Jerusalem
of gold... at her heart a wall"
Observations
and hope
On Yom Ha'atzmaut 5727, a
young singer named Shuli Natan took the stage. Hers was the first performance
of the song Yerushalayim shel Zahav - "Jerusalem of
Gold," which Naomi Shemer had written a short time earlier.
Like other songs, this song
entered into history in part because it touched upon emotional and nostalgic
motifs. It is impossible to know what might have become of the song if the Six
Day War had not followed quickly upon the heels of its debut, or if that war
had been limited to Israel's southern or northern borders.
I recall meeting a rather
elderly Jew, someone from the same town as my late mother, z"l, soon after
that war's conclusion. He said that the extra verse should not have been added
after the war, that it would have been better to leave it as an authentic
expression of yearning and longing. At the time I listened to his words, but I
am not sure I understood him completely.
Today, 47 years after that
war, after all the People Israel both in Israel and abroad were stirred by
Rabbi Goren z"l's blast of the shofar and Motta Gur z"l announcement,
"The Temple Mount is in our hands," it seems that worldly-wise Jew
may have known what he was talking about. If we will have to choose between the
two versions of the song, which shall we choose? Have we really "returned
to the water cisterns"? And what of "the market square"?
The phrase "at her heart
a wall" is especially interesting and thought-provoking. There is a
tangible wall surrounding the Old City; it is thanks to that wall that we read
the Meggilah on the 15th of Adar, as in Shushan, "So that
the Land of Israel will be remembered in connection with this
miracle" (as RaMBaM
states in Hilkhot Megillah). However, it seems that Naomi Shemer was principally referring to
another wall; after all, the complete line reads: "The city which sits
lonely, at her heart a wall." That line takes us back to
Lamentations: Lonely sits the city once great with people.
The wall is found, then, at
the heart of the city which sits "lonely." Is it the wall which
divides the city's heart?
The heart is the origin of
human emotion, but it is also the source of reason. Regarding the Tabernacle we
read: and I have granted wisdom to the hearts of all the wise (Shemot 31:6), and RaMBaM (Guide for the Perplexed 1:39) uses the term "heart" in
the sense of "thought" or "knowledge."
Thus, the city sits lonely
with conflicting opinions and a heart divided by a wall. After the Six Day War,
all or most of us thought or hoped that the city had been united and that the
tangible wall would become a place where we could stroll, a place connecting
the city's different parts. It seems that we were mistaken in that regard.
Apparently, a city's walls cannot be taken down through war. Perhaps other
directions must be taken in order to speak to the heart of the city and to the
hearts of its inhabitants and in order to genuinely unite the city. Perhaps we
also need to care for the city's neglected areas and for the welfare of their
residents.
Perhaps, in these days, all
this seems like a dream. Perhaps the city is presently "captivated by her
dreams." That, however, is no reason to stop dreaming and hoping for the
city's unification, regardless of whatever diplomatic or municipal solution may
be arrived at. May we be granted in our own days to see a city united
together, a city that that makes all of its inhabitants into friends.
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