Jerusalem Together
And now Dovid tells us that this achdus was one of the great purposes, one of the primary intentions, of Yerushalayim: It’s a city that’s built for the purpose, like a city that was put together (ibid. 3).
What does it mean ‘built up like a city put together’? Because Yerushalayim was built as if everybody had come and had given a share to build the city. The streets of the city were paved from the public money, from the machatzis hashekel money. After they had taken the trumas halishka to buy korbanos tzibbur so what remained was used for the streets of Yerushalayim, for its walls and water channels and all the other public needs (Yerushalmi Shekalim, 4:1)
And so it wasn’t divided among the shevatim (Megillah 26a). All of Eretz Yisroel was divided — here was Asher and here was Gad and here was Reuven; each territory had a tribe that owned it and it was their property — but Yerushalayim was like a communal property. Nobody had any property rights; it belonged to everyone together.
Queer People
That’s why if someone squatted in Yerushalayim in a home, he didn't pay any rent. And if a homeowner took in someone from out of town, people who came for yom tov, he couldn’t charge any rent. The Gemara (ibid.) says that you couldn’t take any rent in Yerushalayim because it wasn’t your property. It didn’t belong to any individual.
And when they were machnis orach, when they took them into their homes, so the orchim were different kinds of people. Maybe you saw things, unusual things. I was once in a house in Europe, a wealthy house, and the baalabus used to sit on the floor. Now, I’m an American—sitting on the floor was queer to me. I kept quiet however; it’s the minhag hamakom. It was a nice floor, nice and clean, and there’s place on the floor to sit. So, keep quiet; that’s his custom.
Maybe I did things he didn’t like. Could be he was thinking, “This American, a grobbeh bochur. He doesn’t have any manners, the way he behaves.” But he kept quiet. He kept quiet and I kept quiet and each one of us made progress in getting along with different people.
Friends, Together
And that was the story of Yerushalayim. It was built for that purpose. It was a city that was built for the purpose, where everybody, every part of the nation, could be joined together as chaveirim.
Like we say in Rosh Chodesh bentchen: all of Yisroel, friends. Because we’re praying for the time when once more we’ll come together in Yerushalayim and everybody will be chaveirim. Like we say, we don’t say “Gather us from the four corners of the earth” and finished. No, we add the word yachad. Collect us in a way that we should all get along despite our differences and we should remain together,
That's a big task! And it’s one of the purposes Hakadosh Baruch Hu had in mind when He exiled the Jews from the Old World to America. Because here for the first time in a thousand years you have Syrian Jews living shoulder to shoulder with Galizianer Jews; Jews from Poland and Jews from Egypt living on the same block.
Black Jews and Chinese Jews
And so we’re learning to live together. We’re preparing for Yemos HaMoshiach when we’ll all rub shoulders together. You’ll be sitting next to a Siberian Jew and you’ll have to get along with him despite his mannerisms. You’ll be together with a black Jew and you won’t be able to reject his company.
A black Jew is also a Jew—a black Jew who keeps the Torah is more Jewish, more beloved to Hashem, than a white Jew named Cohen or Katz who doesn’t. You’ll be sitting next to a Persian Jew, or a Jew from Cochin China. He looks funny; maybe his eyes are slanty. You’ll be sitting next to Jews from all over the world. And so you have to prepare now; you have to get a new attitude.
Otherwise, they’ll all come to Yerushalayim, and immediately there’ll be cliques. There’ll be a quarter where the Ashkenazim will be by themselves, and another quarter for Sephardim. And don’t think the Ashkenazim will be all together. They’ll also be fractionalized; there’ll be North American Ashkenazim and South American Ashkenazim. And by the Sephardim too; there’ll be Syrians of Aleppo and Syrians of Damascus. There’ll be Persians and Moroccans, all different groups that’ll never amalgamate into one people.
E Pluribus Unum
That’s why you have to practice right now. Don’t feel that an Orthodox Jew who wears a big black hat and a big beard and doesn’t talk English with your accent, that he’s a stranger to you. Oh no! Practice now! Yachad! Together with everyone.
I’m not talking about aveiros chas v’shalom. It means his mannerisms, his dress; get along with everyone. And although each person has a different complexion—some are swarthy, some are light skinned—and their minhagim are different too; even the way they read lashon kodesh is so different that they cannot communicate. But the time will come when we must come together and therefore be together with him now. And once we are muchshar l’kabel taharah, once we’re accustomed to living with Jews and loving frum Jews, then we’re ready for Moshiach.
That’s why we say all of Yisroel, friends. We hope it will come again that day when we’ll all come together, all friends, and we’ll all be the same nation together. And so we’ll prepare now as much as possible and then Moshiach will come and he’ll have the power to cause all of us to join together as one great nation. He’ll finish the great miracle of joining us together, that we should remain together forever.
Now this miracle was accomplished by Dovid. Dovid had foreseen this and it was his plan that among the many holy purposes of Yerushalayim was that it would be the bond that keeps together all the shivtei Hashem. That was one of the great purposes that Dovid had in mind: Yerushalayim was built, to be a city that brought everyone together. They came into a city that united them as one. It was a city that made all of Yisroel into comrades (Yerushalmi Chagigah 3:6).
United in What?
Now, it’s important we should realize that included in this great plan was the ideal of what it is that keeps us together. And that’s what Dovid said in the beginning of the kepitel: “Let’s go to the House of Hashem.” We’re all travelling together on the road towards the Beis Hamikdash; we’re all walking on a path towards Hashem.
You know, unity, achdus, togetherness, means to be unified around something. Otherwise, it’s nothing; it’s just empty words. And for the Am Yisroel, it’s that we’re the Am Hashem. Nothing else! The fact that we have One Hashem and He gave us one Torah, that’s the pivot that the nation turns on, and that's going to be the strongest force in maintaining the unity of the nation.
That’s why when Yosef’s brothers came to him after the father passed away, and they were concerned maybe now that the father is gone so Yosef might begin thinking of what happened to him once and maybe a desire for revenge will stir in him. So they came to him and they threw themselves at his feet and this is what they said: “Forgive please the sin of the servants of the G-d of your father.” Forgive the iniquity done by us, the ones who serve the same Hashem.
Because they understood that this is the strongest bond between brothers—it’s the G-d of our fathers that keeps us together. It could be we hurt each other once, we weren’t careful enough, but no matter we are bound together with the chains of serving Hashem.
Irreligious Unglued
It’s only when Jews forget Hashem and they’re no longer tied by that bond, then they can forget they’re brothers. And that's what happened only a few years ago. Stephen Wise, the mis-leader of American Jewry, and his cohorts forgot that they had Jewish brothers in Europe and they allowed them to be destroyed by the Hitler crematoria when there was still time to save millions.
It was Stephen Wise and the reform Jews, the rich Jews in America, who prevailed upon President Roosevelt to desist from any efforts to help the European Jews. They said, “Let’s put all our efforts now into the war and help the Allies so that after the war when we want to declare a Jewish state we’ll have something to bargain with at the table, at the treaty table. We’ll be able to say that we sacrificed Jewish blood.” The fact that there won’t be anybody to bargain for—in the crematoria bargaining didn’t help them—that didn’t bother them. Because it wasn’t their blood anyhow.
But the Gedolei Yisroel, they were ones with ‘all the Jews’ because Hashem Elokei Yisroel united them with all the Jews of Europe. And that’s why it was the Gedolei Yisroel who were concerned and made the Vaad Hatzalah and they rescued many Jews with their poor little funds. Had they had more money, had Wise and his cohorts cared to help, they would have rescued millions. There’s a big story to tell but whatever the details are—if you want to hear more about it, read Perfidy; you’ll find the story told there—it could only happen such a thing when the one thing that unifies you is no more.
Tribes of Hashem
But that was the purpose of Dovid, that Yerushalayim should unite them; that the Jewish nation should come together there and serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the Beis Hamikdash. That’s what he said, there, to Yerushalayim, all the tribes went up (ibid. 4). But not just the shevatim; no, they were the shivtei Kah, the tribes of Hashem. When they went up everybody knew he was going up as part of the shivtei Kah, the tribes of Hashem. They weren’t merely tribes like Indian tribes or African tribes. Every one was a tribe of Hashem. Reuven felt he was ‘Reuven of Hashem’. And Shimon was ‘Shimon of Hashem’. Every tribe understood they were dedicated and given over entirely to the service of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
It’s like if we would say today, if all the physicians would say, “We’re physicians of Hashem,” and all the grocers would say, “We’re the grocers of Hashem.” We’re not professionals in this field or workers in this field; all of us are dedicated only to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
And therefore the shivtei Kah when they came to Yerushalayim, they demonstrated that’s the purpose of the Beis Hamikdash. They all came to raise up the Name of Hashem (ibid.) because that’s the most important thing that connected them.
Features of Achdus
There were other features there. Some people had questions in dinei torah to ask in the Sanhedrin. They had kashas on sugyos and they saved all these
