What Is In A Name?

Parshat Re'eh: Deuteronomy 11:26-
16:17; Isaiah 54:11-55:5.

T

he Torah, in this parshah,
speaks of our holy city of
Jerusalem. It appears in
the context of Israel's entry into the
Promised Land and the necessity to
destroy the altars of idolatry before
establishing our Temple to God.
But why is Jerusalem not
named?
The Bible has already
identified Mount Moriah
as the place where the
Almighty "would be seen"
right after the Binding of
Isaac. There is no hesita-
tion in identifying Mount
Gerizim and Mount Eyval.
So why the reluctance to
name Jerusalem in this par-
ticular context of the Bible?
Maimonides felt that
publication of the name of the unique
city would only incite the other
nations to make war against Israel in
order to acquire Jerusalem for them-
selves.
Second, the other nations might
even attempt to destroy the city if only
in order that the Israelites not acquire
it. Finally, Moses feared lest all the
tribes would fight over it, each desir-
ous of having Jerusalem within its
own borders.
One of the most difficult messages
Moses had to convey to his people
was that God is not limited by physi-
cal dimensions. Yes, Maimonides sets
down in his Mishneh Torah that the
sanctity of Jerusalem is the sanctity of
the Divine Presence (Shechinah), and
just as the Divine Presence is eternal
and can never be destroyed, so the
sanctity of Jerusalem is eternal and
can never be made obsolete.
The great sage's point is that the
Divine Presence can never be physi-
cally destroyed because the Divine
Presence is not a physical entity; it is
not in any way subject to creation or
destruction.
The name Jerusalem is not specifi-

cally mentioned because this recogni-
tion of God as the guardian of justice
and compassion, lovingkindness and
truth is necessary not only for the
people of Jerusalem, not only for all
the tribes of Israel, but rather for the
entire world.
When God initially elects
Abraham, the Almighty
charges him and his
descendants with a univer-
sal mission: "Through you
all the families of Earth
shall be blessed:'
I believe there is even
further significance behind
Moses' reluctance. In
the ancient world, every
nation-state had its own
god whom the citizens
believed lived within the
boundaries of that nation-state.
Jerusalem was to be the city which
would house the Holy Temple of God,
but God would exclusively dwell nei-
ther within the Temple nor within
that city; God was the Lord of the
entire universe, who could not be
encompassed even by the heaven of
the heavens, by the entire cosmos, so
certainly not by a single structure or
even a single city.
The prophet Isaiah speaks of our
vision of the end of the days, when
the Holy Temple will rise from the
top of the mountains, and all nations
will rush to it to learn from our ways:
"From Zion shall come forth Torah
and the word of God from Jerusalem
... so that nation shall not lift up
sword against nation and humanity
will not learn war anymore:'
May the God who cannot be con-
fined to any physical place reveal His
teaching of peace and security from
Jerusalem, His city, to every human
being throughout the world.

❑

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of

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Ohr Torah Stone and chief rabbi of Efrat,

Israel.

JN

August 21 • 2014

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