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Moshe Kempinski , author of The Teacher and the Preacher, is the editor of the Jerusalem Insights weekly email journal and co-owner of Shorashim, a Biblical shop and learning center in the Old City of Jerusalem.
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By Moshe Kempinski
May 13, 2007
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Forty years ago, I was sitting in my high school in Canada and taking a chemistry exam, yet my mind heart and soul was thousands of miles away. For the months prior to those fateful days in June of 1967, the radio waves were filled with hatred and threats against the small sliver of a country called Israel. Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt declared on radio" We intend on beginning an all out campaign, it will be a total war and our basic purpose is the eradication of the Israeli state" (27.5.67). Ahmed Shukeiri the head of the Palestinian resistance movement also delivered the following statement" Israelis who were born in Palestine that will still be alive after the war will be allowed to live in Palestine. But based on my best estimation not a single one of them will still be found alive." (26.5.67)"
Similar threats were being aired every day by leaders of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Even the darling of North American media, King Hussein of Jordan joined the war that began in June of 1967 with the following words," Kill the Jews with everything that comes to your hands. Kill them with your arms, with your hands, with your nails and with your teeth." The days prior to those fateful days of June were days filled with prayers, concern and gloomy, dark fears.
Then everything changed in a flash of divine intervention." Thou didst turn for me my mourning into dancing; Thou didst loose my sackcloth, and gird me with gladness ;"(Psalm 30:12). It was then that I heard the recording that shifted the world and changed my life.
The Kol Israel (Israel Radio) microphones held by the Israeli war correspondents were picking up the voices of battle and the commands and instructions of the commanders. Then the microphones pick up the following voices. Amidst intermittent bullet fire one hears General Uzi Narkiss asking breathlessly " Tell me, where is the Western Wall....? How do we get there?"
Israeli radio correspondent Yossi Ronen continues with following hesitant and breathless words," I'm walking right now down the steps towards the Western Wall. I'm not a religious man, I never have been, but this is the Western Wall and I'm touching the stones of the Western Wall" and his voice trails off into a silence of awe.
In the background one could hear hoarse voices of battle weary soldiers screaming " she-hecheeyanu ve-kiyeemanu ve-hegiyanu la-zman ha-zeh. Blessed art Thou L-rd G-d King of the Universe who has sustained us and kept us and has brought us to this day". As Yossi Ronen and others answer amen, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the chief rabbi of the army, declares "Baruch ata HaShem, menachem tsion u-voneh Yerushalayim ( Blessed are thou, who comforts Zion and builds Jerusalem)" and again a loud and hoarse amen is heard. At that point some of the soldiers begin to sing Israel's National anthem "Hatikva" next to the Western Wall.
Rabbi Goren then said "We're now going to recite the prayer for the fallen soldiers of this war against all of the enemies of Israel. Soldiers begin to weep as he prays the following words;
(freely Translated ) O G-d, full of compassion, Who dwells on high, grant true rest upon the wings of the Shechinah (Divine Presence), in the exalted spheres of the holy the courageous and the pure, who shine and radiate as the resplendence of the firmament, to the souls of soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces who fell in this war against the enemies of Israel, who fell sanctifying the name of G-d, the people and the land of Israel, and for the liberation of the Temple, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and Jerusalem the city of G-d . May their place of rest be in paradise. Therefore O Merciful One, O keep their souls forever alive under Your protective wings. And bind their souls in the bond of life. HaShem is their heritage; may they rest in their resting-place in peace; (the weeping becomes louder) for they shalt rest and stand up for their allotted portion at the end of the days, and let us say, Amen".
A loud and tearful amen is heard. Shots continue to be fired and soldiers continue to weep as Rabbi Shlomo Goren blows the shofar he has brought with him with mighty and crystal clear sounds . He then ends with the declaration" Le-shana HA-ZOT be- Yerushalayim ha-b'nuya, be-yerushalayim ha-atika! THIS year -- not next -- in a rebuilt Jerusalem! In the Jerusalem of old!
That shofar sound was the most dramatic thing I had ever heard in my young life at that point and I felt that call in every fiber of my body. I felt the earth and everything I had known shift underneath me and suddenly things were crystal clear and pure. The shofar began a melody in my soul that would not allow itself to be quelled. I knew then like I hadn't really known anything before that time, that I would, one day be able to call myself a Jerusalemite. Nothing was clearer and nothing was more imperative.
It took too many years but I fulfilled the beginning of my vow (the rest of the vow included being able to dance with all my family in the Temple courtyards). The melody of that shofar blasts resonates in my soul every day I walk into the old city of Jerusalem. It is that melody that seems to anchor my soul in the vision of what could be, what will be and what has already begun to be. Without that melody I fear I too would be drawn into the dark gloom of what hasn't yet come into being. It is so easy to see the cracks and the fissures of the divinely inspired edifice that is being constructed brick by brick in our days. Only with that melody resonating in one's soul one can step back and see the splendor of that which is being formed in our lifetime. It is so tempting to decry and bemoan the fact that the builders of this edifice are not imbued with the awe and the vision of what is being constructed. Yet with that melody in one's heart one begins to see that regardless of the blindness of the builders they continue to build .More importantly, when they tire and become an obstacle, others with clearer vision take their place. It is only with that melody that one can withstand the misguided and evil intentions of those who are too deaf to hear and as a result place obstacle after obstacle before the path of redemption, abusing, imprisoning and expelling those on the very path. It is also a melody that gives one the strength to ignore the derision of all those whose spiritual Torah connection should have given them the ability to dance with the music but a long history of exile and persecution has made them unable to recognize the very melody they have been waiting to hear.
It is that melody that animated and led the dancing man I witnessed several years ago in the main square in the old city of Jerusalem. In preparation for the tens of thousands of people who were going to be dancing through all the gates of the old city on Jerusalem day, a music and record company had set up a booth outside of our shop. Their speakers were playing Jewish Hassidic music throughout that whole Jerusalem day.
Early in the day I saw an older man walking across the square and stop when he heard the music. He turned to two strangers who were walking in the same direction, grabbed their hands and started dancing with them. They danced but soon left him, yet he continued to dance alone. Very quickly several other people joined him in a circle. When they eventually left he continued to dance on his own until he was joined by others. When one disc had ended and there was a pause before the next music disc was put on, he still continued to dance. It was obvious that the melody he heard was not coming from the speakers. A group of young secular children walked by and smiled at the dancing man. He beckoned to them to join him and they hesitated. They did not hesitate for long as they probably saw the melody burning in his eyes and another circle began to form. Within minutes a group of young soldiers joined in and the circles became larger and one circle formed within another one. The dancing man continued to sway and dance in the middle. Everybody he touched or danced with him left the encounter a little bit changed. Even those who did not join but preferred to watch or dance from a distance heard the very same melody that had captured this dancing man's soul. It was a melody exuding from every move of his feet and sway of his upturned arms. The dancing man continued alone or in circles with others for a very long time. Finally when the first wave of marchers came through the Jewish quarter on their way to the Western Wall, he was swept up with them, lost in the flowing blue and white flags. I followed him for a part of the way until he became enveloped by the growing joyful crowd. Yet he never stopped dancing.
The melody that began in the mighty blast of the Shofar at Mount Sinai and that I heard from the shofar of Rabbi Goren forty years ago and that ran through the soul of this dancing man was the very "song of HaShem".
As the psalmist writes in psalm 137" How shall we sing the L- rd's song (the song of HaShem ) in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its strength. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
It is a song that cannot be sung in a "strange land" and at times is forgotten. Yet those that have not forgotten the melody will find themselves drawn back to the land of their forefathers and brought up into the gates of Jerusalem." I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of HaShem!' Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. (Psalm 122:1-2)
Those that hear the melody will continue to withstand the abuse and obstacles raised by those that are deaf to the melody. Those that dance to the melody will continue ignore the ridicule of those that after so many years of exile have forgotten how to recognize the melody that even they themselves hear it. On this Jerusalem day we will be singing the song of HaShem in that "city that has been re-united" (Psalm 122:3) and we will dance to that melody even though we are very aware that the dance has just begun.
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