D’var Torah - Shavuot 5769 – Rabbi Maurice

Harris

Shabbat shalom and gut yontiff. As we celebrate our 2nd Shavuot

in our new home, I want to ask us all to take a moment to look

around. We are so blessed. We have now completed one full

cycle of Jewish holy days and sacred seasons, one full year of the

cycle of the Five Books of Moses, one full year of ups and downs,

controversies and moments of serenity, one full year of mitzvot

and of mistakes. One full year of life. There are so many people

who worked so hard to make this new home possible, and we

have only just begun to discover the ways we can continue to

grow as a community in this amazing space. Shavuot is a festival

of offering our first fruits, the first fruits of our labor, to God. We,

as a community, now can offer one year’s worth of Jewish living to

the Eternal One as an expression of our thanks and our desire to

bring greater meaning and unity into our lives and into the world.

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Over the last 24 hours we have engaged three different texts in

our observance of Shavuot. Last night we studied the Book of

Ruth, which is traditionally chanted at Shavuot, and this morning

we read the story of the giving of the 10 Commandments at Mt.

Sinai in the Book of Exodus. Then, Rabbi Yitzhak chanted the

assigned reading from the books of the prophets, which happened

to be from the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel.

Ruth, the 10 Commandments, and Ezekiel. Something I noticed

about these three readings is where they take place. The Torah

reading featuring the dramatic revelation at Mt. Sinai takes place

not in the land of Israel, but in the Sinai desert, in the wilderness,

in an in-between place that was neither Egypt nor the Promised

Land. Ezekiel takes place in ancient Babylon, and tells the story

of the visions and activities of a prophet who was sent into exile

in Babylon along with the entire leadership of the ancient Israelite

community some 2, 600 years ago. That leaves the Book of Ruth.

Ruth takes place partly in the land of Moab, just to the east of the

Land of Israel, and partly in the territory of Judah, which was part

of ancient Israel. It is the Book of Ruth that brings us

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geographically closest to Jerusalem, as Ruth ends up making her

new life as a Jew by choice in Bethlehem, which is only a few

kilometers away from Jerusalem. Although the Book of Ruth

never specifically mentions Jerusalem, because the city had not

yet become the Israelites’ capital, the last words of the book point

to Jerusalem. As many of you may know, the Book of Ruth ends

with a genealogy that shows Ruth to be the ancestor of King

David, and David’s name is the final word of the book. The Book

literally points towards a Jerusalem that has not yet been realized,

a Jerusalem of the future.

It is that idea – a Jerusalem that has not yet been realized, a

Jerusalem of the future – that caught my attention these last

days.

The city’s name, Yeru-shalayim, roughly means “they will see

peace” or “the inheritance – yerushah – will be peace.” Yet for

the last 2500 years, Jerusalem has known so much war and far

too little peace. As we all know, Jews, Christians and Muslims all

consider Jerusalem to be sacred, and the mythic encounters with

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the Divine that are so central to all three of the Abrahamic

religions intimately involve Jerusalem and the Temple mount

itself. Just to illustrate this with one small example: in Arabic

Jerusalem is called al-Quds, meaning “the holy.” This is from the

same Semitic language root that forms the word kadosh in

Hebrew. It’s as if our people had named the city ha-kadosh. And

in fact, we have, as one of the city’s Jewish nicknames is Ir ha-

kodesh, “the holy city.”

Some 3000 years ago, King David conquered the city from a

people called the Jebusites and proclaimed it the capital of his

kingdom. It was also called the City of David. For four centuries,

it remained under Jewish rule. Then the Babylonians, almost

2,600 years ago, sacked the holy city and took it over. Since

then, Jerusalem has been conquered and re-conquered in a

seemingly endless succession of attempts by one nation or

another to own it and dictate the roles of the various groups that

consider it holy.

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After the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, then the Persians

took over. Then it was Alexander the Great and the Greeks. Then

the Egyptians had a short run of things – yes, a Pharaoh ruled

Jerusalem centuries after the Exodus, if you can imagine it! Then

came more Greek rulers from the north, the Selucids. A bit more

than 2,150 years ago the Maccabees revolted against them and

Jerusalem came back into the hands of Jewish sovereignty. That

period of Jewish control lasted one century, and then General

Pompey of the Roman Empire conquered the city in 63 BCE. The

Romans destroyed the Temple and the city a bit less than 2000

years ago, and they ruled it a while until the Byzantine Christians

took over about 1,700 years ago. The Persians snatched it very

briefly only to lose it back to the Byzantines, and then came

Muslim rule shortly after the death of the prophet Mohammed.

That lasted a few centuries until the Crusaders of 900 years ago

captured Jerusalem from the Muslims.

A century later Muslims re-captured Jerusalem. Christians led by

Richard the Lionhearted of England tried in vain to get it back.

After the Crusader period, Mamluks – Egyptian Muslims – took

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over the city and ruled for 250 years. Then the Ottoman Turks

took it over about 500 years ago, and they had a 400 year run.

World War I changed that, and the next thing you knew Jerusalem

finally was British, though with British rule came the beginnings of

the modern Arab-Israeli conflict as Jewish immigrants, resident

Arabs, and some new Arab immigrants attracted to economic

improvements the British had brought about began to battle over

who would have control of the holy land once the British left.

Fast-forward to 1948, and the birth of modern Israel, and for the

first time since the Macabees part of Jerusalem was once again

under Jewish rule. The other part came under Jordanian rule. A

mere 42 years ago, following the Six Day War, all of Jerusalem

came under Jewish rule, and that’s where it is today, though as

we all know, there is much controversy throughout the world over

who should rule Jerusalem. Many in the Muslim world would like

to see a return to Muslim sovereignty over the entire city. Some

would be happy to have sovereignty over the Arab neighborhoods

of Jerusalem but leave the Jewish areas to the Jews. The Vatican

still teaches that it would prefer Jerusalem to be an international

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city with special protected status. The United Nations and most

of the world’s countries, including the United States, do not

recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital because of these

unresolved disputes and disagreements among the various

interested religious and national parties. Most countries maintain

their embassies in Tel Aviv.

It is nothing short of wondrous that today our people enjoys the

blessing of the freedom to visit or live in Jerusalem, and that the

streets of Jerusalem vibrate with Jewish life once again, whether it

be in the form of pubs, youth culture, and the arts, or Jewish life in

the form of the dozens of yeshivot and centers of Torah learning

that abound in the city. And yet, we know that Jerusalem remains

the center of great strife, great suffering, great divisiveness, and

great hatreds. The modern historian, David K. Shipler writes,

“Jerusalem is a festival and a lamentation. Its song is a sigh

across the ages, a delicate, robust, mournful psalm at the great

junction of spiritual cultures.” Indeed. When will the battles over

Jerusalem finally stop?

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The prophet Isaiah said:

,‫רץ‬
ֶ ‫הא‬
ָ ‫לאה‬
ְ ‫מ‬
ָ -‫כי‬
ִ :‫שי‬
ִ ‫ד‬
ְ ‫ק‬
ָ ‫הר‬
ַ -‫כל‬
ָ ְ‫ ב‬,‫חיתו‬
ִ ‫ש‬
ְ ַ ‫י‬-‫לא‬
ֹ ְ ‫רעו ו‬
ֵ ָ ‫י‬-‫לא‬
ֹ

‫סים‬
ִ ַ ‫מכ‬
ְ ‫ לַָים‬,‫מים‬
ַ ַ ‫ כ‬,‫ְיהָוה‬-‫את‬
ֶ ‫עה‬
ָ ‫ד‬
ֵ .

“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain; for the

earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Eternal, as the waters

cover the sea.” The mountain he’s referring to is the Temple

Mount, symbolic of all Jerusalem. That’s the prophetic vision,

that’s the dream for Jerusalem. How might that dream be

realized? What is to become of that idea that the end of the Book

of Ruth points to – a Jerusalem that has not yet been realized, a

Jerusalem of the future? A Jerusalem that truly embraces its

religious diversity and creates a culture of peace that befits the

definition of its name? I leave it to you as a question of great

consequence. It’s a question that will be on the table in the

months ahead as the current Administration in Washington

nudges the parties to the conflict back to the negotiating table.

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You’ve probably heard the following tale about the origins of

Jerusalem. It makes the claim that the site for the Holy Temple

was determined by anonymous and simultaneous acts of sharing

and caring by two brothers, each concerned for the other’s well

being. I’ll share a retelling of it by Eliezar Segal of the University

of Calgary. I think you might be surprised by what he discovered

in his research about this tale. He writes:

The following story is probably familiar to most of my readers. I have

heard it told on innumerable occasions from the pulpits of synagogues in

Israel and the Diaspora.

According to the tale, there long ago lived two brothers who shared a

field whose crops they used to divide equally. One of the brothers was a

bachelor, and the other a married man with many children. Once, during

the harvest, each of them felt pity for the other. The bachelor was worried

that his brother did not have enough to feed his household, while the

bachelor had concern for his brother's solitude. In the dark of the night each

of them would carry some sheaves of produce to the other's house, and in

the morning each would be astonished to discover that their own supplies

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had not diminished. This went on for several days and nights until the two

finally met tearfully during one of their nocturnal errands. At that point it was

decreed from above that this was the place upon which it would be fitting to

establish God's Holy Temple.

The rabbis who tell this moving story … usually cite it as a Talmudic

legend taken from the "midrash." Making allowances for the limitations of

my own erudition, I was always troubled that I had not encountered the

story of the two brothers in any of the standard compendia of rabbinic lore.

As it turns out, the same problem had troubled a more capable scholar than

myself, the late Prof. Alexander Scheiber of Budapest, who devoted a

number of special studies to the history of the legend.

According to Scheiber's researches, the earliest attestation of the

story appears in the writings of Alphonse de Lamartine, a noted French

author with an affection for the Bible and its land. He claims to have heard

it from the mouth of an Arab peasant during a journey through the Holy

Land in 1832. The literary record of that journey was published in 1835.

From that point on, versions of the tale began to appear in several

European languages, including German and Hungarian. It also found its

way into Jewish writings, such as the moralistic anthologyMikveh

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Yisra'el by Rabbi Israel Costa of Livorno, Italy, which was published in 1851

and a collection of miracle tales (Ma'aseh Nissim) that was printed in

Baghdad around 1900.

The story has become so familiar that many knowledgeable Jews are

convinced that it is indeed a [midrash] or a talmudic Aggadah. Some have

insisted that the Arabs might be preserving an originally Jewish tradition

that for some reason was not recorded in our own literature.

The fact is that even in ancient times it was not uncommon for foreign

legends and fables to find their way into the volumes of Talmudic and

Midrashic teachings. Our rabbis did not live in isolation from their

surroundings, and recognized that an edifying teaching is worth retelling no

matter what its source. The concept of "midrash" is accordingly a dynamic

one, and there is nothing inherently novel or unacceptable about receiving

an Arab folk-tale into the family of Jewish legend. Indeed, the story of "the

two brothers" accurately reflects the traditional reverence which Islam has

always held for the site of the "Bait al-muqdasah" (the Temple) and its

builder, King Solomon. The story, by the way, is still part of the living oral

tradition of the Palestinian Arabs.

Finally, Eliezar Segal concludes by writing:

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 The main purpose of the legend was to emphasize the values of

peace, compassion and brotherly love that are symbolized by Jerusalem

and the Temple. Is it not therefore doubly appropriate that in admitting (or

repatriating) this story into Jewish tradition we should have to express a

debt of gratitude precisely to those cousins with regard to whom it has been

so difficult to realize those very ideals!

Jerusalem is an amazing place. According to one ancient sage in

the collection of midrash known as Avot de Rabbi Natan, “Ten

portions of Torah are in the world – nine in Jerusalem, and one in

the rest of the world.” And yet, “Ten portions of hypocrisy are in

the world – nine in Jerusalem, and one in the rest of the world.”

Oy vey. Jerusalem’s intensity radiates in all sorts of directions.

There is spiritual depth and passion that would seek to heal the

world, and alongside that there is aggressive piety that would

seek to impose its will on all. And there is conflict – political,

religious, and national conflict between two peoples with two

narratives and three sets of holy sites all in competition for

hegemony. Again, to quote David Shipler, “Here among the

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constant ruins and rebuilding of civilizations lies the coexistence

of diversity and intolerance.”

I am certainly grateful and proud that, of Jerusalem’s many rulers

over the past 3000 years, modern Israel has been the most

tolerant and respectful of the holy sites and the religious

freedoms of the other religions that also treasure their connection

to Jerusalem. We should not underestimate the good that has

come from that.

I’ll close by sharing a thought this Shavuot, this season of offering

of first fruits and receiving of Divine enlightenment. There is

much debate in the Jewish world over whether to allow Jerusalem

to become the capitals of two states as part of a peace deal.

Sometimes these proposals are described as attempts to re-divide

Jerusalem. Horrible memories of days not long passed come to

the Jewish mind – images of Jews unable to go to the Kotel, the

Wailing Wall, and barbed wire cutting apart neighborhoods as part

of a tense armistice. Many of us shudder at the thought of re-

creating that kind of divided city. My hope would be that any

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discussions about helping Jerusalem realize the vision of its own

name – “they will see peace” – would focus not on models that

seek to divide, but rather on models that seek to promote the

idea of sacred sharing. There is already some precedent for this

in the way that Jews and Muslims have worked out a way of

sharing sacred space on the Temple Mount. It’s a cold and prickly

sharing, to be sure, but it has largely held over the decades and

both communities are able to gather and offer prayer at their

most sacred sites without getting in each others’ way too often.

I want to ask a thought-provoking question that I won’t answer,

though I’m happy to share my personal views privately with

anyone who asks. That question is this: What would it look like if

there were a bold, courageous effort to find a way to share power,

to make Jerusalem the world’s model of true peacemaking, of

truly recognizing one’s own religious connection to God while

simultaneously recognizing someone else’s? If that could be done

without diminishing our people – the Jewish people’s – right to

live, pray, work, love, be born and die in Jerusalem, have our

capital and Knesset there, have our spiritual life centered there in

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an active and vibrant way – if sharing didn’t require sacrificing

any of that, but simply made room for a new kind of thinking to

prevail over this tortured city, would you support it? What visions

do you have of how Jerusalem can finally return from its spiritual

exile of strife and contention, of how Jerusalem can finally return

to the root of its own name and become a city of peace where

people can bring offerings of joy in serenity and in love?

On Shavuot we are directed by our texts to think about not one,

but two, sacred mountains – Mt. Sinai, of course, but also the

Temple Mount, and the vision of redemption that King David

represents as he is mentioned at the conclusion of the Book of

Ruth. May we be strengthened and blessed with the ability to

seek out ways for the city that holds that second mountain, the

city of Jerusalem, to flower as an expression of true religious

cooperation and peace.

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