The Love of Jerusalem
[Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook wrote this passionate essay “Hibat Yerushalayim” during the Three Weeks in Rehovot in the year 1912. Hearing the echoing words of the Prophets with his Divine Inspiration, he asserts that the time has come to abandon the Exile and to transform the yearning for Jerusalem into actual deeds:
From the ruins of Jerusalem, a voice calls out: “A Heavenly Echo weeps like a dove, saying: ‘Woe is me, for I have destroyed My house, burned My sanctuary, and exiled My children among the nations.’
And the voice calls again. The Divine Echo moans like a dove: “Woe to the Father who has exiled His children. Woe to the children torn from their Father’s table.”
And this echo, this quiet moaning, like the sigh of a dove has continued for two thousand years. It passes through generations, through every era. It speaks its cry to hearts and souls to living souls, and to the souls of the dead who wait, bound in the bundle of life: “Even the dead in their graves await the day when the light of Your dawn will break.”
The dove’s cry penetrates the depths of our hearts. Jerusalem, City of Holiness, palace of the Eternal King, ancient throne of the kingdom of priests and holy nation, now lies in ruin, disgraced, and desolate.
The heavens cry out in bitterness. The angels of peace weep. Still, the echo moans like a dove: “Woe is me, for I have destroyed My house.” It cries in our ears like the wail of the sick, its voice growing stronger, our ears shuddering to hear it. A terrifying, mighty voice like the roar of an army, like the voice of God speaking, like a lion’s growl: “The Lord shall roar like a lion. From His holy dwelling He shall give forth His voice. He shall roar mightily over His home.”
Our souls tremble. We stand shaken, listening to the moaning of the dove rising from the ruins of Jerusalem, bellowing in grief until it becomes a lion’s roar. Like the sound of a great shofar, like the thunder of storms, a crashing wave, an explosion. If from the ruins of Jerusalem, a dove’s cry rises to our ears saying, “Woe is me, for I have destroyed…” then from the buildings of Jerusalem, built by foreign hands, which for us are but doubled ruins we hear again a broken voice: “Bitter weeping; Rachel weeps for her children. She refuses to be comforted, for they are gone.” For her children, her best are not among those who come to silence the dove’s cry, still moaning: “Woe is me, for I have destroyed.”
The time has come. The events of these days all cry out to us with a mighty voice: “Israel build your holy city! Remember, eternal people, holy nation, keepers of faith, remember your vow, the vow you swore by the rivers of Babylon: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its strength. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you.’”
And if the easier part of that oath has been fulfilled, your tongue has not clung to your palate, for you have remembered Jerusalem with your mouth, and continue to do so now and forever. But now your right hand is needed, when it must be stretched out and raised in strength and mightiness, the right hand of valor to act out in concrete deed the first part of the vow – this is being demanded. The same Divine Echo, still moaning like a dove from the ruins of Jerusalem, now demands: “Hear, O Israel” from the rising of the sun to its setting, in all the lands to which you were exiled. And every time your heart turns to God, in every moment of longing that rises from the depths of your soul, turn your heart toward Jerusalem, the holy city: “The city of our holiness and our splendor, where our ancestors gave You praise.” Listen to the voice of the moaning dove, rising from Jerusalem’s ruins and to the roar of the lion, coming from the foreign buildings that mock our inaction, that scoff at our weak hands, our hesitation even in this moment of opportunity, when God’s hand is outstretched for good, to begin in reality the rebuilding of our city of splendor. To lift her from her desolation, to crown her again in glory, to build her with precious structures, and to establish her upon pillars of majesty, with the beauty of holiness. The time has come when we must hear the voice of God in every shifting event, in every impulse of the heart, in every movement of life, both personal and collective. And the voice of God calls out to us in strength from the ruins of Jerusalem and from her desolation: “Arise, My children and build the soul! Raise up the holy city that lies in ruins! Remember God though you be far, and let Jerusalem rise up upon your heart!”
[Rabbi Kook, “Hibat Yerusalayim” from the book, “Ma’amarei HaRiyah, part 2, pg 329.]
