Wednesday, May 29, 2019

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning.”

by HaRav Dov Begon
Rosh HaYeshiva, Machon Meir

Every groom under the wedding canopy declares loyalty to Jerusalem, reciting the words, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning. Let my tongue cleave 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). For thousands of years, millions of Jews have poured forth tears like water with their prayer, “Return, in mercy, to Your city, Jerusalem. Dwell within it as You said You would” (Shemoneh Esreh).

Whenever a Jew eats bread, he recalls Jerusalem and the longing for its rebuilding with the words, “Rebuild Jerusalem the holy city speedily in our day” (Grace after Meals). All such prayers and customs which have accompanied us for thousands of years have the purpose of strengthening our spiritual and material connection to Jerusalem, heart of the nation. Only in rebuilt Jerusalem will the Jewish nation being revealed in their full glory and might through the Torah, prophecy, the Temple and monarchy. Only through our people’s return to Jerusalem, and our control over Jerusalem, are we able to increase light and goodness in the world, for Jerusalem is the light of the world.

Right now, the remarkable sight of the return to Zion and the rebuilding of Jerusalem is bringing to hundreds of millions of people the hope that the world will be illuminated by the Jewish People with the light of faith, the light of love, the light of joy. As we say in our morning prayers, “May a new light shine over Zion.” Moreover, Isaiah said (2:3), “Many people shall go and say, ‘Come! Let us go up to the mountain of the L-rd, to the house of the G-d of Jacob. He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth Torah, and the word of the L-rd from Jerusalem.” The divine promise to Abraham will then be fulfilled, “I will make you into a great nation.... All the families of the earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2,3).

It is true that in face of the “dreamlike return of Zion’s captivity” (Psalm 126:1), forces of darkness are rising up that cannot bear the light emerging from Zion and Jerusalem, just as a bat cannot bear the light of day. They are fighting to dispossess us of Jerusalem and to destroy it, saying, “Raze it! Raze it! To its very foundations” (Psalm 137:7).

Yet, “He who sits in heavens laughs. The L-rd mocks them.... You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psalms 2:7,9). “For the L-rd will not cast off His people, nor will He forsake His inheritance” (Psalms 94:14); “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the L-rd is round about His people from henceforth and forever” (Psalm 125:2).

Rejoicing over Jerusalem and looking forward to complete salvation,
Shabbat Shalom.

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