When I began writing my monthly columns for Kol Emunah as a running commentary on our prayer book, back in October, 2013, I had no idea that the process would bring me, this month, some three and a half years later, to consider the blessing in the Amidah prayer that focuses on Jerusalem. The blessing reads:
“And to Jerusalem, Your city, may You return in mercy.
And may You dwell within her, as You said You would.
And build it as an eternal construction soon, in our days.
And speedily establish the throne of David within her.
You abound in blessings, Eternal One, Who builds Jerusalem.”
Is it mere coincidence that I write this essay for this blessing precisely 50 years after Israel succeeded in liberating the Holy City and restoring all of it to Jewish hands for the first time in almost 1900 years?
This is the fiftieth anniversary of the Six-Day War of 1967. I remember those days very well. They were times of great tension and exhilaration. I was a teenager in yeshivah, going door to door to collect money to aid the young state that was only a little older than me. I had visited Israel three years before, in the summer of 1964. My parents had sent me there so that I would have the merit to celebrate my bar-mitzvah in Israel. They did not have enough funds to go themselves, but they believed that this was a sacred opportunity not to be passed up. So I was sent to a summer camp there, by myself. I met my Israeli cousins and toured the land. I saw the simple conditions under which my relatives lived. The dangers were manifest in signs everywhere: “Stop! The border is before you!” I personally witnessed the barricades that divided the city of Jerusalem between Jewish and Arab control. I could not help but notice the lack of consumer luxuries and the limited range of products available to my Israeli family. Yet their lives were suffused with warmth and a sense of history and purpose. They worked hard and believed in what they were working for. The parents had fought in ’48 and ’56 and then their children fought in this war. They were lucky and came out alive.
The lightning success of the Six-Day War, with its totally unforeseen attainments of additional territory as well as the capture of Jerusalem, herself, stunned us all. As the Psalmist wrote: “We were as dreamers.” (Ps. 126:1 – Like Dreamers is the title of an excellent book by Yossi Klein Halevi about Israel from that time forward.) The Jordanians had not been respectful custodians of the Jewish holy places under their control. We returned to Jerusalem to discover the desecrations and destructions that they had perpetrated upon Jewish holy places. We vowed never to let this happen again.
Israel had pledged in its Declaration of Independence to protect the rights of everyone, no matter of what nationality or religion. Rejecting urgent pleas by some Israelis that we should blow up the Al-Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock and retake Jewish possession of our holy Temple Mount, Israel pledged to respect the holy sites of every religion and group and, unlike the Jordanians before them, guarantee free access to those places.
Our victory expanded Israeli control over vast new tracts of territory. It returned holy places like Hebron and Jerusalem to Jewish hands. It infused a new sense of security and power into the psyche of a battered nation. But it did not bring peace.
And every day that peace did not come, Israel was faced with a stubborn problem – what to do with these newfound gains until peace will arrive? For Israel had not simply gained land and landmarks and confidence. Israel also acquired control over hostile people. What was Israel’s obligation toward her vanquished foes until such time as peace would be made between them? How much should Israel enjoy the spoils of battle and how much should she restrain herself so as to make a future arrangement with its neighbors possible?
The Jerusalem blessing prays for the speedy establishment of the “throne of David.” This is a messianic hope for the restoration of the royal House of David, from which the Messiah himself will be descended. It is a prayer for the restoration of power and authority to a once defenseless people. With our incredible victory we seemed to have returned to a position of power. Many thought that a messianic turning had occurred in history through their return., and that Israel was already “the dawn of our redemption.” This messianic fervor propelled before it a sense that it was imperative to seize this apocalyptic opportunity and make the most of it. We would greet the messiah by showing off our newly built neighborhoods, spreading Jerusalem from Ramallah to Bethlehem.
As peace tarried, her delays significantly extended through Arab intransigence and violence, Israel’s appetite for taking hold of Jerusalem was not balanced by restraint. Since there seemed to be no prospect of peace there seemed to be no reason to hold back in order to prepare the ground for its realization. The possibility of Arab growth in their own parallel capital was systematically choked off by skimping on their municipal services, preventing Arab construction and by creating new Jewish neighborhoods to surround and stifle the Arab ones.
This was not an inevitable choice for Israel. It had been possible to carefully calibrate how to grow the city while leaving space open for our neighbors so that they, too, could enjoy a healthy future. But such concerns have been brushed aside. I was present in Jerusalem when the 40th anniversary of her liberation was being feted. Government-sponsored audio-visual festivities highlighted how wonderful it was for all the Jews of the city to live together. There was not a single image of a non-Jew, let alone an Arab.
Why do we continue to pray for God’s return to Jerusalem? We ask: “And to Jerusalem, Your city, may You return in mercy. “ When Israel returned to Jerusalem many people thought that God had returned with them, fulfilling the cherished yearnings expressed by the opening words of the blessing. But – if our own return to Jerusalem were identical with God’s return then we should have stopped offering this blessing 50 years ago, when our return was accomplished. If we keep praying this plea, it is because God’s return – in mercy – to the holy city is not a guaranteed product of our own return. On the contrary. It is only when our return is suffused with the quality of mercy that we can hope that God will join us and return to dwell among us. How can we hope that God will hear our prayers if we do not hear them ourselves?
Image: Jerusalem Day Celebrations in the Old City, courtesy United with Israel.
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Beautiful, compassionate piece. Thank you.