(By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times)

Professor,

Recently, you were one of 167 signatories who signed a petition that described Yerushalayim as in a state of legal occupation. You have put your name to a document that calls for recognizing the “Palestinians’ legitimate stake in the future of Jerusalem.”

How could you? How could you put your name to such a document? Yerushalayim was always ours. She was ransacked by foreigners and invaders who murdered her residents, but she is still ours.

Perhaps you need to be reminded that at every Jewish wedding we say the blessing of Sos Tasis. The blessing is, “May the barren one rejoice and be glad as her children are joyfully gathered to her. Blessed are You, Hashem who gladdens Tzion with her children.”

Tzion is Yerushalayim. And from this blessing, we see two remarkable things.

We see that the relationship between Yerushalayim and the nation of Israel is more than just an un-severable bond. It is that of a mother and her children.

We also see that Yerushalayim is not just another city. She is our mother.

In 1967, Israel defended itself against attackers that wished to annihilate her at every border. It is special not because we captured the eastern half of Yerushalayim. But because we re-captured her and freed her. It is a very essential difference.

That reunification was the culmination of the prayers of two thousand years – something that our ancestors could only dream of.

Professor, have you forgotten your right hand?

Dovid HaMelech said it in Tehillim (137:5-6):

“If I forget you, O Yerushalayim, let me forget my right hand.

Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you.

If I do not set Yerushalayim at my highest aspirations of joy.”

In these words, Dovid HaMelech is pointing out the two tell-tale signs of a stroke. He is essentially saying that he should have a stroke if he does not remember Yerushalayim.

Hashem further tells us (Malachim I 11:36), “Yerushalayim is the city where I have chosen to place My Name.”

As a professor of history, you know that the Beis HaMikdash surely existed on Har HaBayis. Flying winged horses did not catapult the founder of Islam to Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim is not some theoretical or symbolic word. It is both our possession and the destiny of the Jewish people.

Indeed, Yerushalayim is actually synonymous with the Jewish people.

The holy prophet Isaiah says, “Be comforted, be comforted, My people – Nachamu Nachamu Ami (Yishayayhu 40:1-2) , speak unto the heart of Yerushalayim – dabru al leiv Yerushalayim.” Why Yerushalayim? The answer is because Yerushalayim – all of it – is intrinsically connected with the people of Israel. The prophet further states, “For Hashem has comforted His people – He has redeemed Yerushalayim (Yishayahu 52:9). And also Yishayahu (65:19), “I will rejoice in Yerushalayim and be glad in My people.”

Look at Tehillim 102:15, “Her servants desired her stones, her very dust moves them to pity.” We have never, ever, left Yerushalayim, and even when times were difficult, we always pined for her. We pined for her stones, her dust, and her spiritual nurturing.

Yerushalayim has been holy to the Jewish people since the dawn of history and before. Where was the binding of Yitzchak? It was on Har haMoriah, in Yerushalayim, the place that Hashem shall choose (See Dvarim 12:5).

Maimonides tells us (Hilchos Beis HaBechirah 6:14) that the sanctification that was made in Israel’s First Commonwealth still stands and will stand for all time.

He writes, “the sanctity of the [area of the] Mikdash and of Yerushalayim emanates from the Shechina (Divine Presence) and the Shechina can never be annulled.”

Part of the bible is the book of Esther. It is, in fact, from this book that we read each year in the month of Adar, on a day that we were saved from destruction. Throughout the world, this book is read by Jews on the 14th of the month. But in walled cities the book is read on the 15th of the month. In Yerushalayim it is also read on the 15th of the month. What is fascinating is that this is not just in the parts of Yerushalayim that were around in Yerushalayim of old. It is the custom to read it on the 15th even in modern, contemporary Yerushalayim.

Throughout the world, wherever Jews are, we pray facing Yerushalayim. She is everything to us, and it is only in our literature that Yerushalayim plays a central role in the universe. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a based upon the verse in Yechezkel 38:12) describes Yerushalayim as the very center of the universe.

Professor, you must surely know that Yerushalayim is mentioned throughout TaNaCh some 650 times and not once, l’havdil in the Koran. Professor, walk it back.

Write another statement to rescind your signature from such a document.

The author can be reached at [email protected]