Ha-Rav Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld: The Arabs should not think that they have succeeded in banishing the Jews from even one corner or street in Yerushalayim!

 

During the 5689 Arab Pogrom, on Friday, the 17th of Av, rioters ran wild throughout Eretz Yisrael, cruelly ransacking and murdering. In the afternoon, thousands of inflamed Arabs stormed out of the Mosque of Omar after being saturated with the hateful incitement of the Mufti, Haj Amin Al-Huseini, and marched forward, armed with knives and clubs. Most of them advanced towards the neighborhoods of Meah Shearim and Beit Yisrael, their leader had his sword drawn and they screamed, "Slaughter the Jews!"

When they passed the flour mill, two Charedi Jews came out, one wielding a pistol, and shot and killed the leader of the gang. The second one threw a hand grenade and the entire gang fled while the two of them pursued them – one with a pistol and the other with a hand grenade. The Arabs killed many of their own in their panicked flight, trampling one another.

The next day, Ha-Rav Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld, who lived within the walls of the Old City, had to go to Meah Shearim to serve as a Mohel.  His family and friends were terribly worried about him, and they begged him not to go, but he insisted.  He would not forego the Mitzvah.

The eighty year-old Rabbi, clad in his Tallit, walked to Meah Shearim through "Sha'ar Shechem" (the Damascus Gate), and in front of their eyes lay the dead Arabs.  He returned to the Old City by way of "Sha'ar Yafo (the Jaffa Gate). When he was later asked why he went specifically by way of the Damascus Gate, he responded, “So that the Arabs should not think that they have succeeded in banishing the Jews from even one corner or street in Yerushalayim."  And why had he returned by way of Jaffa Gate?  “Such is my regular custom, in order to fulfill the words: “Walk around Zion.  Circle her" (Tehilim 48:13) (Related in the book "Ha-Ish Al Ha-Chomah" Vol. 2, pp. 175-180).

By the way, the Charedi Jew who fired the pistol was Ha-Rav Aharon Fischer, the father of Ha-Gaon Ha-Rav Yisrael Yaakov Fischer, who was the Av Beit Din (head of the rabbinic court) of the Edah Ha-Charedit until a few years ago (Be-Dor Tahapuchot pp. 226-229, 393-396).

 

Shut Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim in the Heart of Yerushalayim - Ha-Rav Shlomo Aviner Shlit"a

 Q: What is special about the Yeshiva being located in the Muslim Quarter, near the spot of the Temple?

A: Rav Neriya said: We must establish Yeshivot everywhere, and this is all the more so true in the Holy City of Yerushalayim, and this is all the more so true near the spot of the Beit Ha-Mikdash.

 

Q: The Gemara says that the air of Eretz Yisrael makes one wiser.  Is this all the more so in Yerushalayim?

A: Yes.

 

Q: Is it forbidden to live among the Arabs because of the prohibition of putting oneself in danger?

A: No, it is a Mitzvah.  1. One must display self-sacrifice to settle Eretz Yisrael.  2. It is no more dangerous than elsewhere.

 

Q: What is the meaning of "Blessed are You Hashem, Builder of Yerushalayim" in the Shemoneh Esrei?

A: Builder is in present tense.  Hashem is building all of the time and we are his partners building up Yerushalayim in all of her glory.

 

Q: Will we continue to pray "Build Yerushalayim, Your city" in the Shemoneh Esrei when the Beit Ha-Mikdash is rebuilt?

A: We will ask the Mashiach.

 

Q: If a person has a million dollars to give, what is the best thing for him to do with it?

A: When Ha-Rav Aharon Soloveitchik was asked this question, he answered: Build Yerushalayim between the walls (told to us by Rabbi Jay Marcus).

Receiving a New Soul Upon Sleeping in Yerushalayim

 

As is known, every Jew receives an additional soul on Shabbat (see Beitza 16a and Ta'anit 27b).  Our Rabbi, Ha-Rav Tzvi Yehudah Ha-Cohain Kook (Sichot Ha-Rav Tzvi Yehudah – Eretz Yisrael p. 30, 228-230 and Sichot Ha-Rav Tzvi Yehudah – Vayikra, p. 149 and Devarim, p. 33, 208) brings an incredible idea from Rabbi Avraham Azulai, the "Chesed Le-Avraham" (Ma'ayan Shelishi, Ein Ha-Aretz, nahar 12): "It is not so popular and well-known, one should therefore pay close attention to it and understand it…when a Jew comes to Eretz Yisrael, on the first night he sleeps there, it is as if his soul disappears and returns in the morning.  Did you think that the same soul returns?  This is a mistake.  You should know that now, after you have absorbed the air of Eretz Yisrael, that you have breathed the air of Eretz Yisrael and it (the soul that comes in the morning) was created by it.  The soul which returns is a new soul.  You have been renewed!"  Maran Ha-Rav Kook explains in his book "Orot" (Orot Yisrael 7:18) what is embodied in this new soul: The communal soul of the Jewish People, which only resides in an individual when he is in Eretz Yisrael.  Immediately upon a person's arrival in Eretz Yisrael, his individual soul is nullified by the great light of the communal soul which enters him.  Every "Oleh Chadash" therefore loses his individual soul and receives a communal "Klal Yisrael" soul in its place.  Ha-Rav Tzvi Tau – Rosh Yeshiva of Har Ha-Mor - clarifies this idea in "Le-Emunat Itenu" (vol. 2, p. 77-92): one who enters the Land of Israel merits a new soul, and this is not at all dependent on his personal level.  You live without your consent, you are a Jew without your consent and you become "Eretz Yisraeli" without your consent.

Ha-Rav Yitzchak Dadon writes in the book "Imrei Shefer" (p. 256) that Ha-Rav Avraham Shapira – former Rosh Yeshiva of Mercaz Ha-Rav – once stated that, as the "Chesed Le-Avraham" writes, a person receives a new soul when coming to Eretz Yisrael.  He continued that when people come to Israel and hear this idea, they respond: But we are returning to America (or someplace else) and we will lose the special soul given to us!  Ha-Rav Shapira would reply with a concept from the Gemara: we have a tradition that from heaven they give, but they do not take away.  It is also related there (p. 255) that a Yeshiva student from outside of Yerushalayim once spent a Shabbat in the Holy City Yerushalayim.  He visited Ha-Rav Shapira and told him that he was a guest in Yerushalayim.  Ha-Rav Shapira responded jokingly that if you are a Yerushalami [Yerushalayimite] once, you are always a Yerushalami.  He explained this based on the teaching of the "Chesed Le-Avraham" regarding one who receives a new soul upon arriving in Israel.  He said that if this is so, it should also be true for one who arrives in Yerushalayim and ascends in holiness – he receives a new Yerushalayim soul.  He suggests that perhaps in order for this to occur one must sleep overnight within the walls of the Old City.

You Can Remain in Yerushalayim Even When You are Not Physcially Here

When Ha-Rav Yisrael Be'eri, the son-in-law of Ha-Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap, left Yerushalayim with his wife, Ha-Rabanit Chava Dina, and their children to serve as the Rabbi in Nes Tziona, Rav Charlap wrote him a letter with advice about how to stay in Yerushalayim.

He told him: May Hashem be with You, and strengthen your eyes and hearts towards the Holy Mountain of the Beit Ha-Mikdash, the earthly Yerushalayim which is directed towards the heavenly Yerushalayim (Ta'anit 5a).  "Remember Hashem from a distance, and let Yerushalayim enter your heart" (Yirmiyahu 51:50), the Rememberance of Yerushalayim is a Segulah for Purifying the Heart.  There is a known adage: "Any place where a person's thoughts are, he is located there".  Your thoughts should therefore always be about Yerushalayim and the Beit Ha-Mikdash.  And Yosef is the prime example of this.  While he was in Potiphar's house and surrounded by immorality, his thoughts were of holiness and he was therefore not negatively influenced (see Rashi on Bereshit 39:6-11).  Thus, through holy thoughts, you can truly remain in Yerushalayim (Igrot Marom, p. 112).  

And we can add that it is written in the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 94:1) that when one Davens he should face Eretz Yisrael, Yerushalayim, the spot of Beit Ha-Mikdash and the Kodesh Ha-Kodashim.  The Mishnah Berurah (#3) adds that even if one cannot face towards these places, he should feel in his heart and thoughts as if he is standing in Yerushalayim, in the Beit Ha-Mikdash, in the Holy of Holies.

Turn your heart and mind to our Holy City, and you will be with us in Yerushalayim… even when physically you are not [yet!] here.

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Yerushalayim - The Highest Place in the World!

I heard the following Dvar Torah from my Rebbe and teacher, Ha-Rav Shlomo Aviner Shlit"a, Nasi Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim. 

The Gemara says that the Land of Israel is higher than any other place in the world (Zevachim 54b).  In Parashat Shoftim, the Torah says that if you have a difficult halachic question or court case and need to go to the Sanhedrin, which is located in the Temple in Jerusalem, "you should arise and ascend to the place" (Devarim 17:8).  Regardless of where one is located, he has to ascend to get there.  Based on this, the Gemara says that the Temple is higher than any place in the Land of Israel (ibid.). 

How can the Gemara make such a claim?  Mt. Everest and the Himalayas are higher than Mt. Chermon – the highest spot in Israel?!  Ironically, Israel has the lowest point on earth – the Dead Sea, not the highest!

The Radvaz, who lived about 500 years ago in Tzefat, explains how the Temple Mount lost its crown as the highest spot in Israel.  He writes that the non-Jews lowered its height as it says, "Raze it, raze it, to its foundation" (Tehillim 137:7).  The non-Jewish kings dug up the Temple Mount in order to build their houses, temples and churches higher than it.  Furthermore, the rains flowed down the incline of the Temple Mount and instead of preventing the razing, they encouraged it.  An earthquake also caused much destruction in Jerusalem and people built houses on the rubble.  There is one archeological layer on top of another in Jerusalem.  Archeological digs do not reveal virgin earth, but the remnants of earlier periods.  Thus, while Jerusalem became higher, the Temple Mount was lowered, but it once was the highest spot (Shut Ha-Radvaz vol. 2 #639)

The Chatam Sofer – Rav Moshe Sofer, who lived in Pressberg, Hungary about 200 years ago and was never in Israel, says that reality does not substantiate the Radvaz's claim that the Temple Mount was once the highest spot in Israel.  He provides an answer from a completely difference perspective by focusing on the statement that the Land of Israel is the highest spot in the world.  The Chatam Sofer explains that the earth is a sphere and it is therefore impossible to definitively say which is the highest point.  Everything is dependent on how one holds the sphere. If you hold the earth in a proper way than Israel, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are the highest places.  If you hold the sphere in a different way, someplace else will be on top. 

The essential job of a Jew is to have a proper perspective in life to ensure that Israel, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are always at the pinnacle (Chatam Sofer to Devarim 17:8).