if any, yet, when we stand on Mount Scopus overlooking Jerusalem, many are overcome with emotion. When I look out over the group as they stand in awe at the view, I always remember Amichai’s words. These students are remembering that they have forgotten something, and they cannot remember what it is. This spiritual process of longing to remember and thereby touch that which is Eternal is the essence of Judaism! And this remembering always connects to Jerusalem in one way or another…
Remembering Jerusalem
While referred to a number of times in early Biblical accounts from Abraham to Joshua, Jerusalem has been the central city of Judaism since the year 1000 BCE, when King David conquered this small, remote Canaanite town and made it the capital of his kingdom. The fact that none of the 12 tribes could historically claim the city as its own, allowed David to create a symbol that all Israelites could connect to (in much the same way that Washington DC was carved out of the south and the north). With the building of the Temple by King Solomon following the death of King David, the city becomes the focus of three pilgrimages each year for thousands of Jews celebrating Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. These pilgrimages are in keeping with the command in the Torah to visit and worship “…in the place that God will choose, for the Lord God blesses you with produce and blesses the work of your hands and you shall rejoice.” (Deuteronomy 16:16)
Jerusalem is a major focus of Biblical literature, and the likely venue where much of this literature was written and preserved. The kings of Judah lived and died here, as recorded in the Books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. Prophets were based in Jerusalem, interpreting the Torah and establishing the great moral and ethical standards of Judaism. The Book of Lamentations often attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, laments over the destruction of First Temple Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The destruction of the First Temple and the rebuilding of the Second Temple (60 years later) are recorded in the books of Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles.
Continuing to Remember
Following the Biblical accounts, the Second Temple period adds 500 more years of memories. These memories are recorded in many of the Apocryphal books, such as the books of the Maccabees, relating the events (mostly in the Jerusalem area) leading to and following the revolt against the Greeks in the 2nd Century BCE (commemorated during the Hannukah festival).
With the rise of the Roman Empire, the city of Jerusalem grows and undergoes a major facelift by Herod, the Roman appointed Jewish king who conquers Jerusalem with a Roman army in the year 37 BCE. Rabbinic literature records hundreds of events, stories and descriptions of life in Jerusalem from this period.
A New Chapter
From the late Second Temple Period, literary and archaeological evidence point to the establishment of a new religious institution that existed side by side with the Temple, the synagogue. In the synagogue (Bet Knesset or House of Assembly), the congregation would meet to study and read the Torah and to pray. When Jerusalem and her beautifully rebuilt Temple are destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE, the synagogue became, in many ways, a “Portable Jerusalem”, a central framework within which Jews transported their faith, national and religious identity, as well as their languages (Hebrew and Aramaic) and customs to far off places.
Hope from Ruins
After the destruction of Second Temple Jerusalem, the memory of the city comes to embody the hopes and aspirations of the Jewish people within the developing tradition of Rabbinic Judaism. Jerusalem is now an ideal that represents redemption, perfection and wholeness which Jews would study about, pray for and try to spiritually experience from afar. While Earthly Jerusalem may be in ruins, controlled by foreigners and unreachable, Heavenly Jerusalem was in every Jew’s heart, waiting in the wings for the Messianic day when the promise of rebuilt Jerusalem would be fulfilled by God.
How were the Jewish people to keep these memories and hopes alive and part of their lives?
Remembering What Might be Forgotten
A series of “reminders” (rituals, prayers and special days) developed in Jewish antiquity, and were designed to keep the memory of Jerusalem alive from generation to generation, for example:
- Jerusalem is a central theme in Jewish liturgy and religious poetry. For example, one of the 19 blessings of the Amida (Silent Prayer) reads: “Return to Your city Jerusalem in mercy, and establish Yourself there as you promised…Blessed are you Lord, builder of Jerusalem.” The Amida prayer is recited three times a day, while facing Jerusalem.
- All synagogues face towards Jerusalem.
- At the end of Passover Seder and at the conclusion of Yom Kippur, we exclaim “L’shana Habaa B’Yerushalayim Habenuya- Next Year in Rebuilt Jerusalem”.
- On Tisha B’Av, the Ninth of Av, we mourn for the destruction of both Temples, sitting on the floor of the synagogue to read the Book of Lamentations to a haunting cantillation.
In addition to ritual “reminders of Jerusalem”, many contemporary Jewish practices, customs and beliefs can be traced to Jerusalem, providing a constant “meta-message” of the primacy of Jerusalem for anyone who scratches the surface. For example, the order of the synagogue service is modeled after the daily (Avoda) service Temple in Jerusalem. The weekly reading of the Torah was established in Jerusalem after the return from the first exile. The Seder meal on Passover is based on Seders held by generations of Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem. There are many more examples of home rituals, burial practices, and synagogue practices that can be traced to Jerusalem.
Remembering Leads to Action
During the centuries following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Jewish connection to Jerusalem was mostly one of distant hope, but there was always a core of people waiting to visit and live in the city whenever the opportunity presented itself. According to the Church Father Jerome, the Jews of the 4th Century would pay for the special privilege of entering Jerusalem on the 9th of AV in order to mourn. The desire to stand as close to the area on which the Temple stood established the Western Wall area as a focus of pilgrimage and worship from as early as the 7th century. In 1099, Jews and Moslems fought the Crusader invasion together, standing side by side on the walls of Jerusalem. The great rabbi, Nachmanides arrived in the city from Spain in 1267, establishing a synagogue that still exists, the kernel around which the present Jewish Quarter grew. By 1844, the Jewish community was the largest single community in Jerusalem, numbering 7,120 people (almost one half of all inhabitants).
In modernity, the powerful pull of Jerusalem is expressed in the memoirs of Natan Chofshi, one of the early Zionist pioneers who arrived in the Land of Israel 100 years ago from Russia:
“I used to pray…for the return to Zion…I particularly recall the prayers during Rosh Hashana… “And on that day the horn will blow proclaiming the return of the lost in Assyria and Egypt and their return to the holy mountain of Jerusalem.” These were sentences my father repeated at the holiday table. I was deeply affected by both the content and the tune of these words, and the tune resounds within me to this day. Thus I undertook the task of combining my own modest abilities and my best efforts…to hasten salvation.”
And now, in our lifetime, we live with the reality of Jerusalem as the capital city of the Jewish State of Israel. This did not just come about, but is the result of the Jewish people’s active remembering of Jerusalem throughout the generations, leading to the deeds of pioneers such as Nachmanides and Natan Chofshi. In this way, the prophet Zechariah’s words have been fulfilled: “Thus says the Lord of Hosts: The day will come when old men and old women will populate the streets of Jerusalem…And the streets of the city will fill with boys and girls at play.” (Zecharia 8:4)
Everyone visits Israel for different reasons. Why are you coming? What do you want to get out of this trip? How will this visit alter your own personal narrative? I specialize in working with individuals, families and communities visiting Israel in order to explore the meaning of this place in their lives. Since taking my first youth group in Israel as a guide in 1980, I have worked extensively with Jews and Christians, as well as with people of other traditions from all over the world.
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