RABBI SACKS
by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
May 15, 2015

Today is the 28th Iyar, Yom Yerushalayim, the day that marks when, on June 7, 1967, one day into the Six-Day War, Israeli forces captured the old city and reunified the city of Jerusalem. In Jerusalem you feel yourself lifted beyond time and space.

….No people ever loved a city more. We saw Jerusalem destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and yet in all those years, wherever Jews lived they never ceased to pray about Jerusalem, face Jerusalem, speak the language of Jerusalem, remember it at every wedding, in every home they built, and at the high points of the Jewish year. I ask myself how could Jews believe so much in a city they had been exiled from for so long? The answer, of course, is very powerful and is contained in two words in the story of Jacob. Recall, the brothers return home and show Jacob the blood-stained coat of Joseph. Realizing Joseph has gone, Jacob weeps, and when the brothers move to comfort him we are told, Veyimaein lehitnachen, Jacob “refused to be comforted.” READ MORE