June 1, 2011
We have just had the joy of celebrating Yom Yerushalaim. Visitors from all over the world were here to celebrate along with multitudes of our youth from all around the country. The celebration is for the reunification of Jerusalem after the 1967 war; the reunification of the eternal capital of Israel. As I walked from the center of town toward the old city I saw crowds of school children who had all coalesced on the capital to show their unmitigated love for Jerusalem, to stand shoulder to shoulder with all those who had come before them and made this great day possible, to remember the fallen in the war that liberated Jerusalem. Yom Yerushalaim is not just another day on the calendar for us. It is a day when we stand tall, a day in which we exult in our lot, to be fortunate enough to be back in our eternal capital and to state with our actions that Jerusalem will forever belong to the Jewish people. As I sat down by the kotel I admired the strength we have in our diversity. A new oleh from France sat beside me studying his Hebrew. Two female Ethipian chayalim in uniform strolled through the kotel plaza, Russian immigrants and Israeli Chareidim headed to the Kotel to pray and I could hear the English conversation of Jews from North America who were here with their yeshivot to rejoice in the moment. As I entered the tunnel at the Kotel to daven mincha, minyanim were forming all around me. What a marvelous sight to see so many different types of Jews from so many places with one thing in mind.... to pray and thank Hashem for being part of such a glorious people and for having Israel with Jerusalem as its capital. After all that Am Yisrael has gone thru over the last 2500 years and continues to go through, it is a well deserved day of exultation.
We are such an extaordinary people, despite being under siege in a sea of hostile neighbors. Our economy is booming, the cities are growing with transportation networks including new roads and trains. There is a state of the art high tech industry and cultural events are proliferating. Personally , I believe there are more people working for charity organizations per capita in this country and this city(Jerusalem) than any other country or city in the world.
Jerusalem is a city where every morning you wake up and say Modeh Ani and truly thank G-d for being alive. To have the privilege to breathe the mountain air and to participate first hand in the life of the Jewish nation whom G-d chose to be its messenger to the world, is nothing short of incredible.
I thought to take a couple of Rav Kook's writings to express the feelings of many of us who have made the choice to join our lot with our brothers and sisters who are living in the holy land. Rav Kook was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine. He was the founder of the zionist yeshiva, Merkaz HaRav, a Jewish thinker, halachist and Torah scholar. He was a true Ohave Yisrael.
The Land of Israel
The land of Israel is not some external entity.
It is not merely an external acquisition for the Jewish people.
It is not merely a means of uniting the populace.
It is not merely a means of strengthening our physical existence.
It is not even merely a means of strengthening our spiritual existence.
Rather, the land of Israel has an intrinsic meaning.
It is connected to the Jewish people with the knot of life.
Its very being is suffused with extraordinary qualities.
The extraordinary qualities of the land of Israel and the extraordinary qualities of the Jewish people are two halves of a whole.
Eretz Cheifetz I
Exile and Mediocrity
We experience exile and mediocrity because we do not proclaim the value and wisdom of the land of Israel.
We have not rectified the sin of the biblical spies who slandered the land. And so we must do the opposite of what they did: we must tell and proclaim to the entire world the land's glory and its beauty, its holiness and its honor.
Then, after all these praises, let us hope that we have expressed at least one ten-thousandth of the loveliness of that lovely land: the beauty of the light of its Torah, the exalted nature of the light of its wisdom, and the holy spirit that seethes within it.
Eretz Cheifetz
Gerry Ziering
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