Beit Midrash
- Sections
- Chemdat Yamim
- Parashat Hashavua
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Bamidbar
- Bamidbar
In the prophecy of Yirmiyahu, there is an allusion to the connection to Yerushalayim already from their post-Exodus period in the desert. "Go and call out in the ears of Yerushalayim: So says Hashem, I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your nuptials, as you followed Me in the desert, in an uncultivated land" (2:2). The Vilna Gaon taught that this is a reference to "Jerusalem on high," whose gematria equals "Knesset Yisrael" (the full community of Israel).
Along these lines, we will try to understand the pasuk in Tehillim about Yerushalayim connectiveness. What does it connect? The Vilna Gaon teaches that Am Yisrael exists on two levels – the sum total of individuals who exist at any given time, in the physical world; a higher, spiritual element, called Knesset Yisrael, which remains, based in the Heavens, unchanged from generation to generation.
We proceed after the following introduction. After Bnei Yisrael entered the Land, for more than 400 years, it was unknown where is the "place that Hashem will choose," about which it says, "… for His presence you shall seek and shall come there" (Devarim 12:5). The answer, though, is already hinted at in Bereishit (22:2,4). He was to go to the Land of Moriah, and on the way, he "saw the place from a distance."
The person who revealed the place, after great effort and sleepless nights, was King David (see a description of these efforts in Tehillim 132:1-5). In Divrei Hayamim (I, 21:15-28) it tells how Bnei Yisrael were subjugated to a plague of pestilence, which was depicted by a destructive angel with a sword outstretched over Yerushalayim. To prevent further death, the navi received instruction from an angel that David should make an altar and sacrifice at the place of the silo of Ornan. After this stopped the plague, David was convinced that this was the place for service of Hashem.
This event taught not only where the exact place of the Mikdash needed to be, but also that this is the place of connection between the Heaven and the earth, between the spiritual and the physical, between Hashem and Knesset Yisrael, and between Yerushalayim on high and earthly Yerushalayim. This is the point of contact between true existence (the spiritual world) and lack of existence (the physical world). From this point on, the term Heaven and the term makom (place) became overlapping. (Notably, at a house of mourning, Ashkenazim bless that the Makom shall bring comfort, and Sephardim bless that comfort shall come from the Heaven.)
The descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov pray every day that we should merit to gain from the connection between the spiritual and physical worlds, in the place where Avraham bound Yitzchak. This is stressed by the pasuk that identifies the place of the Mikdash as Mt. Moriah (Divrei Hayamim II, 3:1).
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