Rejoice With
Jerusalem: Be Glad For Her, All You Who Love This City!
ByBen Shapiro
@benshapiro
May 14, 2018
There is a famous story in the Talmud about the great
rabbis of the era of the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Here is
the story, in full:
Again it happened that Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Elazar ben
Azaria, Rabbi Joshua and Rabbi Akiva went up to Jerusalem. When they reached
Mt. Scopus, they tore their garments. When they reached the Temple Mount, they
saw a fox emerging from the place of the Holy of Holies. The others started
weeping; Rabbi Akiva laughed.
Said they to him: "Why are you laughing?"
Said he to them: "Why are you weeping?"
Said they to him: "A place [so holy] that it is said
of it, 'the stranger that approaches it shall die,' and now foxes traverse it,
and we shouldn't weep?"
Said he to them: "That is why I laugh. For it is
written, 'I shall have bear witness for Me faithful witnesses—Uriah the Priest
and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.' Now what is the connection between Uriah
and Zechariah? Uriah was [in the time of] the First Temple, and Zechariah was
[in the time of] the Second Temple! But the Torah makes Zachariah's prophecy
dependent upon Uriah's prophecy. With Uriah, it is written: 'Therefore, because
of you, Zion shall be plowed as a field; [Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the
Temple Mount like the high places of a forest.]' With Zachariah it is written,
'Old men and women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem.'
"As long as Uriah's prophecy had not been fulfilled,
I feared that Zechariah's prophecy may not be fulfilled either. But now that
Uriah's prophecy has been fulfilled, it is certain that Zechariah's prophecy
will be fulfilled."
With these words they replied to him: "Akiva, you
have consoled us! Akiva, you have consoled us!"
Akiva’s consolation is now a reality.
According to Jewish tradition, the first mention of
Jerusalem in the Bible comes in Genesis 14:18, when Abraham meets the King of
Shalem; in Genesis 21:14, Abraham names the site of his near-sacrifice of Isaac
“Yare,” meaning “the Lord will provide.” Yare-Shalem — Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is the city of David’s tower and Solomon’s Temple; it is the city of
Hezekiah’s water tunnels; it is the city of which the psalmist wrote after the
destruction of the First Temple (587 BCE), “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let
my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue
leave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”
Jerusalem is the eternal Jewish dream: the dream of a
free nation living in a land promised by God.
It was the dream of Bar Kochba, who revolted against the
Romans in 132 CE, sixty years after the destruction of the Second Temple, and
used Roman coinage to mint his own — an engraving of the temple, with the
words, “For the freedom of Jerusalem.” It was the dream of millions of Jews
over hundreds of years, who prayed thrice daily for its restoration. It was the
dream of Mordechai Anielewicz, the secular leader of the Jewish resistance in
the Warsaw Ghetto: “The dream of my life has risen to become fact. … Jewish
armed resistance and revenge are facts. I have been a witness to the
magnificent, heroic fighting of Jewish men in battle.”
Jerusalem was never abandoned by the Jews; God did not
abandon the Jews. Despite forcible expulsion, despite genocidal mania, despite
terrorism and brutality, Jerusalem remained Jewish. And when, in 1967, the
Israeli Defense Force announced “Har HaBayit beyadeinu” — the Temple
Mount is in our hands — the footsteps of the living God could be heard across
the planet, resonating from the top of the hills of Jerusalem.
That dream is real.
President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to
Jerusalem is not merely a wise one politically (it has been Congressional law
since 1995), it is a resonant one spiritually. Jerusalem is the center of the
Jewish heart; it always was, and it always will be. Recognizing that fact is
key to recognizing the legitimacy of the entire Judeo-Christian tradition upon
which the West relies. There is a reason that a Jewish Jerusalem is an open
Jerusalem, where all can worship as they see fit — a place from which “the word
of the Lord” goes out (Isaiah 2:3). History exists; truth exists. Jerusalem has
not been forgotten and will not be forgotten — its streets sing with throngs of
Jews, nearly wiped off the planet within living memory, and its temples are
filled with the psalms of David. The tears have turned to laughter.
“Eternity,” the Talmud says in Tractate Berachot. “This
refers to Jerusalem.”
Jerusalem is eternal, as is the God who made it.
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