The Reality of Reunified Jerusalem

I will never forget the day and the exuberant feeling! It was June 8, 1967. I was a senior in high school and had come to school that morning for our graduation rehearsal. But the real excitement that day was for the unbelievable and unthinkable news. Stirring accounts were reported by the national TV stations. In those days it was the big 3: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Incredible pictures and images of Israel’s capture, liberation and reunification of Jerusalem accompanied the reports. What had begun a few days earlier as a defensive war by Israel for self-preservation, was now turning into a rout of the nine opposing Arab armies supported behind the scenes by the Soviet Union.

Early the previous morning in Israel, June 7, PM Levi Eshkol proposed a cease-fire and peace talks to Jordan’s King Hussein. This proposal followed weeks of failed diplomacy with the Hashemite Kingdom urging them not to join and engage in a war with Israel. King Hussein failed to respond to the cease-fire proposal. By 10am, the Old City of Jerusalem was miraculously in the hands of the IDF.

Now, once again, Jerusalem was a unified city. Prior to this moment, beginning with Israel’s independence in May 1948, if you were Israeli or Jewish and in Jerusalem, the only way to get a glimpse the Old City was to look through the Mandelbaum Gate checkpoint. You could peer into the streets of the Old City, but you could only imagine the Kotel and the old “shuk” marketplace. Despite visitation assurances to the Old City and Temple Mount by Arab leaders, the Muslim administrators (aka the Waqf), and the UN , with very few exceptions, Jews were forbidden to enter the Old City or ascend the Temple Mount.

Lt. General Mordecai (Motta) Gur, responsible for leading his paratroopers to capture the Old City of Jerusalem, was aware of the long-standing devotion of Jews to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount’s centrality to Judaism. Addressing his troops upon their recapture of the Old City and holy sites, he said:

“For some two thousand years the Temple Mount was forbidden to the Jews. Until you came–you, the paratroopers– and returned it to the bosom of the nation. The Western Wall, for which every heart beats, is ours once again. Many Jews have taken their lives into their hands throughout our history, to reach Jerusalem and live here. Endless words of longing have expressed the deep yearning for Jerusalem that beats within the Jewish heart. You have been given the great privilege of completing the circle, of returning to the nation its capital and its holy center…Jerusalem is yours forever.”

Contrary to the fake news and propaganda put out by every Palestinian leader, past and present, as well as by current representatives in our United States Congress, the city of Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish nation since the time of King David, close to 3000 years ago. Why else would the Levites compose a Psalm centered on Jerusalem, long before Christianity or Islam existed? Psalm 137 expresses the sorrowful longing of the exiled Jewish nation at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar following the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem, 586 BCE. “If I forget you Jerusalem, may my right arm forget its skill. May my tongue cling 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)

These two verses capture a vital tenant of our religion and culture, the centrality of Jerusalem. So significant is the loss of Jerusalem to our Jewish people that every Jewish wedding ceremony concludes with the recitation of these verses by the groom, rendering this most joyous personal celebration incomplete. At the end of both the Pesach Seder and the N’eilah service on Yom Kippur we express our hope לשנה הבאה בירושלים, “next year in Jerusalem!” While Jerusalem is mentioned 641 times throughout the נ”ך, the books of the Prophets and Writings, it is not mentioned even once in the Koran.

The question arises, however, why isn’t Jerusalem mentioned by name in the Torah? It is only referred to in Devorim 12:11 and 26, as “… the place that the Lord will choose.” The Rambam explains the reason for this obscurity by the Torah in his “Guide for the Perplexed,” Book III chapter 45. “If the nations had learned that this place was to be the center of the highest religious truths, they would occupy it, or fight for it most perseveringly. Those who were then in possession of it might destroy or ruin the place with all their might.” Therefore, until the rein of King David, the selection of Jerusalem as the center of Judaism was unknown even to the Jews.

The Rambam’s words ring true today amongst most Palestinians, revisionist Muslim clerics and their followers. Not mentioned in the Koran, but part of Muslim legend to subvert Judaism, is the story that Mohammed ascended to heaven to receive the Koran (the replacement of the Torah) from the site of the Holy Temple. In 691 CE the Dome of the Rock Mosque  was erected there. “The Rock” referred to in its name is the site of theעקידת יצחק , “akaidas Yitzchak,” where  Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac.

“The Rock” is also the very stone on which the Holy Ark rested inside the Holy of Holies chamber, the innermost sanctum of the two Holy Temples. In 705 CE the Al Aqsa Mosque was erected on the Temple Mount relacing a Byzantine church that had stood in that place. Of all the cities that Yasser Arafat could have proposed and designated as the future capital of his invented “Palestinian” nation, he chose…. Jerusalem. Any wonder?! Both Christianity and Islam assert they are the rightful heirs of Judaism and hence lay claim to the Temple Mount as well.

Unfortunately, worse is what Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Dayan, did on the very morning of June 7, 1967. Rabbi Berel Wein, in his blog titled, “Mistakes,” writes, “The Muslim Waqf, that had previously ruled the Temple Mount…realizing defeat, handed over the keys of the Temple Mount to the Israeli army. However, the Israeli defense minister, Moshe Dayan, immediately returned the keys to the Waqf, and restored their hegemony over the holiest site in the Jewish world.” Dayan’s action that day has resulted in our inability, since then, to freely access the Temple Mount and to perform many Torah commands such as “giving reverence to the Temple Mount.” As incredulous as it sounds, Jews fortunate enough today to be granted permission to ascend the Temple Mount  are forbidden to openly pray there or engage in other religious actions such as donning talis and tefillin.

 We hear a continuous, fraudulent, and intellectually bogus drumbeat by Palestinian clerics and so-called scholars claiming that the two Holy Temples of Israel never existed on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Even The New York Times noted that, “Temple denial, increasingly common among Palestinian leaders, also has a long history: After Israel became a state in 1948, the Waqf removed from its guidebooks all references to King Solomon’s Temple, whose location at the site had previously stated was ‘beyond dispute.’” (New York Times, 11/22/2014)

Jerusalem of old was the location of the king’s palace. Today the prime minister’s residence is there as well as Israel’s governmental institutions. During the First and Second Temple periods, the Sanhedrin Ha’Gadol, the Supreme Court of Jewish law, had its chamber within the Temple’s walls. The verse from Isaiah 2:3 that we recite when taking out the Torah from the ark, כי מציון תצא תורה ודבר השם מירושלים, “For out of Zion will come the Torah and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem,” is a direct reference to the Sanhedrin Ha’Gadol and its location, Jerusalem. Based upon their rulings every mitzvah in the Torah was performed.

Jerusalem of old was a fortified walled city. According to the Rambam, Laws of Shemita and Yovel 12:15, Jerusalem’s sanctity stems from the concept of קדושת מחיצות, “the sanctity of the walls.” Here the Rambam suggests that the special rules that we apply to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount apply today as well, even though its walls have subsequently been destroyed. (Chumash, Mesoras HaRav, Vayikra, p 213.) When the Holy Temple exists, according to the Rambam, the mitzvah of Lulav is not just one day in the Temple and Jerusalem as it is in Tel Aviv, Eilat or here in Davie, Florida. Rather, it is a mitzvah from the Torah all 7 days, throughout the entire city of Jerusalem, just as it is within the Temple itself. The Pesach sacrifice, due to its level of holiness, had to be consumed during the Seder within Jerusalem’s city limits.

Thus, due to its original walls we see that the entire city of Jerusalem had and has today a certain legal status by virtue of being an extension of the Holy Temple’s courtyard. As an aside, the Talmud tells us that the women of Jerusalem never needed to use perfume. Why not? The aroma and fragrance from the incense used on the altar of the Holy Temple permeated the air of Jerusalem. Here again we see that due to its close relationship with the Holy Temple, Jerusalem had a deliciously sweet and fragrant odor.

 While we did not need former President Trump or other world leaders to confer any status or special recognition on Jerusalem, we are nonetheless grateful to him for his courageous act, formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on December 6, 2017. He was the first modern day leader to do so. Other world leaders soon followed his lead. On May 14, 2018, the 70^th anniversary of the creation of the modern State of Israel, the American embassy officially relocated from Tel Aviv and reopened in Jerusalem. The relocation of our American embassy and other countries’ embassies to Jerusalem is a concrete and visible testament to the world of the reality that the entire city of Jerusalem is the rightful and eternal capital of Israel.

Yesterday was Yom Yerushalayim. On it we gave praise and thanks to Hashem for bringing about Jerusalem’s reunification. We continue to pray every day that soon, God willing, Jerusalem will be at peace, whole and complete, restored to its former glory with the building of the Third Temple in its midst.

May Hashem continue His protecting care over Israel and bestow His blessings upon all those who stand and recognize the reality of Jerusalem, עיר הקודש.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Robert Kaplan

PS For more information regarding modern Jerusalem, today’s halachic status of the Temple Mount, and the relocation of the American Embassy, I suggest the books “Sledgehammer,” by David Friedman, former US Ambassador to Israel; “Breaking History,” by Jared Kushner, senior advisor to former President Donald Trump; and google “Dayan’s Key Error” and other articles on the topic of the Temple Mount, by Rabbi Chaim Ozer Chait, Rosh Yeshiva, Yeshivat HarHabayit.