Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Family and Society
- Jerusalem and The Holy Temple
The Talmud asks: "Why are the hot springs baths of Tiberias not located in Jerusalem?" Why are the great and tasty fruits of the Ginossar area not grown in Jerusalem?" The Talmud responds: "So that no one should ascend to Jerusalem for the sweet fruits or for the hot baths. Rather, one ascends to Jerusalem for the sake of Jerusalem itself." Jerusalem is its own attraction. It does not rely upon natural wonders, outstanding weather or unusual surroundings for its attraction. It is holy, mysterious, the soul of Jewish history and longing. The rabbis taught us that there is a heavenly Jerusalem perched over the earthly Jerusalem. In order to truly appreciate the earthly Jerusalem one must also be able to glimpse the heavenly Jerusalem as well. To see Jerusalem as a piece of real estate, a place on the map, is not to see it at all, let alone appreciate its role in Judaism and Jewish life and thought. The driving force behind Zionism, even its most secular format, was the hunger of the Jewish people for Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the emotional battery that charged all of the movement of the return to Zion by Jews in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The earthly Jerusalem with all of its wonders and problems, greatness and shortcomings, is a product of seeing the heavenly Jerusalem with eyes of tears and hope. Nechemia built the walls of Jerusalem at the beginning of the Second Temple period with one hand on the sword and the second one on the building locks. But Midrash records that his eyes were always looking heavenward at the heavenly Jerusalem.
Jerusalem and its diplomatic fate is a hot topic of conversation these days. The people who claim to represent our best interests regarding the city apparently only see the earthly Jerusalem. In their practicality they have become wildly impractical. There is no way for a body to survive once its heart has been broken asunder. There has never been a Jewish power in our history that contemplated willingly ceding Jerusalem or any part of it to others, especially to sworn enemies who denigrate our faith and question our right to exist. It is the complete disregard, whether out of ignorance or ideology, of the heavenly Jerusalem that brings one to compromise the very existence of the earthly Jerusalem, a Jerusalem that we should feel so blessed and appreciative to control. A friend of mine summed up the matter when he told me this story about his aged father who had just come to Israel on aliyah in his eightieth year. The son settled the father in a very comfortable senior citizen residence in the costal part of the country. But after two months the father insisted on relocating to Jerusalem. He said: "I have not waited for eighty years to finally come to the Land of Israel and not to live in Jerusalem." We see the traffic jams, the torn-up streets, the problems of living in a metropolis that is still developing. That is the earthly Jerusalem. But the heavenly Jerusalem resonates in our souls and hearts and that is what makes life in the earthly Jerusalem so meaningful and important. How can it be otherwise?
Rabbis in Midrash
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Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part I
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Our King on Rosh Hashana, Our Father on Yom Kippur.
Based on Aroch Siach, p. 221 (Rav Shaul Yisraeli)
