כי מציון תצא תורה ודבר השם מירושלים

The world continues to debate and criticize President Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Yerushalayim, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. I believe that we Jews, in the meantime, must inform ourselves a little more about the reasons why Yerushalayim was, is and will be “the capital of Israel”.

Previously we explained that Yerushalayim was conceived, even before its conquest, as the “Capital or Federal District” of the Nation of Israel. Israel was originally composed of 12 tribes (what today would be “states” or “provinces”). Everything that King David did for the choosing, conquest and acquisition of Yerushalayim was done in a “national” (or Federal) —and not in a tribal— manner.

Now, apart from the federal character of the city, what other element characterizes a nation’s capital city? The capital city of a nation is the seat of its national government.

Let’s see if this was also the case with Yerushalayim.

TWO PALACES

Once King David settled in the City of David, the prophet Gad conveyed to him by Divine prophecy God’s will to erect the Temple of HaShem on Mount Moriah. This was the place where Abraham Abinu took his son Itshaq for the ‘aqeda. Mount Moriah, also known as the Temple Mount, was located where today is the Kotel and the al Aqsa mosque. David acquired this land from the Jebusite, brought there the Ark of the Covenant (containing the Tablets with the 10 Commandments, etc.) and built there a temporary Tabernacle. The Temple of Yerushalayim was built in that same place by his son, King Solomon.

I will not write about the fascinating subject of how our Bet haMiqdash was built, since I want to concentrate on explaining one point only: Why the Bet HaMiqdash in Yerushalayim gives this city its condition as the Capital of Israel? Apart from being the place where the qorbanot or daily sacrifices were offered, and the pilgrimage center of the entire nation of Israel three times a year, the Bet haMiqdash also represented “The seat of the Government of Israel”. How so? The Temple of Jerusalem was the “Divine Residence” (‘בית ה’), the Palace of HaShem. This concept is tremendously important.

WHO IS THE REAL KING?

In the civilization of antiquity, with no exception, the king was always a manifestation of the gods or their incarnation. The king was the highest authority. The king (or the emperor) determined and defined the law, or modified it at will. He did not answer to any higher authority or to any code of laws. Because thanks to his divine condition, the king was at the top of the pyramid of power. So it was with the Egyptian Pharaoh, with Nebukhandetsar Emperor of Babylon, and even with the Roman emperors. A very similar concept, “Divine Right” or “Divine Mandate”characterized even modern religions and cultures until practically modern times (see this).

Things were very different for the Jewish people. The king of Israel was never a god or his representation on earth. The king was subject to the authority of God, manifested in his Tora, and in the word of His prophets. Moreover, unlike a normal Jew, who only wore the Tefillin in his arm (the phylacteries, which contain 4 short paragraphs of the Torah) the king of Israel had to carry with him permanently a Sefer Torah and study it daily, to be guided by it every day of his life. The king of Israel had no more rights than the others, he had more obligations. The king of the Jewish people had to be —as King David and the Melekh haMashiah— the most humble and obedient servant of HaShem, who should be acknowledged as the only “true” King. This was said explicitly by king David in Psalm 24: 3-4, composed at the time David brought the Ark of the Covenant for the first time to Yerushalayim. The human king of Israel declares in this Psalm: “Who is the [true] King, to whom we owe glory? HaShem, God of the heavenly hosts, He is the [only] King [to Whom we owe] glory. “

WHERE DOES THE KING RESIDE?

King David — like his son Shelomo— established his residence in the City of David, next to the Temple Mount (har haBayit). But the Divine King’s residence was in the Bet haMiqdash. That is why the Bet haMiqdash, and not the king’s palace, housed the Jewish judicial institutions in its territory. The supreme court of justice, what is called the Beit HaDin haGadol, and later called Sanhedrin, functioned in the Bet HaMiqdash, and not in the king’s palace! The king of Israel was part of that court, but it was up to the court as a whole to approve or enact new laws.

Whereas for all peoples of antiquity the king was god, for the Jewish people God was (and is) the King.

Now we can understand a little better why the Bet haMiqdash was not just a house of worship. It was the place of residence of the Highest Authority of the people of Israel. The law of the Jewish people did not come from the City of David, the residence of the human king. The law of Israel, “the Tora, emanates from Zion; and the word of haShem comes from Yerushalayim “, that is, from He who resides in Yerushalayim, HaShem the true King of Israel.

Jerusalem was, is and will be the capital of the Jewish people because it is the Seat of the People of Israel’s Government: the residence of Israel’s Governor and Ruler.

YERUSHALAYIM, OUR CAPITAL CITY

A capital city of a nation is usually the location of that nation’s government and where most of the nation’s leaders and officials reside. One of the characteristics of a modern capital city is that it does not belong to any particular state or province. A capital city must be “federal,” that is, for the entire nation, and should not be under the jurisdiction of any state or province. This is the case, for example, of Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Washington DC: a federal district not under the authority of any state. (Washington D.C. is not part of the state of Maryland, the geographic area where it is located.) This guarantees the impartiality of this city with respect to the other states, and justifies it being the seat of the national government and federal institutions.

The former monarchical State of Israel, in the times of the kings Shaul, David and Shelomo, was comprised of twelve tribes, each tribe having its own territory (or “nahala”), which had been partitioned to them in the times of Yehoshua bin Nun, Moshe’s successor.

Now, while the Tora itself assumes the People of Israel will once have a “chosen” city (‘המקום אשר יבחר ה), where the Bet haMiqdash and the Judicial Seat of Israel will be established, the official story of Yerushalayim begins with King David.

At first, David’s own tribe, Yehuda (Judah, whose area was the region we know today as Judea), sided with him, while the rest of the nation remained loyal to King Shaul. When King Shaul and his heirs were killed in a campaign against the Pelishtim, representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel and the elders came to Hebron, a city in Judea, where David was already seen as the leader. There, these representatives anointed and declared David king over all Israel (Shemuel II Ch. 5). The very first thing David does as the new King of Israel is conquering Yerushalayim. At that time, Yerushalayim was in the hands of the Jebusites, the only Canaanite people that had not yet been conquered since the time of Yehoshua Bin Nun. David offered the Jebusites to surrender the city peacefully. The Jebusites rejected the offer very defiantly, making fun of David. They told him that the city was impenetrable, and to demonstrate their confidence in the strength of their fortifications, the city was to be symbolically defended by blind and lame soldiers. The book of Shemuel tells us very briefly that the city was conquered by entering through an underground tunnel (“tsinor”). The new king of Israel established his court in that fortress and changed its name to ‘Ir David (the City of David. Today, this place is the most excavated archaeological site in the world, and the remains of the impressive walls of the Jebusite fortress have already been discovered. See this beautiful website for more information, www.cityofdavid.org.il/en.)

THE CITY OF DAVID

There, in that fortress called Metsudat Zion, David established his court, the seat of his government and his palace, which was built with cedar wood imported from Lebanon. He then built an altar and brought there the Aron haBerit, the Ark of the Covenant, which some years later was brought to its permanent resting place in Bet haMiqdash (Temple of Yerushalayim). David reigned in Yerushalayim for 33 years. Yerushalayim was located on the border between the territory of the tribe of Binyamin and the territory of Yehuda, and politically belonged to neither of these tribes, given that it had not been conquered by Binyamin. This neutrality allowed this city to be the capital of Israel, and to belong in the same way to all the tribes.

Something more. In this Chapter, Shemuel II, 5: 6, the text writes an unusual word that is key to understand this point. When David went to conquer Yerushalayim he took “his own men.” Each tribe had its own army. David, once appointed as king, could have let into battle the “state militia” of one of the tribes, for instance, Yehuda. However, David fought with his own men, who had not come from any particular tribe. These men were like his “Praetorian Guard,” a “National Guard,” a federal military force that would not represent any particular tribe or state. Yeruhalayim having been deliberately conquered by a national military force, meant no tribe could claim possession over it.

MOUNT MORIA

Finally, a few years later, and by divine command, King David made a move for the land of Aravna the Jebusite, a property sharing borders with the City of David. This land was Mount Moria, where Abraham had taken his son Itzhaq for the ‘aqeda, and where King Solomon later erected the Temple of Yerushalayim. This area is now known as Har HaBayit (Temple Mount)–the site where once stood the Bet HaMiqdash, one of its walls being the Kotel (Western Wall), adjacent to the old city.

Aravna offered King David this property for free. But David insisted he wanted to purchase it. The Sages explained 2,000 years ago that Temple Mount is one of the three places in Israel that the descendants of the Canaanite people (now disappeared) could never dispute their possession, since these sites were not conquered by force but were bought legally. The most interesting thing about this, relating to the “federal” aspect of Yerushalayim, is that two different sums of money are mentioned in two parallel texts. The book of Shemuel says that it cost David 50 sheqalim to acquire that land, but the book of Chronicles (dibre hayamaim) writes: 600 sheqalim. The commentators explain that the price was 600 sheqalim, and that the 50 sheqalim was what each of the 12 tribes paid. In other words, Yerushalayim was purchased not by one but by all the tribes of Israel.

Jerusalem is the symbol of a united Israel: one People, despite comprising twelve tribes. From the moment of its foundation, Yerushalayim was meant to be a federal city and not a tribal one. It is the capital city because it does not belong to any particular tribe, but to all the members of the people of Israel.

To be continued

Last week, while US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel, Pope Francis made a desperate plea (“un llamado desesperado”) to respect the status quo of Jerusalem and to show good sense and prudence: “I cannot hide my deep concern about the situation that has been created in recent days [around Jerusalem]. I make a desperate plea to everyone to commit themselves to respecting the status quo of the city, in conformity with the pertinent resolutions of the United Nations.”

 

When Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected as the Pope, I was really thrilled. Not only because a compatriot had been chosen for such an important position, but more than anything else because I had heard from my rabbinical colleagues in Argentina that Cardinal Bergoglio really understood the injustices that Israel suffers at the international level. And what Israel most needed -and still needs- is world leaders willing to defend Israel against international hypocrisy. But time -or the new highest position of Cardinal Bergoglio- demonstrated the naivety of my exaggerated optimism.

 

 

On May 15, 2015, Pope Francis did what no other Pope had done until that moment. He officially recognized a “Palestinian State”. On that occasion, he did not hesitate to deviate from the status quo, since there was no —and still does not exist—  Palestinian State recognized by the United Nations. But this is not the whole story. The worst thing the Pope did when he recognized Palestine was what he did NOT do. Pope Francis asked NOTHING from the Palestinians in exchange for his recognition of the new state! Absolutely nothing. And what could the Pope have asked of the Palestinians in exchange for his recognition? If the intention of the Pope had been to advance the peace process, and the creation of two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian, the Pope should have conditioned his recognition of the Palestinian State to the Palestinian’s recognition of the right of the Jewish people to have their own state in Israel. Because to this day, the biggest problem for peace negotiations is not the settlements in Judea or Samaria or the status of Jerusalem. The number 1 impediment for peace in the Middle East is that while the main political leaders of Israel are explicitly willing to accept the eventual existence of a Palestinian State, the Palestinians are NOT willing to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish State, however small it may be (see this). Why the Pope did not do this, and granted his recognition to the Palestinians (and called Mahmud Abbas “an angel of peace”!!!) in exchange for NOTHING , instead of helping to advance the peace process, escapes any positive thinking that I can conceive …

 

Let’s talk now about Yerushalayim (Jerusalem). The Pope made a “desperate plea” in anticipation to the announcement of Donald Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A few months ago, in October of this year, UNESCO, a body that belongs to the United Nations, issued a new resolution announcing that the area of ​​the Bet haMiqdash, the great Temple of Jerusalem, should be called “Haram al-Sharif,” indicating that Israel is illegally occupying Jerusalem; denying any historical relationship between Jerusalem and the Jewish people and declaring that Jerusalem is essentially Muslim (see this). No one better than the Pope to deny these cynical historical lies. The Pope knows that the story of the first apostles developed around the Bet haMiqdash. And that the Bet HaMiqdash is mentioned countless times in the New Testament. There is no world leader with more authority than the Pope to correct this historical mistake, and make a “plea”, even a small plea,  to the United Nations and UNESCO to amend this mistake, for the sake of peace, justice and truth.

 

Representing the Keneset, Israel’s Parliament, Yuli Edelstein asked the pope in a letter to “use his offices to prevent the UN from making statements of this kind.” This resolution, Edelstein said, is an assault on history, and It is deeply offensive to Judaism and Christianity!. The denial of the historicity of the two Temples of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, as recounted in both the Old and New Testaments, is immoral and a terrible lie of the international community, in their efforts to erase the millennial link between Judaism and its holiest sites in Jerusalem. It is a blatant attempt to rewrite history.  Edelstein said that the time has come for the Vatican to promote a resolution that reaffirms Jerusalem as the holy city where “the two Temples stood [for a total of 1000 years! YB] and from which the word of God was promulgated to humanity through His prophets. “ None of this evoke a desperate plea from the Vatican. The Pope did NOTHING and said NOTHING.

 

For some strange reason the Vatican’s “desperate plea” was heard only when attempting to prevent some recognition in favor of the State of Israel.

I believe that in general passionate calls from the supreme leader of Christianity should be reserved not for issues of “recognition” but for situations where people die or are persecuted, and nobody else does anything about it. In the Middle East, for example, there are many really desperate situations that would benefit so much from a desperate and passionate plea from the Pope.

 

Some examples.

 

1.The regime of President Hafez Assad, with the help of Hezbollah and Iran, has already killed more than 600,000 civilians in the last 10 years. How many desperate pleas the world heard from the Vatican  denouncing these atrocities?

 

2. The situation of Christian minorities in major Palestinian cities is desperate. Places that are holy and extremely important for Christianity, such as Betlehem, or even Gaza. 5,000 Christians lived in Gaza 10 years ago, and since Hamas ascended to the government there are less than 1,000 Christians, who live persecuted and in a state of despair .

 

3. The most disturbing matter in the Middle East for Christianity, I believe, is that Christians are being systematically eradicated by Islamist regimes in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, and Lebanon (see here). But the Vatican does not seem to be doing many desperate efforts to address these issues