Page 53 - HaMizrachi Yom HaAtzmaut 5783 USA

to talk about heavy traffic, poor trash col-
lection, and subpar nightlife.
A Shana Tova email from a relative who
lives in the US: “It must be an amazing
experience,” he writes, “to be at the holy
city during this time of the year.” He
means this in the kindest, most sincere
way, yet needs to define his distance, spa-
tial and spiritual. It would perplex, not
edify, him to hear that picking up a few
pre-chag items can mean dodging grocery
carts in supermarket aisles, only to find
that the checkout computers have crashed
yet again. This triggers feelings, none of
them amazing – even in the holy city.
The gemara says that there is a Jerusalem
in heaven that matches the one on earth.
A lovely thought. Many regular folk might
still choose the one down below. Where
would those who dwell in the heavenly
Jerusalem direct complaints about munic-
ipal services?

A great deal has been written about Jeru- a prophecy, not a postcard. It shows three discern either of those. The fellow who
salem, most of it about Yerushalayim Aleph, generations doing what each generation added the words od lo avda tikvatenu, “our
the first city. Much of this evokes glory, is supposed to be doing: children running hope is not yet lost” (once again: דֹוע, yet,
splendor, kings in regal garments, kohanim around playing games, parents absent again) to what would become our national
in holy vestments, pageantry, triumph, the from the picture, busy doing what people anthem wrote them when a nation that
agony of destruction and exile, the conso- in midlife do to keep families afloat, and would need an anthem was barely a flight
lation of hope and its fulfillment. Thus, old-timers sitting around to watch. of fancy. Yet here it is, bursting with life,
Yishayahu: “Awake, awake, Tzion! Clothe His prophecy is not that this might happen. riotous energy, and youthful enthusiasm,
yourself in splendor; Put on your robes of His prophecy is that it will be expected to despite everything, then and still now.
majesty, Jerusalem, holy city!” (52:1) happen, and to keep happening. The key Jews have learned nothing if not how
But even in Tanach there is a passage, word is the first: דֹוע, “again.” Once again. to wait and hope. Lately, we have also
often quoted, that strikes an apparently Again and again. Not just soon, but always. learned to take action to bring about what
banal note, one that at least at first seems Two generations hence, the children run- is waited and hoped for.
more suitable to Yerushalayim Bet, city of ning around should be the ones leaning on “Our feet stood inside your gates, Jeru-
everyday life. This appears in Zechariah, their canes. Zechariah’s prophecy is not salem. Jerusalem built up, a city knit
a prophet given to mystical, even gro- of kids playing in the street. It is about together” (Tehillim 122:2–3).
tesque images: red horses, flying tubs, autonomy and social stability.
flesh melting in empty eye sockets. Yet he Zechariah applies this prophecy to one Two cities, both on earth, knitted so tight
also says this: “There will yet be old men specific place: Jerusalem, to which the they cannot be pried apart. With vistas
and women in the squares of Jerusalem, exiles he was speaking to in Bavel yearned terrestrial but heavenly.
each with staff in hand because of their to return. We have been everywhere. Now we are
great age. And the streets of the city will here. Where else would we go?
be crowded with boys and girls playing in To put it this way is to make clear what
the squares” (Zechariah 8:4). everyone knows but prefers not to talk
about: that the first flowering of redemp-
These days you don’t see many oldsters tion is not the final version, and that ongo-
out and about leaning on canes. For one ing stability and peace, for the children
thing, joint replacement surgery has put now playing as their elders watch, are
off for many the use of canes until walkers anything but assured. Knowing this may
or wheelchairs are needed. For another, lend the sight of a pleasant and utterly
air conditioning keeps elders indoors on banal tableau an aching poignancy that Rabbi Dr. Avi Rockoff
warm, sunny days, of which there are can be all but unbearable. and his wife Shuli have lived in Newton,
many here. Massachusetts for many years and are cur-
Which is not of course to suggest anything rently engaged in participatory research
Still, the image’s apparent banality can be like despair or loss of hope. Nobody who on the complexities of making Aliyah.
misleading. The vision Zechariah evokes is spends ten minutes around here would

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