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.

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,

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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 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,

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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 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

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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.

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.

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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 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

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Jewish areas to the Jews. The Vatican still teaches that it would prefer

Jerusalem to be an international 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?

The prophet Isaiah said:

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� �רעו �, ב��כ�ל-ה�ר ל�א-י �ש��ח�יתו �ל�א-י ��י-מ�ל�א�ה ק�ד�ש��י: ו ה�א�ר$ץ, כ

ע�ה� ��ם ד ים, ל�י ��מ�� �ה, כ �הו ים א$ת-י כ�ס�� מ� . 

“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.

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

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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

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.

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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

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.

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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:

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

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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 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

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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 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.

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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 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

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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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