Tonight begins Yom Yerushalayim--"Jerusalem Day"--the day that commemorates the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem from Arab hands in 1967. As a result of Israel's victory in the Six Day War, Jews could pray at the Kotel for the first time in eighteen years. Every year on Yom Yerushalayim the plaza in front of the kotel comes alive with singing and dancing, Israeli flags being waved by the jubilant celebrants. Though most of the festivities take place tomorrow, as I was heading to the Kotel tonight to daven Maariv, a group of about a hundred students from Yeshivat Sha'alvim, a yeshiva for post high school Americans, entered the Kotel plaza singing joyously as they came. Below are a couple of short clips I took--the first of the students and their teachers descending towards the Kotel, the second of the group dancing right in front of the Kotel.
The words they are singing are, "Yibaneh haMikdash ir Tzion timalei. V'sham nashir shir chadash uvirnana na'aleh--May He rebuild the Temple and complete the city of Zion. And there we shall sing a new song and ascend in praise." More than just a ditty, this song is a prayer, beseeching G-d to provide us with a rebuilt Jerusalem, with the holy Temple sitting atop the mountain that rises above the Kotel.
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