Longing for Jerusalem Will Rebuild the City: An Emotional Message on the Deep Connection of the Jewish People to the Eternal City

"There has never been a love story quite like this, between a people and a city," begins Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, speaking on the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. "Jerusalem is mentioned about 660 times in the Bible, and despite the city being under siege 23 times and captured and recaptured 44 times, Jews have never ceased to pray for Jerusalem, towards Jerusalem."

"The city somehow became the place where all Jewish prayers meet and ascend to the heavens," Rabbi Sacks continues. "And there is nothing else like it. Other faiths may see Jerusalem as a holy city, yet they have other sacred places—Rome, Constantinople, Mecca, Medina. Jews have but one city. A small city, which has become the place about which Maimonides says, 'The divine presence has never departed.'"

Rabbi Sacks looks back 50 years, recounting the tense weeks leading up to the Six-Day War when he was a freshman at Cambridge University. "Throughout those three weeks before the war, we all felt that something terrible was about to happen. After all, troops were massing on the borders of Egypt and Syria. All of us, the post-Holocaust generation, feared we were about to witness a second Holocaust," Rabbi Sacks recalls, capturing the tension that enveloped the Jewish world.

"All the Jewish students at the university were tense. Many congregated at the small synagogue on Thompson's Lane to pray. I had never seen so many people there. The atmosphere was extremely tense. For me, the Six-Day War was a life-changing experience," continues Rabbi Sacks.

"At the moment we saw and heard the paratroopers, I knew I had to go there and see it with my own eyes," Rabbi Sacks recounts. "I went and looked down from Mount Scopus at the old city below, and suddenly I realized I was standing where the Mishnah and Gemara discuss in the last chapter of Makkot. When Rabbi Akiva and three of his fellow rabbis stood on Mount Scopus and gazed at the ruins of the Temple. The others wept, and Rabbi Akiva laughed. They asked him, 'Why do you laugh?' He replied, 'Why do you weep?' They said, 'Look at the site of the Holy of Holies, its ruins. Where only the high priest could enter on the most sacred day, and now it lies in ruin. Of course, we weep.'"

And Rabbi Akiva replied, "Because two prophets prophesied about this city. One, Uriah, saw the city's destruction and prophesied, 'Therefore because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field,' and the other, Zechariah, saw its rebuilding, and said: 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem... and the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing.' Zechariah saw the elders sitting safely in Jerusalem, a city full of laughter of children playing. So if I have seen the prophecies of destruction fulfilled, am I not convinced that one day the prophecies of rebuilding and restoration will also be fulfilled?" Rabbi Sacks explains the words of the Midrash in Makkot.

"And standing in the place where Rabbi Akiva stood 2,000 years ago, I said to myself, 'If only he knew how long it would take, would he still have believed?'" Rabbi Sacks continues, and answers, "And then I understood: He absolutely would have believed because Jews never give up on Jerusalem. We never allowed it to leave our minds, in our prayers, at our weddings, every time we comfort mourners, we say, 'May Hashem comfort you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem,'" Rabbi Sacks describes his profound inner feelings.

"And suddenly I realized that a people who never forgot this holy city would one day return to it, and as I stood there shortly after the Six-Day War, I realized that faith is what brought Jews back to Jerusalem, and faith is what will rebuild it. This is the strongest testament to faith that I know," concludes Rabbi Sacks.