Download the Mekorot Recorded at OU Israel’s L’Ayla Rosh Chodesh Sivan 5779 Women’s Event sponsored in memory of Mrs Linda Pruwer-Brachfeld, מרת חיה סאשא בת ר’ יוסף הלל.  

The midrash says that Hashem, Bnei Yisrael, the Torah, and Yerushalayim each have seventy names. Yerushalayim is called כלילת יופי. What does that mean? The objective beauty of Yerushalayim and Rav Kook’s letter to the Bezalel School of Art on the occasion of its opening in 1908. Yerushalayim as the center of holiness, kingship, and […]

Yom Yerushalayim, Shavuot, and Parshat Bamidbar. The first census, which counted those who left Egypt took place on Rosh Chodesh Iyar, a month after the Mishkan was completed. There was another census, taken when the mishkan was built (the silver from which was used for the sockets of the Mishkan) 6 months earlier. The numbers […]

The significance of paying a parking ticket in the Holy city of Yerushalayim. Why paying taxes in Eretz Yisrael counts as tzedakah (A quote from Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook in עין אי”ה) Even though Hashem promised He would defeat Bnei Yisrael’s enemies when they entered the Land of Israel they still had to prepare […]

For the Sake of Jerusalem … These are remarkable days. These days between Pesach and Shavuot, these days between Yom Hazikaron and Yom Yerusholayim. What more appropriate time than with Parshat Emor—“say to the Kohanim’—and at the beginning of the month of Iyar, to focus and stir our hearts with a deeper appreciation for geula […]

Delivered at the OU Israel Center, Rosh Chodesh Sivan 5778 Download the mekorot here

Even with the grief of what we don’t have there is still the obligation to rejoice over that which we do have. Yerushalayim has over 100 names in Tanach. Linguists tells us that when society has many names for 1 concept, it indicates the concept’s centrality.

Who do so many Jews feel a disconnect with Yerushalayim? Why is Yerushalayim not mentioned explicitly, only alluded to, in the Torah?

Even when redemption is unclear and incomplete, we are still expected to believe that Hashem is somehow revealing the redemption slowly but surely. Rabbi Shalom Hammer’s Sleepless Sermon for Yom Haatzmaut 5769