Our eternal city: An essay in honor of Jerusalem Day

Today I arose early and took a few minutes to look at the pearly dawn through my bedroom window. Later, I walked to the grocery store and bought fresh bread for breakfast before I began my workday. All trivial, mundane things? Yes, but there is a difference, for I was doing them in Jerusalem.

No matter what ordinary events shape my day, the fact that they are happening here, in our eternal city, somehow endows them with an extra dimension. Jerusalem has been the eternal city of the Jewish people since the days of King David and his son Solomon, who built the First Temple here. Generation after generation of Jews continue to recite “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its cunning,” and devout Jews the world over turn toward this city three times a day in prayer as the focus of their longing.

Five thousand years ago, a group of settlers chose to make their homes on the steep ridge called the Ophel, south of today’s Old City. Two thousand years later, David captured it from the Jebusites, and by bringing the Holy Ark here, he established forever its sanctity for us.

The 4,000-year history of Jerusalem

Jerusalem’s history spans 4,000 years. In 2000 BCE, Abraham offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah – ready to carry out the ultimate renunciation until an angel stayed his hand. A thousand years later, David captured the city, and in 961-922 BCE Solomon constructed the First Temple. In 537 BCE, the Jews returned from Babylon – where they had been exiled by Nebuchadnezzar – and in 517 BCE, the Second Temple was completed. But after that, the Greeks took the city under Alexander the Great. Antiochus ruled until the Maccabees liberated the city. In 63 BCE Pompey captured it, and for decades Herod reconstructed the Second Temple.

But Jerusalem’s history continued to be a story of conquest and destruction by an endless chain of occupiers lusting for this precious jewel: the Romans, the Greeks, the Crusaders, the Egyptian Mamelukes, the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate, the Jordanians... an endless succession of nations that wanted to rule this battle-worn city that possesses no material riches – no gold nor precious metals, no minerals, no oil, nothing to enrich their coffers. So what does it possess?

I don’t know the answer, but in 1907 Berlin, Hermann Cohen, in his article “Religiöse Postulate,” put forward the idea that they had no choice: “All nations, without exception, must go up with the Jews towards Jerusalem.” Before that, in 1882, Peretz Smolenskin wrote in his novel Nekam Brith a prophecy about its conquerors: 

“This shall be our revenge; we shall quicken what they shall kill

and raise what they shall fell... This is the banner of vengeance

which we shall set up, and its name is – Jerusalem.”

JEWS AND gentiles alike have always felt a magnetism toward the Holy City. It is written in Midrash Tehillim 91:7: “Praying in Jerusalem is like praying before the Throne of Glory, for the gate of heaven is there.” Every Jew who prays at the Western Wall feels an unusual closeness to God. Judah Stampfer, in his book of poems Jerusalem Has Many Faces (1950), expressed it poetically:

“I have seen a city chiselled out of moonlight,

Its buildings beautiful as silver foothills,

While universes shimmered in its corners.”

There is an abundance of enchanting cities in the world, and I have visited many... Venice, Avignon, Bruges, Hong Kong, Paris... all have a magic that transforms the senses. Yet there is something extra in Jerusalem that I simply can’t define. 

It is a beautiful city, but there are many that exceed it. It is dignified, ancient, and historic – all adjectives that can be applied to other cities such as London and Rome. Jerusalem, however, is an emotion, a state of mind even more than a place. It arouses dormant passions. It nurtures the soul. It is spiritual and inspiring.

To call it home for the past 53 years has been, for me, an enormous privilege. I am always aware of the history under my feet. I never forget the nameless heroes who fought to retain it for the Jewish people. And so, let us pay homage to the Maccabees; to those who withstood the Crusaders, Saladin, and the Ottomans. And in our own time, our Jewish soldiers who reunited Jerusalem in the Six Day War in 1967. 

So many heroes, who made the ultimate sacrifice so that those of us in Jerusalem today could live out our lives in our eternal city. And the sacrifices continue. 

May we soon live here in peace! 

The writer is the author of 14 books. Contact her: dwaysman@gmail.com