Yom Yerushalayim Then and Now

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
May 10, 2002

 

There are defining moments in our lives when we know exactly where we were no matter how long ago it was. Today, Friday, is the twenty-eighth of Sivan in the Jewish calendar. In 1967 it corresponded to June 7 th. I know exactly where I was. I had been camped out in Hammershkold Plaza in New York City which is located opposite the United Nations since Monday morning when we heard that war had begun between Israel and Syria, Egypt, Jordan, the confrontation states, and Iraq, Libya and others which did not have contiguous borders. In what seemed like prehistoric times electronically, all we had were 9 volt 6 transistor radios to keep us informed. With the existence of Israel hanging in the balance, Nasser's rhetoric of throwing the Jews into the sea ringing in our ears, and the overwhelming avalanche of Arab arms, a small number of us kept vigil in the Plaza, praying, singing, talking, fearing and hoping. Most of us had never been to Israel but had studied about it in Religious School. We had never been in Jerusalem, but were familiar with pictures of the mosque, the Dome of the Rock. Parenthetically let me say: it is so easy to forget Israel's precarious position and dangerous location.

Thirty-five years ago, after Golda Meir made a secret mission to King Hussein not to initiate war and after public appeals by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, the Jordanians began raining down artillery shells on the Jewish sectors of the city. They did not worry about hitting civilians and the world didn't say boo. Then and only then did the Israel Defense Forces move against the Jordanians and, then like now, to avoid civilian casualties refrained from using larger armament and sent in the infantry costing many more lives, they liberated the rest of the city and ceased the ferocious bombardment from the Jordanians. We awoke in the Plaza the morning of 28 Sivan/7 th of June, to the glorious news of the victory of Tzahal. We were overcome by joy and by relief. By the time I returned home on Friday, very exhausted and very exhilarated, the Six Day War was almost over and a new chapter in Jewish history was begun. Today is the anniversary of that moment which occurred thirty-five years ago.

There have been only two cities in world history that have been divided, ironically, Berlin and Jerusalem, the first by the Russians, and the second by the Arabs. It wasn't supposed to be that way for either. Particularly Jerusalem had been designated "an international city" by the Partition Plan of the United Nations in 1947. The places holy to us as Jews, our most ancient cemetery on Mt. Olives, the Yeshivot in the Old City, and access to the Kotel were to be insured and respected. All of this was rejected. After the fighting there never was a peace treaty, only an armistice, which stopped the fighting but didn't make a peace. Jerusalem was divided. We were forbidden to enter, the yeshivot and synagogues were razed to the ground, and the cemetery was desecrated. Jordanian Legionnaires sat on the walls of the Old City and randomly and persistently shot out Israelis in their part of the city.

When I came to Israel in September 1968 I looked for the famous/infamous Mandelbaum Gate that was the crossing point between the two parts of the Jerusalem. It was gone. It had been torn down immediately as the war stopped and Israel removed all the barriers and all the divisions, reuniting a city that was never intended to be divided. It is important to keep in mind in these tumultuous days, that Israel has offered the Palestinians already, in the negotiations under Prime Minister Barak, for them to have a capitol in Jerusalem. It had existed, known as Orient House, and was only closed when the intifada was renewed. But Israel has never offered and will never offer that Jerusalem be dissected and separated. We will never be forbidden nor precluded from entering any and every part of the Holy City.

On the first afternoon when I came to Israel the director of our building took us to the Old City, Ha-Ir Ha-Atikah to go to the Kotel. This is an interesting Hebrew word. It means wall. Every wall is a kotel. To distinguish this special wall we had the Hebrew prefix ha which means "The," for there is no wall like this wall. But this wall has two different names and in them is a story, our story. The wall of which you have all seen pictures is a part of the wall which Herod built at the turn of the millennium when he expanded a very little Temple into the grand building that is portrayed in different places. He needed a large platform to extend his building area and so he made a large compound built on walls, upon which he reconstructed the Temple. While the Temple was destroyed, the walls remained. Before it was called "HaKotel," this wall was called The Wailing Wall. I grew up hearing it called by that name. It received it because after the Roman destruction, Jews came to cry and mourn here for the Temple's destruction and our people's exile from our homeland. HaKotel was daily bathed in Jewish tears. Its name symbolized our brokenness, our dispersion, and the nadir of our fortunes.

A poem captures this sense:

Over the Wailing Wall flies a flock of doves, one white and fine.
To me whispered the ancient, faithful believers:
The Presence divine.
A dove among the doves, since the break of dawn, she flies about on high,
But at the Wall of Sorrows stands alone and coos as the sun goes down the sky.

I believe that the dove cooed for her people. And when I visited the Kotel my first time I believe that I saw that dove perched on the Kotel's ledge.

But when we teach our children about HaKotel we call it be another name. We say that it is HaKotel HaMa'aravi – The Western Wall. There is no more brokenness or abandon ness, no more separation. I can't really date when the usage changed. It just happened. The usage even overlapped. But nobody calls it the Wailing Wall any more. It is just HaKotel HaMa'aravi. And instead of tears people now put kevittels, little messages and prayers folded up into the crevices of the Kotel, and believe that since this is so close to where the Temple once stood, that perhaps these prayers will have a better chance of ascending to heaven and being answered.

So let me tell you a prayer:

That Jews will be able to shop in the Arab shuk,

And Arabs will shop on Jaffa Road, and they will shake hands on sales.

That Israelis and Palestinians will worry about the air they breathe and the water

They drink, and work together to make both cleaner.

That Israeli children will learn Arabic and Arab children will learn Hebrew,

And they will converse together and study together.

That prayers to Adonay will ascend from HaKotel HaMa'aravi and to Allah,

From the mosque of Omar, for Shalom, for Salaam, for peace.

And it will come true.

Amen.