Next to where the children are playing, there is a Pasuq, a biblical verse carved in a stone, just below the playground. It’s a quote from the prophet Zechariah. Zekharia was a child when the Jews were in Babylonian exile 2500 years ago—without their own land and without the Bet HaMiqdash the future of the Jewish people looked very grim. Many were hopeless. Because in normal circumstances, after “exile,” people integrate into the local nation. And many Jews were actually assimilated into the Babylonian population. There was no precedent of a people returning to their nation after two or three generations in exile. It looked like the end of the Jewish nation was inevitable.
But a great miracle happened. Cyrus, the Persian emperor, was moved by HaShem (that is what he explicitly declared!), and he encouraged the Jews to come back to Israel, resettle there, and rebuild Jerusalem and its Temple. Although the majority of the Jews chose to remain in Babel (the first, but not last, “voluntary exile”), thousands came back. Zekharia was among them. When they arrived, around the year 530BCE, they found a completely destroyed city. Everything was in ruins—the city in ashes and desolated. There were no protective walls to guard the people against thieves and potential enemies, which made living in Jerusalem a mission impossible. It will take a few decades a very courageous Jew, Nechemia, to rebuild the walls and make Jerusalem habitable and safe again.
But while Jerusalem was still in ruins, Zekharia had a prophetic vision, a very unlikely prediction given the terrible conditions of Yerushalayim in those days.
כֹּה אָמַר ה’ צְבָאוֹת: עֹד יֵשְׁבוּ זְקֵנִים וּזְקֵנוֹת בִּרְחֹבוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם, וְאִישׁ מִשְׁעַנְתּוֹ בְּיָדוֹ מֵרֹב יָמִים. וּרְחֹבוֹת הָעִיר יִמָּלְאוּ יְלָדִים וִילָדוֹת מְשַׂחֲקִים בִּרְחֹבֹתֶיהָ (זכריה ח’ 5-4)
HaShem revealed to Zekharia that in the future, His presence will return to Zion and will dwell in Yerushalayim, and when that happens: “and once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with a cane in hand because of their age. And the city squares will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”
Now, let us see the whole picture: You are in the Old City of Jerusalem, very close to where the prophet Zekharia stood when he announced this prophecy, and you are reading this extraordinary verse engraved on the stone in front of you. Then you lift your eyes at any given day, and you see the elders sitting on a bench, and the children playing in the street of the Old City. And you realize that you are a living witness of the fulfillment of Zekhariah’s prophetic words… Or perhaps you realize that you are not just a witness of Zekhariah’s prophecy: rather, you are the fulfillment of that Prophecy. You get the feeling that 2500 ago, in his incredible vision, Zekhariah saw “you”.
YOM HAATZMAUT SAMEACH
