Dateline Jerusalem –– It seems most appropriate that Jerusalem Day is celebrated in Israel just days before the holiday Shavuot. Jerusalem Day commemorates G-d giving the Torah (Bible) to the Jewish people at Mt. Sinai 50 days after the Exodus from Egypt, 3,300 years ago. Jerusalem Day commemorates the re-unification of the city of Jerusalem after Israel’s capture of the Old City in the 1967 Mideast war, also known as the Six Day War. Just as the Torah tells us of the miracle of the creation of the world in six days, one miracle of the 1967 war was that the war was won by Israel in just six days. Tiny Israel overcame staggering odds when surrounding Arab armies of Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt attacked it. Even though its enemies had two times as many soldiers, three times as many tanks, and four times as many airplanes, Israel won.

Of course, just as the Torah is filled with detailed accounts of G-d’s miracles, the Six Day War was replete with one miracle after another. Israel’s planes reached many Egyptian airfields without being detected by Egypt. Although the Jordanian army detected Israel’s planes, a miracle occurred. There was a problem in the code words used when Jordan tried to notify Egypt.

• Although Israel Defense Forces planes flew from one Egyptian base to another for three hours, Egyptians never informed their own forces of the Israelis destroying Egyptian planes.
• Another miracle: An Egyptian tank commander surrendered because a desert mirage made him see hundreds of Israeli tanks when there were fewer than a dozen.
• There was the miracle of the Jordanian army putting down their weapons and welcoming the Israelis because they mistakenly believed the Israelis were Iraqi forces coming to reinforce the Jordanian troops.

King David established Jerusalem as the capital of the Kingdom of Israel and as the eternal capital of the Jewish people. No wonder Jerusalem is mentioned 667 times in the Torah, but not once in the Koran. Although Muslims occasionally have controlled Jerusalem, they never made it their capital nor has it ever been their seat of government. Interesting to note that Arabs did not come to Jerusalem until the seventh century when Muslims invaded it, 2,300 years after the Jews. Furthermore, there has been a continuous Jewish presence in Jerusalem for more than 3,000 years. An Arab biographer in the 13th century wrote “Mecca is holy to Muslims, and Jerusalem to the Jews.” Jerusalem has been the essence of the Jewish people. We pray towards Jerusalem and the Temple Mount while Muslims pray with their backs to Jerusalem and their faces toward Mecca. Every year throughout the world Jews finish the Passover Seder with the words “Next year in Jerusalem.” When a groom steps on a glass at a Jewish wedding ceremony, it is to remember the destruction of Jerusalem and hope for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple.

Our Traditions

On Shavuot we stay up all night learning in synagogue and attending lectures and discussions on Torah. We stand up in synagogue and read in unison the Ten Commandments, the first 10 of 613 commandments given to the Jewish people by G-d. We read from the Book of Ruth, the great-grandmother of King David who established Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel. King David’s descendant through his son Solomon will be Moshiach (Messiah). As with all Jewish holidays, symbolic foods play a great role. It is traditional to serve cheese dishes on Shavuot because the first meal after receiving the Torah was a dairy meal. Popular dishes for the holiday are cheese borekas, sweet cheese blintzes, cheese cakes, cheese lasagnas, fettuccine alfredo, ice cream cakes and eggplant mozzarella.

Shavuot (which means “weeks,” as in seven weeks since the start of Passover) commemorates the Exodus and the liberation of the Jewish people from their Egyptian oppressors, with the ultimate gift from G-d being the Torah. Jerusalem Day commemorates the liberation of Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people, from Israel’s Arab oppressors with the ultimate gift from G-d being the re-unification of Jerusalem despite overwhelming odds. Israel was David and its enemies Goliath. G-d was with David. As all living in Israel can attest, G-d and His miracles are eternally with Israel.

L’hitraot. Shachar