Jerusalem in the Heart

Jerusalem is not only a place on a map. It is also a standard, a way of living, and a state of mind. 

The Shofar at the Western Wall

This week marks 59 years since the Six-Day War.

Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who was then serving as Chief Rabbi of the IDF, was in Australia at the time. When he heard that the situation between Israel and the Arab countries was becoming tense, he immediately returned to Israel.

When he arrived, the Chief of Staff at the time, Yitzchak Rabin, called him in and told him that one of the reasons Israel had still not gone to war was because the two religious ministers from the National Religious Party were opposed to launching an attack. Rabin asked him to convince them to support it. He met with the two ministers, and eventually they too supported going on the offensive.

On the second day of the war, he came to Jerusalem. There he met Motta Gur, the general in command of the fighting in Jerusalem. The general told him that for now they were fighting in East Jerusalem, but not in the Old City, because the government did not want to capture the Old City and upset the Christian world.

He was deeply disturbed when he heard this, and he tried to persuade the general to do it anyway.

He told him, “By conquering the Old City, you will merit to enter the history books as the person through whom the Jewish people returned to rule over Jerusalem after two thousand years. You should disobey the order and capture the Old City. And if you end up in jail for disobeying orders, I will join you.”

But Motta Gur was not convinced. He said that he was a soldier, and a soldier must follow orders exactly.

So the rabbi went to meet with the political secretary of the prime minister, Levi Eshkol, and convinced him to influence Eshkol to change his mind.

The next morning, a government meeting was held, and the decision was made to capture the Old City.

He quickly went to join the first soldiers who broke into the Old City, running into the gunfire with a shofar in his hand.

The Torah says that when the Jewish people go out to war, they should sound the trumpets, and then they will be remembered before G-d and saved from their enemies (Numbers 10:9). He believed that blowing the shofar would help bring victory.

One of the commanders saw him running toward the Lions’ Gate of the Old City and shouted to him, “They’ll kill you! Come over here and stay close to the wall!”

But he kept running quickly.

The commander ordered one of the soldiers to go over to him and force him against the wall. But he shouted back to the commander, “I am the highest-ranking officer here. No one is going to stop me.”

He kept running until he reached the Temple Mount. There he found two paratroopers who showed him the way to the Western Wall. They went down the steps and reached the path that led to the Kotel.

But the gate to the Kotel was locked. Together, they pushed it open and broke through.

They went down to the Western Wall plaza. He read a chapter of Tehillim aloud and then blew the shofar.

The picture of him blowing the shofar at the Kotel spread throughout the world and became famous everywhere. It became part of the history of the Six-Day War.

The Laws of Jerusalem

The Talmud says, “Ten things were said about Jerusalem” (Bava Kama 82b). In other words, there were ten special laws that applied specifically to Jerusalem. In other cities, these things might have been allowed, but for Jerusalem, they were not appropriate. We will mention a few of them.

The first is: “No garbage dumps may be made in Jerusalem.” Every city has a place where the garbage is collected. That is true today, and it was true in ancient times as well. But in Jerusalem, they were not allowed to gather the garbage in one central place. It had to be taken outside the city walls.

Another law is: “No kilns may be made in Jerusalem.” They did not operate furnaces or kilns in Jerusalem. They did not produce bricks there, or anything else that required lighting a kiln, because that would create black smoke and pollute the air of Jerusalem.

Today everyone talks about reducing pollution, green energy, and clean technology. But this idea was already being practiced in Jerusalem close to three thousand years ago.

Another law is: “No gardens or orchards may be planted in Jerusalem.” They did not plant gardens in Jerusalem. One reason is that gardens need fertilizer, and fertilizer gives off a bad smell. A holy city needs a pleasant atmosphere and a pleasant smell.

But as always, there was an exception to the rule. The one thing they were allowed to grow in Jerusalem was the special herbs that were used to make the ketoret, the incense used in the Beit Hamikdash.

Another law is: “A dead body may not be kept overnight in Jerusalem.” This is a very interesting law.

First of all, inside the walls of Jerusalem there was no cemetery. People were not buried inside Jerusalem itself. The Mount of Olives, which is the cemetery closest to the Temple Mount, is outside the city.

During Israel’s War of Independence, several Jews were buried inside the Old City. After the Six-Day War, they were moved for burial outside the city.

Here too, there were exceptions: the graves of King David and Chuldah the prophetess.

But the Gemara says even more than that. Not only were people not buried inside Jerusalem; a body was not even kept overnight there. If a person passed away, G-d forbid, before sunset, he was buried that same day.

Why?

Because life represents connection to G-d. As the Torah says, “You who cleave to Hashem your G-d are all alive today” (Deuteronomy 4:4).

Death, on the other hand, represents separation from G-d, the source of life.

And Jerusalem is the source of our life. It is the city of holiness, the city of the Beit Hamikdash, the city where the Divine presence was felt more openly. Therefore, Jerusalem cannot tolerate something that has no life in it.

Jerusalem in the Heart

The Rebbe emphasized many times that Jerusalem is not only a geographic place. The Hebrew word Yerushalayim can be understood as yirah shaleim — complete awe of G-d. In other words, every Jew needs to turn his own four cubits into Jerusalem. His home, his personal life, his private world — all of it should become a kind of Jerusalem.

Therefore, the same laws that were said about the physical Jerusalem down here can also apply to the personal “Jerusalem” inside each one of us.

The Talmud said: “No garbage dumps may be made in Jerusalem.”

A person has to make sure that in his home — and certainly in his mind — there should not be a place for spiritual garbage.

Sometimes we listen to too much negative news. We hear about all kinds of problems happening on the other side of the world, things that do not really involve us and that we cannot change. But all that news creates stress and anxiety.

A person has to make sure that in his mind and heart, there is no space for that kind of garbage.

The Talmud also said: “No kilns may be made in Jerusalem.”

It is human nature that many times a person thinks about things that make him angry. He gets so upset that, as people say, “smoke comes out of his nose.” Rashi actually uses a similar expression: through anger, the body becomes heated, and smoke comes out of the nose (Deuteronomy 29:19).

So the Talmud is telling us that someone who wants to build Jerusalem inside his heart must make sure that there are no “kilns” there — no anger, no rage, no burning resentment. Instead, there has to be mo’ach shalit al halev — the mind must rule over the heart.

The Talmud also said: “No gardens or orchards may be planted in Jerusalem.”

Why not? Because gardens need fertilizer, and fertilizer brings a bad smell.

A Jew has to make sure that he always gives off a good and pleasant fragrance. Meaning, people around him should feel comfortable in his presence.

There are many kinds of perfume that people spray on themselves so they should smell good. But there is also a spiritual perfume: simply being kind to another person, and sharing with him the beautiful “fragrance” that Torah and mitzvot give off.

The Talmud also sais: “A dead body may not be kept overnight in Jerusalem.”

The Rebbe explained at the Simchat Torah farbrengen of 5736: What is death? A lack of life. Jerusalem cannot tolerate a lack of life (Sichot Kodesh 5736, vol. 1, p. 123).

Sometimes a person falls into depression, sadness, or despair. All of these represent a lack of life. It is possible that the person is still walking around on his own two feet, but in a deeper sense, he is like a “walking dead” person.

So the Talmud tells us: a dead body may not remain overnight in Jerusalem.

If a thought of despair sneaks into a person’s mind, he may not let that thought stay there even for one night. Before he goes to sleep, he has to get rid of that thought completely. He has to hurry to bring back an optimistic and positive view of life, and go to sleep in a good and positive state of mind.

Just as marriage experts often say that a couple should not go to sleep in the middle of a fight, and that they should not let an argument carry through the night, the same is true when it comes to sadness and depression, which represent a kind of spiritual death. We may not “keep the dead overnight in Jerusalem.” Instead, a person has to train himself to have an optimistic and positive outlook.

Good Shabbos.