The Significance of Jerusalem in Judaism

By Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

When an Israeli rabbi who also has American citizenship recently went to
get U.S. passports for his children, the consular official asked him
whether he chose to register their place of birth as "Jerusalem" or
"Israel". The dilemma facing this rabbi was the very question I have
been asked to address in this article: how do the spiritual and
political dimensions of the significance of Jerusalem co-exist in the
mind of a Jew? The answer, as the reader can probably guess already,
will be an ambivalent one. A skeletal historical survey of Biblical,
Rabbinic, and modern religious sources will show us that today's
extremes of inspiration/realism, sentimentality/ practicality, devotion/
alienation, submission/responsibility, and hope/ despair regarding
Jerusalem are not new to Jewish thought; yet never before have these
issues been "put on the table" as in our era, affording participants and
onlookers alike the chance to learn from each other and contribute to
the amelioration of the perilous situation that faces us all. This
article is offered with the conviction that people of faith from all
religious traditions can and must be partners in this effort.

According to Judaism, the basic religious task is the personal and collective
aspiration to holiness, as the means of emulating the Divine. Holiness is the
objective in both realms of religious activity, the horizontal plane of human
interaction, and the vertical plane of human/divine involvement, and Jerusalem
figures in a major way in both. Jerusalem is known in Jewish sources as the
city of peace ( e.g., "yirushalayim" = yir'u shalom) and justice (in numerous
biblical citations), and as God's city, a status that carries with it both
high moral expectations, and an elaborate system of symbolic demarcations that
separate it from the profane, from the mundane.
The following aggadic (homiletical, non-authoritative, non-dogmatic)
source illustrates the ritual reflection of holiness in the realms of time,
space, community and text as seen from the two entirely different
perspectives--first, the idyllic perspective when the ritual system functioned
as designed, and finally, when it is merely a paradigm with symbolic value:

1. God's world is great and holy. Holiest among all lands is the land of
Israel, and holiest among its cities is Jerusalem; the holiest part of
Jerusalem is the Temple Mount, and the holiest spot on the mount is the
Holy of Holies.

2. Exalted of all the days of the year are the holidays, and holiest of
the holidays are the Sabbaths. Most holy of the Sabbaths is the Day of
Atonement, Yom Kippur, which is known as the Sabbath of Sabbaths.

3. There are 70 peoples in the world. Holiest among these peoples is Am
Yisrael, and among its tribes, holiest is the tribe of Levi. Holiest
among the Levites are the priests, descendants of Aaron, and holiest
among the Priests is the High Priest.

4. Holiest of the 70 languages of the world is Lashon Hakodesh, Hebrew,
and in this language the holiest book is the Bible. The holiest passage
in the Bible is the Ten Commandments, and the holiest word in the Ten
Commandments is the name of God.

5. And once a year did all four spheres of sanctity intersect; it was on
Yom Kippur, when the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies in the
Temple of Jerusalem and there utter God's name. While that moment was
one of great sanctity, it was also one of great peril, for if the High
Priest were to be distracted by a stray thought, the entire world could
be destroyed.

6. Each of us is a High Priest; every place from which we raise our eyes
to heaven is the Holy of Holies; every moment is the Day of Atonement,
and every word spoken in sincerity is the name of God.

This source, fusing the classical hierarchical system of holiness (in the
first 5 paragraphs) with a modern, universalist, egalitarian, almost
secularist outlook (in the sixth), clearly indicates the centrality of
Jerusalem to Judaism's system of ritual, which, it must be remembered, only
functioned as long as the sacrificial order was maintained in the Temple (the
1st Temple, 930-586 BCE, and the 2nd, 516 BCE-70 CE). The climax of the story,
in its last paragraph, attempts to refute the entire system of demarcated
holiness: according to it, there is no need for hierarchies of priesthood
("every person is a High Priest"), the specificity of sacred terminology
("every word uttered in truth is the name of God"), the uniqueness of special
times ("every moment is the Day of Atonement"), and, most important for our
purposes, there is no need to maintain a system of sacred space ("every place
from which we raise our eyes to heaven is the Holy of Holies). While this
finale attests to a school of extreme universalistic thought (19th century
"Haskalah") whose popularity has waned considerably, it is valuable as a
illustration of Judaism's ability to go beyond the limited, concrete object
and make statements of universal significance.

One of the wonders of Jewish history is the fact that Judaism survived
the destruction of the Temples despite the loss of its "nerve center"; it did
so not by eliminating the notion of Jerusalem in ritual life, but by
spiritualizing and universalizing it. The actual system was "put on ice",
preserved through the remembrance of the Temple laws (the study of which is
considered as meritorious as the actual bringing of sacrifices); in the
meantime, until the rebuilding of the Temple, Jews could find local
substitutes, in the following manner:

Every person's home is a mikdash me'at (model Temple); one's table is
like an alter; the bread one eats must be salted like a sacrifice; and
the participants in the meal are like priests--they must ritually wash
their hands, offer a prayer, and make appropriate table talk.

The memory of Jerusalem is preserved in other aspects of daily Jewish life;
the practical translation of the psalmist's oath:

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand wither;
My tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I
do not raise up Jerusalem above my greatest joys (Ps. 137).

is demonstrated by the bridegroom's shattering of a glass at the climax of his
wedding ceremony, as well as in the following forms of ongoing mourning as
ordained in Jewish law (halacha):

A man may whitewash his house, but he should leave a small area
unfinished in remembrance of Jerusalem. A man may prepare a full-course
meal, but he should leave out an item of the menu in remembrance of
Jerusalem. A woman may put on all her ornaments except one or two, in
remembrance of Jerusalem. (Talmud Bavli, Baba Batra 60b)
And finally, the prayer book requires the Jew to pray constantly for the
rebuilding of Jerusalem: e.g., after every meal, and numerous times during the
daily morning, afternoon and evening liturgies, which are dutifully read not
just by clergy, but by a considerable percent of the laity, and especially in
the liturgies of the festivals, which were originally pilgrimages to the
Temple); one can only wonder at the faith system (as well as the psychological
mechanisms of restraint and delayed gratification) that allowed Jews for
almost 2,000 years to have Jerusalem on the tip of their tongue throughout
their lives, but to hardly ever make a real effort to get there. Until the
age of modern Zionism, realizing the aspiration to reach Jerusalem was
generally seen to be dependent on the arrival of the Messiah; the dispersion
of the Jewish people was divinely ordained (though it was rationalized by
Israel's moral failures), and so, too, would the ingathering of its exiles,
assured as it was through God's commitment to his covenant with Israel, be
directed from above.

It should be clear by now that "Jerusalem" in Jewish thought stands for
much more than just a city; "Zion" becomes synonymous with the Land of Israel,
and its standing in God's eyes is indicative of that of the Jewish people. The
political status of Jerusalem interacts with its spiritual and metaphysical
significance, a link which dates back almost 3,000 years, albeit one which has
been more symbolic than physical during most of that time. Yet Jerusalem has
been the physical center of the Jewish world since its capture from the
Jebusites by King David, who made it a royal city and the capital of his
kingdom; it has been Israel's permanent religious center since Solomon, his
son, built The Temple in Jerusalem. It is this intertwining of political and
spiritual significance, recorded first in the Bible, and being re-enacted
today, that will now occupy our attention.

The prophet Isaiah develops the concept of Jerusalem as the city of the
Lord of Israel in response to the international predicaments facing the
kingdom of Judea. It was not long, however, before this idea developed into a
notion of quasi-immunity; it was Jeremiah who clearly stated that God's
protection of Jerusalem was contingent upon the morality that its inhabitants
upheld, and that the presence of The Temple did not mean automatic divine
protection. The "religious establishment" of Jeremiah's time lined up with
the political power--the king's court--that found his message of doom
treasonous; but what prevailed was the word of God as spoken by God's prophet,
who was canonized in the Bible, while the Deuteronomistic opinion of the
Judean kings which is preserved is based on their righteousness and not on
their political savoir-faire.

That God should take an interest in Jerusalem's fate, and that its
political well-being should be a religious issue, is only natural, as it is
God's name that is invoked by its leaders; it is precisely God's heightened
sensitivity to what is said to represent the divine that requires God to
prevent the defamation of God's name, if Israel fails to do so. Thus the Eden-
like doubled edged sword of holiness, which felled Aaron's older sons in the
desert, is revealed on the national level as well; the attraction and allure
of sanctity that speaks of intimacy and immanence with the divine, which has
as its flip side the danger of severe punishment when standards are not kept.

A 19th century folk tale told by the Yiddish author Y.L.Peretz
allegorizes the precariousness of walking the tightrope of salvatory symbols,
in his famous story "Drei Mattonos" ("Three Gifts"):

A rich Jew is accosted by robbers who threaten his life if he withholds
his fortune from them; he turns over to them all his gold, silver and
jewels, stating, with philosophic calm, "The Lord giveth, and the Lord
taketh away, Blessed be the name of the Lord". It is only when they
discover a hidden treasure that he resists; the final scene of the
second chapter finds the Jew bleeding to death and his assailants
throwing away the final prize, a bag of earth from Jerusalem.

What the Jew was hoarding, at risk of death, was his nostalgic connection with
Jerusalem; more valuable than any worldly possession was his link with
transcendent values that was symbolized by a tangible piece of the Holy Land.
The irony of the story is that what he kept as a ticket to the world-to-come
(the earth was meant to be spread on his grave during his funeral) becomes the
cause of his death. While Peretz does not belittle the need for symbols that
give purpose to life, his final judgement (pronounced by the cynical angel,
representing an devastatingly impartial God) on the value of the three gifts,
all derived from acts of martyrdom as described above, is: "Beautiful
presents, but not very useful."

In similar fashion, those of us who have tasted the richness of
Jerusalem must ask ourselves whether we are intoxicated with its charms,
physical and spiritual, to the extent that we have lost sight of the moral
imperatives that the pursuit of justice demand. The unwillingness of some Jews
to share Jerusalem with non-Jews, whether out of a misguided intolerance of
other religions, or because of the threat that they (i.e. Palestinians)
represent to Jewish sovereignty must be seen as a divine plague that could
well disqualify our own claim to Jerusalem. The fulfillment of the universal
future of Jerusalem, as prophesied by Zechariah, Isaiah and Micah makes
tolerance and partnership between Jews and non-Jews not just a humanistic
ideal, but a religious imperative.

There is no question that the forces of nationalism and religious fervor
are at work in tandem in Jerusalem, creating an irrational political
atmosphere that is boosted by the spirituality of extremism. The messianic
dreams that used to be relegated to divine intervention in the end of days
have now cropped up as real political and spiritual agendas. The study of
Temple ritual is not only engaged in for its theoretical value, nor is the
interest in Temple Mount archaeology purely academic either. Terrorist acts
have been planned (but thankfully apprehended, so far) in an attempt to
demolish the Moslem holy sites and thereby hasten the rebuilding of The
Temple. The nostalgic hope "to restore our days as of old" takes on ominous
dimensions, now that there is no foreign political might to stand in its way.
The failure of the struggle to separate religion and state, has been
erroneously seen as a battle of heretics against believers, threatens to
create the greatest blasphemy of all, a willful march to Armageddon.

The strange syntax of the fourth blessing of the Sabbath and Festival
evening service aroused the following comment by a famous rabbi: we pray
that God may "spread God's canopy of peace over us, over Israel, and
over Jerusalem" to indicate that our highest aspiration is the bringing
of peace to Jerusalem. "Jerusalem" stands for more than just a city;
"the peace of Jerusalem" means world peace. Only when there is peace in
Jerusalem can we, our communities, and all of Israel enjoy real peace.
That peace will begin in Jerusalem.