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I never thought I would be so lucky to get to call the holy city of Jerusalem my home.
I didn’t even know what it meant to live here when I moved here.
You think- a city is just a city- and sure, every city has its ebbs and flows, culture and tone.
But there is no city in the world like Jerusalem.
It is said that the spirit of Jerusalem is fire; as one of its denizens, I can attest to her electric atmosphere.
There’s tension here; everything always in flux. From the traffic on the roads, to the housing prices, to the energy in the streets, to the cranes building new homes, swaying high in the sky.
This city is ancient and brand new; its neighborhoods are constantly evolving. Sometimes when you drive down a street you’ve driven down thousands of times, there's a new exit ramp or turn that was just built. Sometimes the streets are so fresh that the GPS maps don’t even know about them yet. The skyline is filled with budding buildings and the air is riddled with construction dust.
A mundane life in the holy city means you food shop and go to the mall and go pray at the Kotel in the same morning. The stone edifices remind you of ancient times and ancient peoples even if they were built last month. The parks are filled with the sounds of children playing and the benches are filled with the resting elderly, watching the little ones with understanding and gratitude in their eyes.
Driving down the road to take your kid to school and sometimes you get to pass by the old city walls, or the vista off the tayelet displaying our holiest place. Built into a Jerusalem life is the hope for redemption and the rebuilding of our Temple. You can’t escape it seeing it with your own eyes.
This city pulses with its own rhythm; one that takes time to get used to. At first it’s overpowering; she leaves her tourists spellbound and hungry for more of her hypotonic energy.
But to live here requires acclimating that pulse into the heartbeat of your own life; to move at her pace, to breathe her dense air, to alternatively feel alive and full of her all the time.
Sometimes it only takes driving out of the city to realize how intense the experience of living here truly is; almost a release and shift in intensity… till you feel her creeping back into your bones and you count the minutes till you can get back home.
And when you drive back in, climbing higher and higher into her mountains, ears popping, forests climbing, neighborhoods crowning the tops, highways running through the valleys; there is that feeling- - that this city is my home.
And you know in your soul that it has been our home city for thousands of years; since Avraham and Yitzchak climbed up Har Hamoriyah, since Yaakov Avinu lay his head there, since David Hamelech made her his capital city, since Shlomo Hamelech built the holy Temple- - - and now over a million people live in this place- eager to settle here, build their lives here, and build this city into the greatest the world has ever known.
Hodu LaHashem Ki Tov- for giving us the gift of returning to the city of our souls, the city of fire, the city of Your Shechina, the city of the Jewish past, present, and future.
It’s so good to be home.
Like Zion cried for her people when we were exiled or captured and taken away- Jerusalem holds her breath for every hostage and soldier, and together we pray that one day soon we all will be living safely and peacefully together, for the rest of our days.
Writing Prompt:
What does Jerusalem mean to you?
What role does it play in your life?
Have you had a particularly meaningful experience there?
How does the city relate to your future?
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