Yom Yerusholayim: Close Your Eyes and Imagine …

Close Your Eyes and Imagine …

… imagine a world in which not you, and not anyone you know, had ever been to Jerusalem; not for a year of yeshiva or seminary, not on a Birthright trip, not to attend a family bar or bat mitzvah, not for anything, not even for a minute. Imagine a world where it wasn’t even possible to walk through the gates of the Old City, let alone walk up to the Kotel; to kiss and caress it, to get lost in its embrace of your soul.

That imaginary world is the one I was born into. When I was born, the State of Israel itself was just nine years old, Jerusalem’s population was significantly less than that of Youngstown Ohio, and the Old City of Jerusalem was controlled by the Jordanians who forbid any Jews from getting anywhere near the Old City and the Kotel. I was born less than a decade after the Jordanians had expelled all Jews from Jerusalem and burned all its synagogues and yeshivot to the ground.

Imagine If …  Suddenly, Everything Changed

… imagine if Israel were surrounded by five armies, if they were five times larger than the IDF, if they were planning an imminent attack to wipe out the Jews, and if the United States, Europe, and most of the rest of the world refused to help Israel with the arms it needed. That was the situation on June 1^st, 1967. Israel was about to be destroyed. The government tasked the Chief Rabbis with preparing public parks across the country for use as mass graveyards. Then, on the morning of June 5^th, with the sword of genocide again at its throat, the Jews of Israel decided to launch a preemptive attack. Two days later, after two thousand years, Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the Kotel, were once again in sovereign Jewish hands. Four days later, not only was the war over, but thanks to surviving a “from the river to the sea” annihilation, and thanks to the return of Jerusalem to the bosom of the Jewish nation, the trajectory of Jewish history shifted in a way unlike anything since the destruction of the Temple and the expulsion of the Jews from Israel.

Close Your Eyes and Imagine …

Imagine how many times Jews across the expanse of centuries, in every land and circumstance, said the words Next Year in Jerusalem: Knowing that Next Year was, nothing but: the hushed, infinitely distant whisper of a faint dream. Imagine the look in all those countless eyes in countless Jewish homes across the landscape of history, if they could have stood but for a moment in your shoes; at the foot of the Temple Mount, in the streets, cafes, and marketplaces of Jerusalem, on the steps of the Mir, or the streets of the Jewish Quarter. What we walk by without a second thought, they would see as a stunning, breathtaking miracle. What our eyes have seen, theirs would not believe.

From Madison Square Garden to the Mir: Close Your Eyes and Imagine …

Close your eyes and imagine being with tens of thousands of Jews; praying together, singing together, and crying together. Imagine MetLife Stadium, the Staples Center, and Madison Square Garden. Imagine Bloomfield Stadium, Ponevez, the Mir, and Binyanei Hauma; all at the same time on the same day, all seeing and hearing one another, all focused on a miracle that bound them together as one. Like King David said of Jerusalem, it is the city with the power to “bind them together.”

Imagine if at that same instant Jews everywhere gathered in synagogues for the soul purpose of thanking God for the privilege of living in the era when Jerusalem is once again the beating heart of Am Yisrael. Imagine the feeling on that day, in that moment, as everyone lifted their hearts in thanks to the Creator who brought us—shehechiyanu v’kiymanu v’higiyanu—to this time.

Imagine the Impossible …

Because that’s what we Jews have always done.

Because that is who we are.

Because that is our Next Year in Jerusalem gift to the world.

Imagine if just once, on one day, the entire nation sung the same blessing, the same Hallel praises, the same songs of gratitude: For Yerusholayim. Imagine the breathless anticipation as that day approached. Imagine, now, slowly opening your eyes amidst that exalted moment. Might that not change everything, yet again?

Imagine …

Yom Yerusholayim.

. . .זה היום

“This is the day that God made, we will be elated and rejoice on it.“

IDF Chief of Staff Yitzchak Rabin, shortly after the end of the war.